Introduction

In this new and complex world, diversity and technology have become increasingly more important. Students need to be trained for a wide range of twenty-first century skills in order to deal with essential innovative technologies that are characteristic of this new era. State-of-the-art technologies such as virtual reality are being implemented but still have to reveal their full potential. Holding on to familiar technologies we already comprehend, threaten a clear perspective on exploring new opportunities for the new ones ready for exploration. Currently the breakthrough of immersive storytelling in virtual reality poses challenges on both the production and user side (Roth and Koenitz 2016; Slater and Sanches-Vives 2016). To overcome these challenges, students with different backgrounds and behaviours such as artists, engineers, journalist, nurses and designers have been gathered and trained to innovate. Our multidisciplinary approach and integrated workflow have proved to be effective tools in the complex development of virtual reality experiences. The sense of being immersed in a multidisciplinary team has expanded the capacity of the capital twenty-first century skills students need to innovate the future.

Our world is getting smaller and more complex, and there is more diversity and technology around. To face these challenges more teamwork is necessary as teams need to acquire twenty-first century skills to support out-of-the-box thinking. Twenty-first century skills are essential functions to work in the digital world. These skills involve critical thinking, problem solving and teamwork. Twenty-first century skills prepare students to work in the rapidly evolving digital world. Students need to understand technology but also have to be aware technology is an instrument people use. Making trade-offs is part of the process to develop technology. In this course students learn about immersive storytelling and gain insight into the definitions of virtual reality and immersion and build real-world virtual reality cases in various domains. They learn to organise, monitor and critically evaluate the workflow of a virtual reality project. In this workflow a group of students from different fields of study, learn in a collaborative way, i.e. work in a team and learn from and with each other; the learning outcome is directly applied in an authentic project. Every discipline contributes to the project using its typical background expertise throughout the project. This paper discusses the workflow to guide a multidisciplinary team in the learning process development of virtual reality experiences.

By defining a challenge in a new and unknown domain for students such as immersive storytelling in virtual reality, learners need to tackle the horseless carriage syndrome, introduced by philosopher Marshall McLuhan. That is, every new technology was first looked at with eyes that were used to technology we already knew. We often look at the present through a rear view mirror while marching backwards into the future. Currently, the breakthrough of immersive storytelling in Virtual Reality poses challenges on the production side and on the user side (Roth and Koenitz 2016; Slater and Sanchez-Vives 2016). To reach immersion, students need to investigate how to embed innovative technical challenges in new and old narrative (Cho et al. 2016; Koenitz 2010; Roth and Koenitz 2016). By collaborating in a multidisciplinary team and connecting learners to authentic studies, they accelerate innovation.

During the development phase, teams need to make choices to immerse the viewer in such a manner that the virtual world becomes reality for a moment. The challenge is to convert a well-known medium as film, where a director controls what you get to see in a 360-degree view, into a situation where the viewer has full control. By defining an authentic, challenging and technical innovative case, the learning trigger is increased.

The grid between arts, technology, and virtual reality refers to the intersection and collaboration of these three fields in the creation and development of virtual reality experiences.

Artists, such as graphic designers, 3D modelers, and animators, bring their skills in visual design and storytelling to create the aesthetic and narrative elements of the VR experience. They help to create the virtual environments, characters, and objects that populate the virtual world and make it feel believable and immersive.

Technology, such as computer programming, game engines, and hardware development, enables the creation and functioning of the virtual reality experience. Engineers and programmers use their skills to create the technical infrastructure and programming that powers the VR experience, such as the ability to interact with the virtual world, to control the user's movement, and to track the user's position and actions.

Virtual reality itself is a new medium that combines elements of both art and technology. It allows for the creation of immersive and interactive experiences that can have a greater emotional impact on the user.

Together, the collaboration between these three fields allows for the creation of unique and powerful virtual reality experiences that can transport the user to new worlds, and allow them to experience them in a more personal and realistic way.