Virtual Reality Italian Cooking App Demonstrated for Italian 2003, 1013 Courses

On April 10, studio researchers Michael Hall and Isaiah Nies led two virtual reality sessions with intermediate Italian students.

Two ITAL 2003 instructors, Valentina Morello and Valeria Gibertoni, brought a combined 25 students to the World Languages and Digital Humanities Studio to virtually cook an Italian dish. Professor Ryan Calabretta's Elementary II Italian students (ITAL 1013) completed the same activity on Friday, April 26. 

Students engaged with the Italian Cooking app on Oculus Quest 2 VR headsets, where they had to follow commands in Italian to complete the recipe. Following the activity, students took a quiz to determine what they had learned and retained from the VR session.

Many students had never experienced VR before and noted there was a bit of a learning curve, but both Hall and Nies were able to assist students as needed throughout the activity. 

Students remarked that while it was a new experience, it was very thought-provoking and memorable, despite the learning curve some experienced with VR.

Calabretta-Sajder, associate professor of Italian and the Italian section head, said, "It's one thing to learn a world language on paper and entirely different to learn through an interactive medium. By incorporating digital pedagogy in the classroom, we hope to further explore innovative High Impact Practices in the language classroom." 

To find out more about the VR Classroom, contact Michael Hall (mh150@uark.edu) and Curtis Maughan (cmaughan@uark.edu).