"This was the mid-80s so it wasn't technically that amazing but I thought it was cool," Ms Taylor tells an audience at the Finnish startup conference Slush.

"You paid your 50 cents and you went into this giant room, it was a tent really, and it had a huge screen that went all around and you put on these really flimsy blue and red glasses."

Ms Taylor laughs as she recalls the plot line of one clip, a woman battling to save her oranges escaping from a broken shopping bag.

"I viscerally remember ducking and weaving so I wouldn't be hit by flying oranges – and this is the power of virtual reality, it's not just a mental memory, its actually physical," she says.

"VR puts you in the middle of the story, you are the character, you see all around you, it's a whole of body experience."

Taylor, from Sydney, joined Google in 2012 and now holds a senior London-based role in the tech giant's Play, or application, store.

Google has in recent months launched its first smartphone, Pixel, and a new VR headset, Daydream Viewer, which is a serious step-up from the company's first VR model, Cardboard.

Google's Pixel phone and Daydream virtual reality headset. Photo: Michael Short

"Virtual reality can take students anywhere in time and space," Taylor says.

"Humans are really good at spatial learning and that's why we can remember the holiday we took in the '90s compared to what we learnt at school." 

Melbourne: Students from Carlton Gardens Primary School take part in the first Natural History Google Expedition using Google Cardboard at Museum Victoria. Photo: Josh Robenstone

Google knows this all too well. Its Cardboard VR headset, which the company will continue to push as the most affordable and accessible way to enjoy immersive experiences, has already taken classrooms on virtual excursions via its Expeditions app.

Pirjo Suhonen is writing a Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) for ALO Finland on the much-lauded, hugely flexible and innovative Finnish education system.

She tells Fairfax Media that EdTech is an important component in education "but only one part of it".

"Tech won't change education but the people who invent, create and use IT, can change the way we learn," Ms Suhonen says.

She says tech is especially useful for students with learning difficulties who "think they are stupid" because they struggle with reading comprehension and writing as a way of demonstrating what they know.

"This is why audio-visual learning and presentation of knowledge could be very powerful and with VR the possibilities can be even greater than video currently offers."

She says while it's ideal for students to have a device each, it's not essential to unlocking technology's opportunities.

"A preschool group in Finland has 28 preschoolers, a smartboard and three iPads and they have managed to do many interesting projects with the children," she said.

Even teachers will be taught how to teach via VR.  Murdoch University in Perth is trialling virtual reality "disruptive student" avatars on teachers about to enter the classroom for the first time.

The five avatars include students who speak English as a second language, have learning difficulties, are over-eager or uninterested.

"While the technology won't replace real-world training experiences with real students, it provides an opportunity for a student teacher to try out strategies, make mistakes, and improve their practice," Susan Ledger, who created the project, says.

"The technology will enable our pre-service teachers to gain confidence in their abilities well before they encounter a classroom."

By the industry's own admission, VR has a long way to go.  "We're only at the beginning with Daydream," says Dr Taylor.

Unlike augmented reality, (like Pokemon Go) which brings the virtual world into the real world, VR requires a person to leave behind the real world completely, making it less accessible in public spaces and on commutes, which is a prime time for gaming, phone and tablet use.

"Virtual reality is further down the road and at the moment is cumbersome and doesn't have GPS," says Kaisu Karvala from Rovio Entertainment, the Finnish maker of the hit game Angry Birds.

"We made our first location-based AR game a year ago and released our first VR experiences two years ago but the market's not ready yet, it's a really small market but we are ready when the market is ready."

VR headsets make the experience an isolating one and some are too heavy to wear for a prolonged period of time.

Although Taylor argues this is an advantage for the classroom.

Teacher Sarah Anderson and one of her students with a Google Cardboard viewer.

"VR removes distraction, once you've got this headset on your face, you don't feel or see anything else, you are completely locked in the experience, it can make learning fun," she says.

But she says Google is focused on making VR a group and not just solitary experience.

"I think that is the future and once we have co-presence there'll be an opening of new opportunities," she said.

Australian start-up Zero Latency has created one way of allowing a group to roam in the VR world together via a military-style backpack gaming computer.

News organisations CNN, The New York Times and The Guardian have recently made VR content.  CNN's places the viewer out in the field on assignment as a foreign correspondent while The Guardian has created a tour of London's underground sewers.

Eventually, Google sees VR as a way of organising the world's experiences, just the way it has organised the way we navigate the internet.

Latika Bourke travelled to Helsinki as a guest of the Finnish government.

Follow Latika Bourke on Facebook