Enhancing Historical Understanding in School Students: Designing a VR Application with AI-Animated Characters

Virtual reality technologies are being integrated into professional training and school education. Applications for practice and learning in both formal and informal settings are becoming more prevalent as the cost of headsets decreases, making these technologies more accessible to students and schools alike. Furthermore, the emergence of Large Language Models, such as the one supporting ChatGPT, which is widely available, opens up new possibilities for enhancing immersive learning experiences through interactive characters. This paper presents the design process of an immersive VR system for school students, where VR avatars assist students in critically engaging with historical topics. In a reconstructed historical scenario, avatars represent historical figures and are trained to advocate for a given thesis. Students can interact with these virtual characters through voice interaction and ask questions to better understand a historical situation. Additionally, students can immerse themselves in the app in small groups, interact with multiple avatars simultaneously, listen to different theses, and avatars can engage in dialogue with each other while the student observes.