Development of Virtual Reality-Based Edutainment Contents for Children’s English Education

Background/Objectives: Owing to the development of smartphone, mobile educational applications are rapidly increasing, especially those for children. However, it is necessary to induce them to ‘move their bodies for themselves’. Methods/Statistical Analysis: The purpose of this study is to produce virtual reality-based educational content that induces learners to naturally act and gain learning effects. Based on virtual reality device ‘(I-cube)’ that induces learners to act, it hides alphabets here and there in the space. Learners can naturally learn English words by looking around like in the ‘treasure hunt’ and searching for cards with words. Findings: The implications of this study can be summarized as follows. First, the existing e-learning content could not arouse learners’ interest or induce them to constantly participate in education as it consisted of passive interactions such as clicking buttons. This study can provide measures to solve this problem. Second, it shows the possibility to provide a new type of virtual reality. The fact that technology development costs for virtual reality are increasing but there are few successful business cases could be a risky element for virtual reality. However, if virtual reality and education can be integrated in Korea that has high education fever, it could make a great case. Application/Improvements: In order for the market of virtual reality-based content for children to develop, it is necessary to study how virtual reality devices would influence children’s bodies.