Each ISTE is unique in its own way – and each year I try to take away one central idea that can help me grow as an educator. This year, in 2018, I took away the fact that I think AR and VR are going to change education in a way that will rock the very foundation of what the classroom and learning will look like in the future.
To quote my friend Bryne Stothard from the Frankfurt International School
“AR and VR are confrontational”
Recently, while in Frankfurt, I got to experience full room scale VR and lucky to have a chat with Bryne Stothard who calls this AR and VR experience confrontational. Understanding why this is confrontational is important for leadership. To find out why he calls it this – make sure to catch our first episode of The Infused Classroom Podcast.
VR is changing things so much that as I sat talking to a few big thinkers at ISTE, we hypothesized how it might even change the future of that conference. What will ISTE look like five years from now in 2022? We postulated that the entire look and feel of both of the conference and many of our classrooms will be unrecognizable, as this technology is growing into an immersive experience whose future is hard to imagine.
At first, this will be a tool enhanced learning experience that seems to offer little more than a cute graphical representation of information, but it will quickly morph into an immersive, content enhancing learning experience where kids actually become part of the content.
For example, a student might get to experience walking with Martin Luther King, Jr on a bridge in Selma being approached by aggressively barking dogs and fierce-looking armed police officers coming at them quickly while the students attempt to walk peacefully to Montgomery – fighting for nothing more than the simple right to vote. This type of immersive experience might possibly foster empathy and open-mindedness our world needs. While I know I am overzealous in my predictions of the amount of time it will take our classrooms to be transformed, I believe that for those schools that can afford it – like Frankfurt International School and The American School of Madrid – VR will quickly transform learning in these schools to that of an
interactive experience where information is experienced and then learned.
For this reason, it would be smart to keep an eye on these schools and others like them – visit their school if you can and see how this is playing out for those early adopters like Bryne and David Hotler from ASM.
Sadly, if the past is any predictor, this change will not come quickly. For most public schools strapped with financial constraints and often lacking the leadership to understand the implications of this important learning shaping experience – many students will be unable to take part in this transformational learning. Once again techquity, a term I learned from my close friend Ken Shelton, will be once again a problem for kids already feeling the heartbreak of the socio-economic divide that leaves them with inferior learning opportunities.
Another educator working in a public school district outside Chicago – Ben Kovacs – agrees that what we know about the experiences these platforms allow students to have and their ability to CREATE their own learning is going to revolutionize classrooms. The VR experience will be at the heart of future learning and will help bring to most students into a true immersive understanding of the material rather than a surface level fleeting knowledge base that can be the case with some learning today.
So my take away for educators?
Do everything you can to experiment with this new tool.
Check out this ISTE resource I found through Kasey Bell from Brain and Jen Cauthers two amazing educators (make sure to give them a follow).
If you have the money – purchase an AR or VR kit from someone like Best Buy for Education – and if you don’t have the budget, buy some less expensive cardboard units and ask people to donate old smartphones or write a Donors Choose to get 10 iPod touches in your class. But, trust me this VR kit from Best Buy is game-changing and worth every penny.
If you want to be walking hand in hand with true educational change – jump in and don’t look back. Start by creating 360° stories. To learn how to check out this book: Bring the World to Your Classroom for information on how to do this. Create these stories as part of your journey to understanding the power of the immersive learning, because if you don’t you might be left behind as other educators begin moving forward. Leaders need to find a way to save for this and allot money to your early adopters and your neophytes- so they can begin to experiment and lead your school down the VR path.
Check this video out from Bryne Stothard as he walked through the streets of London and what he found happening just with VR.
To see extraordinary examples of VR visit these two sites Within and New York Times VR
Here are a few people to follow to learn more about this immersive experience
If you are an educator using VR…leave your blog or tell your story on this Padlet..so we can all learn from you and follow your experiences.