Reframe vs ClassVR: The Next Evolution in Educational Mixed Reality

In recent years schools started increasingly looking into mixed reality (MR) and virtual reality (VR) solutions to improve student engagement and learning outcomes. 

The promise of immersive learning has never been more compelling, with research suggesting that experiential learning through these technologies can have knowledge retention rates as high as 75% (compared to 5-20% rate of traditional methods).

While Reframe and ClassVR both aim to bring immersive experiences into the classroom, they take fundamentally different approaches to how technology can transform education. 

This comparison aims to help educators and administrators make informed decisions about which solution best aligns with their goals, technical capabilities, and budget constraints.

The Fundamental Difference: Mixed Reality vs Virtual Reality

Reframe and ClassVR represent two distinct philosophies in immersive learning that reflect different visions of how technology should integrate with education.

Reframe embraces a mixed reality approach where digital content enhances rather than replaces the physical classroom. Students interact with shared 3D objects, collaborative activities, and semi-immersive environments while remaining present in their physical space. This preserves the vital teacher-to-student and student-to-student interactions that form the foundation of effective learning communities.

ClassVR is primarily a virtual reality platform that operates through standalone proprietary headsets that fully immerse students in virtual environments. While effective for virtual field trips , this approach temporarily removes students from their physical surroundings and classroom context.

Feature Comparison

For Teachers

Classroom Design and Setup

Reframe: Empowers teachers to physically walk their room and place virtual stations intuitively, transforming any classroom into an immersive environment without needing coding or 3D design expertise. 

This spatial approach lets teachers design experiences that work with their existing physical classroom layout, allowing for thoughtful integration of digital content with physical learning stations. Teachers can create zones for different activities, collaborative spaces, and individual exploration areas—all within their actual classroom.

ClassVR: Offers a web-based Teacher Portal where teachers assign VR content and monitor student engagement, but doesn't emphasize spatial design of the physical classroom. 

The ClassVR system focuses on content delivery rather than spatial integration, with headsets typically used while students remain seated at their desks. The system provides rugged storage and charging cases for sets of 8 or 30 headsets, ensuring they are protected and ready for classroom use, but the physical arrangement of the learning space is not a primary consideration in the platform's design.

Lesson Creation

Reframe: Provides a comprehensive web portal where teachers can upload content and tag grade levels, content areas, and standards in a familiar LMS-like interface while linking content to specific spatial locations in their classroom. This aligns with existing teacher workflows and reduces the barrier to entry for creating mixed reality lessons. 

Teachers can prepare mixed reality content without needing to be in-headset, allowing them to develop lessons during planning periods or at home. The system integrates seamlessly with existing curriculum frameworks, making it easier to justify and implement mixed reality as an enhancement to—rather than replacement of—established teaching practices.

ClassVR: Features a drag-and-drop interface for creating playlists of VR content and provides thousands of curriculum-aligned resources spanning subjects from science to music. The Teacher Portal allows educators to push content to multiple headsets simultaneously with a single click and direct students' attention to specific points of interest within virtual environments. ClassVR also offers structured lesson plans, guides, and accompanying worksheets to support integration with existing curricula. 

However, users report that a significant portion of the available content consists of basic 360° videos rather than truly interactive VR experiences, and the system doesn't emphasize connecting virtual content to physical spaces.

Classroom Management

Reframe: Enables sophisticated real-time classroom orchestration where teachers can dynamically group, monitor, and intervene with students as they engage with mixed reality content, all from a dashboard or headset. This promotes active facilitation and responsive teaching, crucial for maintaining classroom control and maximizing the educational value of immersive experiences. Teachers can observe natural student behavior and interaction while they engage with digital content, allowing for authentic assessment of collaboration, problem-solving, and concept mastery.

ClassVR: Provides a centralized management system that allows teachers to simultaneously push content to multiple student headsets and monitor what students are seeing in real-time. The portal enables teachers to guide learning by directing students' attention to specific points of interest within the virtual environment. This centralized control is a significant advantage when managing a classroom of students in VR, addressing the unique challenges of a technology that isolates users from their physical surroundings. However, the fully immersive nature of VR means teachers must often alternate between monitoring screens and checking physical student safety and engagement.

For Students

Collaborative Experiences

Reframe: Students can interact with shared 3D objects, activities, and environments while remaining in their physical classroom, enhancing peer-to-peer learning without isolating learners in separate virtual worlds. This approach preserves natural communication cues like facial expressions, body language, and verbal exchanges that are essential for effective collaboration. 

