ABSTRACT
This chapter is about a high school in a rural, low-income community that took a chance in bringing an emerging technology into the drama classroom. It is a story about a principal who invested precious financial resources in immersive virtual reality equipment so that a teacher could provide her senior drama class with technology-enhanced learning opportunities not previously available to students. The chapter explores how students developed their understanding of the abstract notion of directorial vision by collaboratively exploring the affordances of the sandbox 3D drawing program Tilt Brush to prototype costume and set designs. It draws on qualitative data including: student work samples inside and outside of iVR; video transcripts of student learning inside and outside of iVR; student and teacher focus groups and semi-structured interviews; and teacher written reflections. Both students and teachers suggested the iVR experience had strengthened engagement and enriched learning to allow student to exceed curriculum outcomes.
