Virtual Reality in the classroom is really cool! Anyone who has played around with it knows it really ignites student energy and curiosity. The best part, however, is how really impactful it can be for relevant teaching and learning. Virtual reality (VR) is a simulated experience that opens the door to the wider real world.
To see VR in action, take a look at this short video from a school in Iowa.
Source: Digital Learning at Grant Wood AEA Iowa
Experiencing Virtual Reality
If you follow the VR creation ideas below, you will see for yourself the 4C super-powers of VR!
First, using the VR headsets, students get to go to places and see things they might not normally be able to experience from where they live. The other day, I had the honor to virtually take about 100 7th graders from Lawton, OK to Europe–yet only two of them had actually been there. The excitement in the room was palpable, and it actually made me jealous that these kids get to learn in this time period with these rich resources.
Moreover, VR becomes really cool when students can create their own virtual experiences. It’s pretty easy using Tour Creator VR.
(If you are lucky enough to have access to SOME iPads, the whole experience is really, really easy).
Here is how:
First, let kids experience VR using a class set of Cardboard, which could be purchased pretty cheaply on Amazon. Here are two ways to do this: We used an entire cart of VR purchased from Best Buy Edu
- Students bring their phones, or have parent volunteers come in with their phones, or…
- Set up one station of around 5 cardboards, and send students through stations.
- Then, head over to the Expeditions App on an iPad or phone.
- Using the Expeditions app and the station or headsets you have set up, find an expedition by searching the discover area.
- Then download one you would like to use. I like the one on European Geography as a great way to start the adventure.
- Next, head to the library tab and select that tour you downloaded, then select Guide to take your explorers on the tour. NOTE: To do this, it is important that all devices are sharing the same wifi.
Now, begin to explore! Read the descriptions as you go from place to place.
***If you don’t have the funding, consider using Donors Choose for everything I will talk about here. I have seen many teachers get a VR station this way.
But Wait! It Gets Better – Time to Create!
Now that students have experienced VR, it’s time to CREATE VR, and it’s pretty darn easy!
Student at Tomlinson Middle School creating a VR experience. Oklahoma
Remember the old ‘state report’ that asked students to find the state bird, state flag and state song, etc.? Do you know why we asked the kids to find that particular information? Because that is the information in the encyclopedia, and easy for a 1985 student to find. Now, although it’s almost 2020, bad examples of this same report structure are rampant on Teachers Pay Teachers, and students everywhere continue to do work that is really not very appropriate for this day and age. Students needed to do research and write the information, but now a VR Experience can accomplish it so much better!
Here is an EXAMPLE a student added to my account
Get Started! Head to Tour Creator VR on any device. Watch this short tutorial.
- Students sign in to their Google accounts and begin creating the tour.
- After creating a cover they create scenes, which are powered by their descriptions of each location.
This way, students are doing a typical state report – but this time they use VR to really bring the OLD state report to life. The report still has paragraphs of information – it’s just presented in a more modern fashion.
To me, this is a perfect example of learning in 2020, and all old-style reports should be replaced with this media-rich and engaging example for students. After all, VR will be a very important part of their adult lives, and this skill could be crucial for their future.
Finally, if you want to get super high-tech, you can have the students create Mp3 files of themselves reading the voice-over descriptions that will play when the tour is in “Guide” mode. The example I share has those.
When we finished our tours, all students went around to the various groups and visited their self-selected states using the VR headsets. At each group, one of the student creators explained the tour as they went and we finished it up with a reflection in Flipgrid.
The 4C Super-Powers:
Communication – writing descriptive paragraphs
Collaboration – Working together in a partnership or group, as students did in the example above
Critical Thinking – Select meaningful photos to accompany a geographically accurate state tour
Creation – Show knowledge and understanding of a state by creating a cohesive tour.
As I said before–VR is really cool!