Students can work together to manipulate virtual objects, solve problems collectively, and share discoveries in real-time, creating a social learning environment that combines the benefits of technology with human connection.

ClassVR: Offers collaborative virtual experiences through its EDUVERSE virtual learning environment, facilitating interaction within shared virtual spaces. Students can explore the same virtual environment simultaneously, such as Avantis World's educational VR theme park with various immersive learning experiences. However, these collaborations occur in fully virtual spaces rather than blended with the physical classroom, potentially limiting the natural flow of face-to-face communication. 

While students are sharing a virtual experience, they are physically separated by headsets that block their view of classmates' facial expressions and non-verbal cues.

Embodied Learning

Reframe: Students use their bodies to move, explore, and solve problems in real space, boosting retention and engagement. This approach aligns with cognitive science principles of spatial and embodied learning, which have been shown to be especially effective in STEM disciplines and language acquisition. By allowing students to physically walk around virtual objects, use natural hand gestures to manipulate digital content, and engage their proprioceptive senses, Reframe creates multi-sensory learning experiences that leverage the body-brain connection for deeper understanding and memory formation.

ClassVR: Provides immersive VR experiences that can captivate students' attention and create memorable learning moments, but may limit physical movement to ensure safety while students are fully immersed in VR. ClassVR's health and safety guidelines recommend maintaining clear spaces around students using VR and adult supervision during sessions. 

The platform does include some augmented reality capabilities through its ARC app, which allows students to interact with 3D models overlaid on their real environment, offering a limited form of embodied learning. However, the primary focus remains on visual immersion rather than physical interaction with digital content.

Student Identity and Presence

Reframe: No avatars or identity loss - students stay visible to each other and to teachers; identity and social presence are preserved. This approach supports equitable engagement and trust-building, especially important for younger students or those from marginalized communities. By maintaining visual contact between participants, Reframe facilitates authentic social interactions that build classroom community while engaging with digital content. 

Teachers can observe student reactions, gauge understanding through facial expressions, and maintain the personal connections that are foundational to effective teaching and learning.

ClassVR: Fully immersive VR naturally removes students from physical social context, potentially reducing face-to-face social interaction during learning activities. While students may be present in the same virtual environment, they don't see each other's actual faces or expressions unless the application specifically incorporates avatar systems. 

This disconnection from physical identity can be both liberating and limiting, potentially reducing certain social anxieties but also removing important non-verbal communication channels. Teacher monitoring is primarily done through a dashboard showing what students are viewing rather than direct observation of student behavior and engagement.

For Administrators and Districts

Hardware Requirements

Reframe: Designed for use with existing fleets of iPads and affordable and open MR headsets (like Meta Quest 3S) and supports scalable classroom deployment. This approach makes mixed reality accessible without major infrastructure overhauls, increasing ROI on edtech budgets. 

Schools can begin with a small number of devices and expand as needed, implementing a gradual rollout that aligns with budget cycles and professional development timelines. The ability to leverage devices already owned by many schools significantly reduces the barrier to entry for mixed reality adoption.

ClassVR: Requires proprietary standalone headsets, typically purchased in sets of 8 or 30, representing a dedicated hardware investment rather than leveraging existing technology. No other software can be used with ClassVR headsets.

Curriculum Integration

Reframe: Teachers and districts can tag lessons with state standards and customize content by subject and grade level, ensuring that immersive content doesn't just engage—it supports instructional goals and assessment readiness. This thoughtful alignment with curriculum frameworks helps administrators justify technology investments to school boards and community stakeholders. 

The system's flexibility allows for customization to meet the specific needs of different districts and student populations, ensuring that technology serves educational goals rather than driving them.

ClassVR: Boasts a vast library of thousands of virtual and augmented reality educational resources designed to enhance learning. The content is aligned with curriculum standards, including those of US states and the UK, and spans subjects from science and history to music and drama. The content library continues to expand with recent introductions like EduverseAI, WildWorld, and STEAM3D. 

However, users report that while the quantity of content is impressive, a significant portion consists of basic 360° videos rather than truly interactive VR experiences, potentially limiting the depth of engagement.

Cross-Cutting Benefits

Comfort and Wellness

Reframe: Because students remain in their physical environment with immersive activities, Reframe significantly reduces the sensory disorientation common in VR. This improves comfort and usability for longer learning sessions and across broader age groups. 

