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VictoryXR brings a virtual world to classrooms
University of Iowa grad Steve Grubbs’ company is leader in use of virtual reality
VictoryXR CEO Steve Grubbs of Davenport takes viewers on a virtual tour of the ruins at Luxor and Kanak. His company offers virtual tours to 150 sites around the world for use in the classroom. (VictoryXR)
This image comes from a VictoryXR virtual tour of Iceland. The Davenport company now offers virtual tours of 150 landmarks and historic sites, such as the Great Wall of China. (Victory XR)
DAVENPORT — An Iowa company is helping students “talk” to historic figures and “visit” historic sites without leaving home.
“Let’s say you’re reading ‘To Kill a Mockingbird,’ ” said Steve Grubbs. “You want to have a conversation with Harper Lee about her motivation. She’s passed away, but in our way, AI (artificial intelligence), you can talk to her and (hear) everything she’s ever said.”
Grubbs is CEO of Davenport-based VictoryXR, an 8-year-old software company that’s developed virtual reality technology for educational use.
Billing itself as “your one-stop shop for everything virtual reality (VR),” VictoryXR has sold its software to 120 colleges — “Metaversities” — and about the same number of school districts across the country.
“It’s expensive to take a field trip to the Great Wall of China,” said Grubbs, a University of Iowa graduate. “We have 150 global field trips available, all over the world. We have the beaches of Normandy, we have Gettysburg, we have the bridge in Selma, Ala.”
The company also offers virtual job shadows, career and technical training and laboratory teaching, such as animal dissection.
UI usage
The UI, which became the first Big Ten Metaversity last April, so far has applied VR sparingly.
Tippie College of Business professor Andrea Luangrath has used VR to research retail-store layouts, and VictoryXR used photos provided by the university to produce a digital twin of the east end of the Iowa City campus.
“The idea is for people to come and explore the campus and get a feel for what it’s like,” said Jim Chaffee, Tippie’s chief operations officer. “We’re also working with alums to get them to come back to campus, so to speak, for ones that can’t make it in person.”
Chaffee plans a gradual introduction of VR this spring, with virtual scavenger hunts for alumni and students on the university’s digital twin campus.
“It’s still pretty new,” he said. “We didn’t really advertise it much. We’re using it as a way to have a landing post. In my spring class, I’ll have students coming in, and they’ll do the scavenger hunt.”
“Everybody’s figuring out how to use it in different ways,” said Grubbs, a former state representative. “That has really made a difference in how the innovation is rolling out.”
New Mexico ‘crime scene’
New Mexico State University recruited an instructional design team when it became a Metaversity in the fall of 2022. Several of its departments now use VR to deliver courses for credit.
“We work with faculty,” said Robbie Grant, administrator for New Mexico State University Global, the university’s Metaversity program. “This isn’t the kind of thing where you hand a student a headset and say, ‘Go.’ You’ve got to find your VR champion. You’re not going to force it.”
Among others, the five-member design team created a VR class for a professor in criminal forensics. Students “visit” a cruise ship where a body has been found, gathering evidence and clues to determine the cause of death.
“She put out all those clues and said, ‘Walk around this cruise ship. and we’ll talk about what you’ve found,’ ” said Andrew Sedillo, the university’s Global director of instructional design. “It’s really neat because she starts talking about her own experiences, and they have all these questions she’s able to answer in real time.”
The cruise ship is among six different crime scenes prepared for the course, replacing what had been classroom slideshows.
“In VR that small activity turns into something more,” Grant said. “The conversations are so engaging. It was really cool to hear and see.”
The team also designed VR classes for language and hospitality-service courses. The university bought 190 VR headsets for students to check out, mailed with a return-mail label.
“If they’re damaged, the student pays,” Grant said. “We haven’t had to deal with that yet.”
The design team applies what it calls the DICE principle to identify candidates for VR instruction, seeking projects that would be dangerous, impossible, counterproductive or expensive to deliver conventionally.
“If what you’re trying to do meets any of those four criteria, moving it into VR makes sense,” said Sedillo.
“You’ve got to look at courses with a fairly high return on investment,” Grant said. “It makes it much more likely to succeed if you’ve got an entire program.”
As at Iowa, NMSU’s team has developed a virtual tour for parts of its Las Cruces campus. The expanded virtual campus has potential for planning emergency services and planning future additions to the campus.
Grant and Sedillo are leading an online course this month on VR instructional design for colleagues at other schools.
‘A different lens’
Grubbs said he started thinking about VR’s educational potential about 2013. Subsequent advances in technology designed for online gamers only made it more attractive.
“When we first started building educational VR, it was a solo experience,” he said. “By 2020, 2021, students were able to be there as a group with their teacher. That allows us to approach it with a different lens. In the education world, they call it ‘synchronicity.’ In the gaming world they call it ‘multiplayer.’ ”
VictoryXR now has offices in Davenport and Austin, Texas, although you won’t find many employees in either location.
“We are a fully remote company,” Grubbs said. “We have people all over the United States. “Hiring the right coding talent into this niche, there aren’t enough in Iowa.”
The company also provides learning software for augmented reality, in which images, sound and video are layered over the real-world view.
The company, Grubbs said, is about to deliver its next AI product.
“We’re going to roll out our build-your-own AI teacher tool,” Grubbs said. “Teachers can create an avatar tutor for students, and students can receive training and not feel embarrassed to ask questions.”
Students walk through a virtual tour of the Northern Illinois University campus in DeKalb. (VictoryXR)
This image comes from a VictoryXR virtual tour of Crete, a Greek island. (Victory XR)
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