VR in RE and moral education: report from a conference symposium at the NCRE 2022

Abstract

This paper reports from a symposium exploring the application of Virtual Reality (VR) in RE. The contributors presented empirical case-studies of interventions and instructional designs that had been tested in classroom settings ranging from primary to teacher education. The presentations illustrate the ways in which VR can be understood as a rapidly developing family of technologies that, as teaching and learning material, offers a new form of mobility and the shifting of grounds in the RE classroom: It can bring learners to places of worship across the globe or provide immersive experiences of being at the receiving end of bullying as a starting point for ethical reflection. VR and 360-images enable us to encounter religion and worldview, oneself and different ways of exploring our subject in ways that strengthen the relevance of RE. The larger picture that emerges from the symposium is not one of revolutionary change but definite enrichment of the RE toolkit with rich avenues for future research.