By eliminating motion sickness concerns, Reframe makes immersive technology accessible to more students, including those with sensory processing considerations or vestibular sensitivities. Learning sessions can extend beyond the typical 15-minute VR limitation, allowing for deeper exploration of concepts and more substantive educational activities. Additionally, Reframe’s iPad app is available for students who can’t or do not yet want to use a headset.

ClassVR: Health and safety documentation recommends limiting VR sessions for children to no more than 15 minutes at a time to prevent potential issues such as motion sickness, eye strain, and balance problems. Adult supervision is essential during VR use.

While ClassVR provides comprehensive safety guidelines, these limitations reflect inherent challenges with fully immersive VR in educational settings, particularly for younger users. The time constraints can impact the learning activities possible within a single session and may require planning to maximize educational value within these parameters.

Spatial Cognition Development

Reframe: MR learning environments are specifically designed to improve spatial cognition, which research has linked to STEM performance. By allowing students to physically navigate and interact with 3D content in real space, Reframe creates learning experiences that develop crucial spatial reasoning skills. This prepares students for success in engineering, architecture, and computer science fields where spatial thinking is vital. 

The embodied approach to spatial learning helps students develop mental models that transfer to real-world applications, bridging the gap between abstract concepts and practical implementation.

ClassVR: Offers immersive experiences that may enhance engagement and knowledge retention through visualization of concepts in 3D space. While these visualizations can certainly improve understanding of spatial relationships compared to 2D materials, the platform doesn't specifically emphasize spatial cognition development as a core benefit. 

The limited physical movement during VR experiences means students primarily observe spatial relationships visually rather than navigating them physically. This difference may impact how effectively spatial skills transfer to real-world applications, though the immersive visual component still offers advantages over traditional flat media.

Key Advantages of Reframe over ClassVR

Blended Physical-Digital Experience

Reframe maintains the real-world classroom context while adding digital elements, creating a seamless learning environment that bridges physical and virtual worlds. This contrasts with ClassVR's fully immersive approach that temporarily removes students from their physical environment. The blended approach allows teachers to incorporate physical materials, hands-on activities, and digital content in complementary ways, creating multimodal learning experiences that appeal to diverse learning styles.

Extended Learning Sessions

By keeping students grounded in their physical environment, Reframe significantly reduces the cybersickness, eye strain, and disorientation common in VR platforms like ClassVR. 

This makes immersive technology accessible to more students, including those with sensory sensitivities or vestibular issues.

Without the 15-minute usage limitations recommended for ClassVR, Reframe enables longer, more substantive learning activities. Teachers can design lessons that build sequentially, incorporate reflection and discussion, and dive deeper into complex concepts—all within a single class period.

Natural Social Interaction

Reframe preserves face-to-face communication and social cues between students and teachers, creating a more natural learning environment than fully virtual experiences. Students can see each other's reactions, collaborate verbally and physically, and maintain the social connections that are fundamental to healthy classroom communities. Teachers can observe authentic student interactions and provide real-time guidance based on facial expressions, body language, and group dynamics that are invisible in fully immersive VR.

Lower Total Cost of Ownership

By leveraging existing iPads and affordable MR headsets, Reframe offers a more cost-effective implementation path than ClassVR's proprietary hardware. Schools can begin with a small pilot program using devices they already own and scale up gradually as budgets allow. 

The ability to integrate with multi-purpose devices also increases utilization rates and ROI compared to single-purpose VR headsets that may sit unused between specific lesson activities.

Teacher-Centered Design Approach

Reframe empowers teachers to design their physical-digital classroom space intuitively, giving them more creative control than ClassVR's content-focused approach. 

This teacher-centered philosophy recognizes educators as experts in their content and classroom dynamics, providing them with tools to enhance rather than replace their pedagogical expertise. 

By putting spatial design capabilities directly in teachers' hands, Reframe promotes ownership and authentic integration of technology with existing teaching practices.

Conclusion

When selecting between platforms, educational institutions should consider how each platform aligns with modern pedagogical best practices. 

Reframe's innovative mixed reality approach maintains the essential human connections of the classroom while enhancing them with digital elements -  complementing today's emphasis on collaborative, student-centered learning. 

Schools with existing iPad infrastructure will particularly benefit from ReframeXR's seamless integration with familiar technology, reducing both financial barriers and implementation challenges.

As education continues to evolve, the most forward-thinking institutions are seeking technologies that enhance rather than replace traditional strengths of classroom learning. By integrating digital and physical realities rather than separating them, Reframe offers a compelling vision for education's future where technology amplifies human connection rather than substituting for it.