Week 1 - Intro to VR

I've been really looking forward to this class for a long time. I first tried VR in the late 1990's in St. Louis. My experience was rather positive, but I never forgot the negative reaction some of the children were having in their VR stations. I've always been fascinated by the technology and curious to making something of my own.

This is technically my second VR video ever. I did do a Quicktime VR that was basically stitched together from a series of photographs. This assignment was fun and I definitely learned a lot about it. I wish I had my own footage to play with, but alas I don't have a VR camera.

Some of the editing in Adobe Premiere was a bit on the tough side. I kept messing up the degrees in the preview window. All in all I did the assignment 3 times until I got the right output. Definitely feel more confident using it and I'm curious to learn about adding hotspots, text and images to a future assignment.

Week 2 - Adding Images and Text

This assignment was a little bit harder for me because of the way Adobe Premiere is handling my workspace. I find it confusing that the video effects panel jumps around from the bottom left of the screen to the far right side. Little inconsistencies like that make it hard to do quick edits. I'm sure I don't have my Premiere settings set correctly.

As for the VR effects. I found it hard to use smaller percentages during edits since I didn't know what the final output was going to be. I used 50 instead of 45 and even 75 in some cases. This caused the final output to look bigger on the screen. Still, this was a lot of fun to do. Just wish the final preview was a bit more WYSIWYG.

Excited to shoot and edit my own VR video one day.

Final Reflections

This has been a very informational course. I found the VR videos incredibly helpful. I like approaching VR as an experiential self driven medium that helps people feel empathy towards others.

I am seriously considering buying my own 360 camera and starting some basic videos. I want to test out more immersive video effects in Premiere.

I think there is some great potential for digital storytelling and narrative. Curious to see where the technology is in 10 years.

VR Pros

• immersive experience
• developing empath for others
• new way of learning
• changes people's perceptions of each other and the world around them

VR Cons

• early technology (even though it's been out for a while)
• not enough content available
• some of the better VR technology is more expensive
• still mostly following the principles of regular film (rectangular window)

Even with all these pros and cons, we as educators have the ability to shape the future of VR in the classroom, at home and in the workplace.