Education in this 21st century has come a long way and it has seen several innovative methods in reaching its learners. In recent years, the development of IT and web services made it possible to reach a remote audience. Several platforms and academicians have started to adopt e-learning methodologies in a view of reaching massive learners across the globe. As a current trend, all these e-learning platforms are using videos as their major medium of content delivery and these videos are generally ‘flat.' Another advancement in recent years is the 360° panoramic videos that are gaining a lot of popularity in the field of entertainment. This paper summarises the attitude of the learners and how the 360° video's environment influences them when a panoramic video lecture is used for content delivery that replaces the traditional 2D flat educational videos.
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The advancements in Information and Communication Technology (ICT) have helped many fields, and education is definitely one of them. The World Wide Web has made it possible for academicians, institutions, and individual tutors to share their knowledge with learners worldwide via video lectures and live sessions. For example, massive open online courses (MOOC) are gaining popularity, these days, and MOOC providers keep increasing every day. The usage of digital tools such as screen recorders, video editors, and slideshow software are also increasing significantly among teachers, as they help the educators to meet the needs of “digital-driven” younger generations.
Though the usage of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) helps the academicians to prepare for their lessons effectively, they always have some sort of shortcomings or disadvantages that hinder the learners’ concentration. Though the MOOCs are widely popular now, they suffer from a massive dropout rate. Several studies are being conducted to improve the standards of MOOC. The results report that the MOOC content itself and the quality of the interaction between the instructor and distant learners are major factors that determine the learners’ retention rates (Hone & El Said, 2016).
The School of Foreign Languages of Hohai University, in Nanjing, China, conducted a study (Yu & Wang, 2016) to test the effectiveness of flipped classroom in English writing course. From their analysis, they observed a better academic performance than the traditional teaching method. The study also inferred that the satisfaction level through the flipped classroom was better than the traditional learning method.
The e-learning mediums have been adopted for a while and the majority of their contents are in the format of video lectures. Over time, however, this e-learning mix has not been innovated very much. Parallelly, panoramic videos are gaining much popularity in social media (e.g., YouTube and Facebook) and they are mostly used for entertainment purposes. The following paragraphs outline a few studies that evaluated panoramic videos for education.
Sheikh, Brown, Watson, and Evans (2016), from BBC Research and Development, made a number of 360° clips filmed in such a way as to determine and test several unassuming techniques for directing a viewer’s attention within a 360° panorama. The authors assessed these techniques in a user study in which participants viewed these clips using a head-mounted display. This paper aimed to assess the various attention directing techniques using qualitative and quantitative data from various user test cases.
Kavanagh, Luxton-Reilly, Wüensche, and Plimmer (2017), from the University of Auckland, discussedvthe limitation of using virtual reality (VR) in education. The authors proposed a case study of an unconventional approach to create educational VR content. As an alternative to using computer graphics, they used a spherical camera in combination with a VR head-mounted display to provide 360° educational lectures. The authors also discussed the various issues involved in 360o videos.
In another study, Elmezeny, Edenhofer, and Wimmer (2018) analyzed the various aspects of immersion in different 360-degree videos. The authors discussed multiple immersive aspects in 360-degree storytelling, and the interplay of narrative and technical facets of immersion.
The researchers Yu and Wang (2016), from the Graz University of Technology, conducted a research about merging computer-supported and face-to-face teaching using the notion of blended learning. The authors took a sample course called “Klettern mit 360° Videos” (i.e., climbing with 360° videos), whose online part was delivered as a MOOC. This research offered the background of the course, the course concept, the course itself, and the results of the assessment. In another similar research (Gänsluckner, Ebner, & Kamrat, 2017), the authors assessed the MOOC independently from the blended learning course, in order to evaluate the online participants.
Hendriks Vettehen, Wiltink, Huiskamp, Schaap, and Ketelaar (2019), from the University of Netherlands, conducted an analysis about interest perspective between a 360° video and a 2D video. The authors investigated this by creating an experimental group who watched a news article in 360° view and 2D view. The authors inferred that 360-degree video is assessed higher in terms of presence, enjoyment, and credibility, and also concluded that 360-degree videos have no negative effects on credit and learning.