As future educators, your role extends beyond delivering content; you are also vital in fostering environments where all students feel seen, supported, and understood. This immersive VR experience places you directly within the narrative of Rockey, a woman facing homelessness, enabling you to explore social exclusion, resilience, and the personal narratives that shape individuals from marginalized backgrounds. Engaging with Rockey’s story brings forward crucial social-emotional aspects that can deeply inform your educational practice.

By interacting with Rockey’s belongings, you gain insight into how individuals experiencing social disadvantage may carry rich, often invisible, histories that influence

• Her journal
• A small wooden box of photographs
• A music box
• A motorcycle cut-out
• A childhood novel 

Controls and Interaction
The experience is hands-on and intuitive, allowing you to engage with Rockey’s belongings using VR controllers. Each item, when selected, unlocks visual and audio elements that contribute to a broader understanding of her circumstances. Movement within the environment is free, enabling you to examine each object from multiple angles for a deeper, personalized engagement.

Duration
The experience typically spans 15–20 minutes.

Instructions on how to use the app

Start by physically touching the "Press to Begin" sign. This will start the story

Throughout the story you will interact with objects. You will know this by the objects gradually lighting up.

You grasp the object in one hand and interact with it with the other hand (for example, to open a photo box).

Tip: If you find yourself unable to reach the subject due to physical constraints around you, face the direction you want to be the new center of the virtual world, then press and hold the Oculus button on the right-controller to reset your view.

Trailer for the We Live Here app

In Notes on Blindness VR, you will be immersed in the world of John Hull, a man adapting to total blindness. This experience offers you a unique perspective on the cognitive and emotional challenges associated with sensory disabilities, inviting you to reflect on how sensory diversity shapes learning and engagement in the classroom.

By stepping into John’s reality, you gain firsthand insight into how blindness impacts a person’s perception of space, relationships, and identity. This immersive experience emphasizes key aspects of social-emotional understanding that are essential in supporting students with diverse sensory and cognitive needs:

Building Empathy for Sensory Disabilities

Recognizing the Importance of Accessible Learning

Challenging Assumptions about Disability

Controls and Interaction
In Notes on Blindness VR, you’ll navigate John’s world primarily through sound. Using the VR controllers, you can interact with the environment by moving through different scenes and engaging with objects that reveal audio diary entries and other auditory cues. Spatialized sound provides a unique, immersive experience where hearing becomes the primary sense, allowing you to feel John’s perspective more deeply. Follow on-screen prompts to move and interact, letting sound guide your exploration.

Duration
The experience lasts approximately 20–25 minutes.

Instructions on how to use the app

• The whole story is divided into 5 separate chapters and lasts approximately 25 minutes.
• Control is easy. You can sit comfortably all the time.
• The whole story is based on sound.
• Sometimes characters may appear behind you, turn around.
• In the chapter "Feeling the wind" a bird will appear. It needs to be "blown by the wind" several times. The bird will move around within the scene. Once the bird has flown past you several times, the story will continue.

The Key provides an immersive experience that transports you into Anna's dream world, where she grapples with a sense of loss, identity, and the search for meaning. Through Anna's journey, you will encounter emotional challenges and face difficult decisions that raise questions about sacrifice, resilience, and the emotional weight of personal choices. This experience offers a unique lens for exploring socio-emotional learning by emphasizing empathy, introspection, and the complex process of decision-making.

By following Anna’s story and interacting within her dreams, you gain insight into how individuals cope with fragmented identities and the emotional challenges tied to personal and social sacrifices.

• The Mysterious Key
• Dream Fragments of the Past
• Symbolic Artifacts Revealing Anna’s Story
• Emotional Pathways Leading to Self-Discovery

Controls and Interaction
The experience is largely passive, designed to guide you through Anna’s dreams with minimal interaction, emphasizing the narrative over gameplay mechanics. Movement is free within the VR space, allowing you to examine symbolic artifacts and immerse yourself fully in each segment of Anna's journey. The application prioritizes storytelling, using subtle interactions like touching objects and navigating through dream spaces to reveal new parts of the story. Visual and audio cues direct your attention and enhance the emotional resonance of each scene.

Duration
The experience typically spans 15–20 minutes.

Instructions on how to use the app

Begin the experience by physically interacting with the "Start" sign. This action will initiate the story, guiding you seamlessly through Anna's dream world with gentle prompts for any further interactions.

Trailer for The Key!

• Create Your Avatar: Upon launching the app, follow the on-screen prompts to create a personalized avatar that represents you in the virtual space.

Creating spaces where students can collaborate, connect, and develop socio-emotional skills is vital. ENGAGE VR is a powerful platform that fosters virtual collaboration and learning through immersive environments. By utilizing cutting-edge technologies, such as generative AI and digital twins, this application provides an interactive and engaging space for shared experiences, teamwork, and communication. The platform allows students to co-create, discuss, and reflect together, building a sense of social cohesion and emotional intelligence while exploring new ways of engaging in digital learning environments.

Through the use of avatars and virtual spaces, ENGAGE VR offers students opportunities to experiment with identity, engage in collaborative activities, and practice empathy in an innovative and dynamic setting.

• Avatar Creation to Personalize the Experience
• Virtual Collaboration Rooms for Group Discussions
• Interactive Tools for Real-Time Engagement
• Scalable Environments Supporting Team-Building Activities

Duration
The experience typically spans 20–25 minutes.

Instructions on how to use the app

Settings in the web browser

1.) Open the login page (on your laptop) and log in using the details in the following table

https://app.engagevr.io/login/

2.) If you see the privacy policy page, click on "I agree"

3.) After logging in, you will be able to edit your profile. Please pay particular attention to the name that will be displayed, your height and whether you are right or left handed. The rest is not important.

3) After attaching, click on the link (according to your group) and choose attend. It is IMPORTANT that you attend your group.

Great, now you're all done on the laptop and you can turn on the headset.

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Launch the ENGAGE app in the headset

1) When you launch the app, you will be prompted to enable various settings. Click on "Allow"

2) Log in using the same details you have listed in the table here on the website.

3) You should then be prompted (when you first launch the app) to create your own avatar.

Great, you've got the app set up. Feel free to explore at will. It's a metaverse and some places should be freely accessible.

​5) For our VR meeting, click on the "Events" button and the "Attending" tab in the top bar. You should see the session you signed up for in the previous step using the link.​

Great job! You are all set!

Trailer for the Engage