Tekohá: um ambiente virtual para o ensino da história das missões jesuíticas no Rio Grande do Sul

Abstract

Virtual Reality (VR) is defined as a technology that creates three-dimensional digital environments that require physical immersion and sensory stimulation, are interactive, and can mentally transport the user to another place. It is a computational technology that has grown in many forms, being increasingly used in different contexts. Numerous studies on the use of VR in adult education have produced positive results, providing students with an authentic context where they can develop their scope of learning, visualize situations and concepts in a unique way, increase time on task and enjoyment of learning, increase motivation, deepen learning, and improve long-term retention. However, little is known about the use of VR in children’s education, but the few results already obtained point to its stimulating potential. In this work, a systematic review on the use of VR in children’s education was carried out and a project for the use of VR to support history teaching was developed. A virtual environment, called Tekohá, was specially designed for use by children in the fourth and fifth grades of Elementary School. The virtual environment presents students with an introduction to the Guarani Jesuit Mission, now ruins in São Miguel das Missões in Rio Grande do Sul/Brazil, considered a UNESCO World Heritage Site and part of the curricular requirements for Elementary School. For the evaluation, a controlled experiment with 130 students from a private school in Porto Alegre was conducted. The results indicate that the Tekohá virtual environment is easy and fun to use and that the use of VR motivates and engages students in the learning process, enabling a sense of presence in situations from the past in an immersive and realistic way. Regarding learning, it was possible to statistically confirm that the group that used Tekohá performed better in the knowledge test about the Jesuit Mission of São Miguel Arcanjo.