Can you hear me at the back? Virtual public speaking for beginners

If virtual reality (VR) is to be used for training, it needs to exploit its ability to make it users feel something. If they pull off their headsets and just say they learnt something, then perhaps a website or an ordinary video might have done just as well. If they say they’ve had an experience, then VR has justified its existence.

Members of the BBC Academy digital team enjoyed a VR demonstration and talk from Nitin Thakrar and his colleagues from eLearning Studios, a tech startup based in Coventry. Nitin brought a collection of headsets for us to try with a selection of content, some their own, and some by other providers.

Among the most intriguing was eLearning Studios' own public speaking trainer. In this, you find yourself back stage at an industry conference when you get a call from your boss telling you he’s been delayed. You’re going to have to go on stage in his place and introduce the visiting speaker. Yikes!

The software gives you a few quick tips about looking at the audience and pacing your delivery, and then you’re out there on stage with an audience you can’t really see because the spotlight’s in your eyes. There’s a screen from which to read your speech. Here’s how some of our team got on with it.

With the ability to feed in your own text, this could be a better way to practice that wedding speech than by subjecting your long-suffering family to it in the sitting-room before the big day.

VR isn’t all about training. We also looked at a drama production, VR Noir: A day before the night, which is interesting because it mixes its computer graphic (CGI) environment with video of real actors.

VR is still at an early stage, and conventions about whether or not the viewer should be a character in the story – which is more a part of gaming culture than that of films – and to what extent VR can be a ‘sit back’ medium as opposed to one in which you are asked to determine your own fate, are all still waiting to be answered.

Entrepreneurs like Nitin hope that this really is the start of something big: 

More about VR on the BBC Academy blog: What makes a good 360 video?