What is on your bucket list? Summiting Mount Everest? Diving the Great Barrier Reef? For most people, these are unlikely adventures. This is no longer the case with virtual reality (VR) technology.
VR lets you travel to destinations all over the world and beyond without ever boarding an airplane. Most teachers cannot take their students on an African safari, but VR can. VR enables experiential learning by simulating real-world environments. 3D immersion has the ability to change students’ outlook on the world and their place in it. The possibilities of where students go and what they do are endless.
VR does much more than put students in a new environment. Students who use VR gain much more than content-specific knowledge and geographic awareness. VR provides countless opportunities for students to develop transversal competencies that address 21st-century challenges such as technological advances and intercultural communication. With virtual reality technology being so new and rapidly advancing, it is difficult to know all the implications for using it in the classroom. Yet, one thing is certain; the benefits are profound.
Here are four reasons why VR deserves a permanent place in today’s classrooms.
Motivation
VR increases students’ levels of motivation. When students are transported from their current reality to one completely new, they will naturally be interested in the topic. VR gives concepts a real-life context, demonstrating a need to learn the content.
Information
VR is a way for students to develop digital literacy skills by seeking new information. Students can use VR to learn about geography, science, history, and more. Programs like ThingLink and Panoroo let teachers and students annotate 360° images with YouTube videos, text, and links to webpages. Students will improve literacy and technology skills as they read for meaning and write reflections about their VR experiences.
Empathy
VR gives students the opportunity to meet people and observe situations they might never would have otherwise. Seeing and experiencing the lives of individuals different from themselves gives students an understanding of diversity. VR lets students “walk a mile” in someone else’s shoes.
Advocacy
VR is a powerful storytelling tool. It is being used to change people’s perspectives. Learners can use VR to advocate for social justice issues. VR reveals to users hard truths—from refugee crises to climate change. Students are able to use this technology to immerse their audience in new realities that could influence people’s thoughts and emotions.
Some Resources Worth Exploring
Many of my top “go-to” VR resources come from Google. The following products are accessible from either a computer browser, a mobile device, or both. For optimal experience, download each of the program’s apps to a handheld device and view with a Google Cardboard VR headset. You can purchase a Google Cardboard for just $15. If you do not have the money for a classroom set of Google Cardboard, students can still experience the 360° content from tablets and computers.
- Google Earth is a computer program that renders a 3D representation of Earth based on satellite imagery. Select the Pegman icon to view 360° photos.
- Google Street View provides panoramic views from positions along many streets in the world. Step inside locations such as museums, arenas, and parks.
- YouTube (yes, Google owns YouTube) has an official VR channel that features the newest and best VR-ready videos on the platform. You also can search #VR and #360 for videos.
- Google Expeditions allows teachers to lead classroom-sized groups of “explorers” through collections of 360° and 3D images while pointing out interesting sights along the way.
- Tour Creator makes it easy for Google users to build immersive, 360° tours right from their computer. Students can upload their own 360° image or use one from Google Street View. Tours can include image overlays, points of interest, and textual information.
Google Expeditions
Integrating VR into the curriculum will boost students’ confidence. Students will benefit both socially and emotionally from using VR. Additionally, students will have new opportunities for accessing multimedia content, thinking critically about unique situations, and solving problems with their peers.
I am excited about the potential VR has on students’ learning. In the future, students will tour museums with their curators, create works of art in digital environments, and develop a VR portfolio revealing their product plans for major classroom projects. Students will do more than consume VR. They will begin to regularly produce their own virtually reality experiences via 360°-images and 3D visualization tools. With virtual reality, your students will explore and create more.
Author: Sam Northern, Ed.D.
Sam Northern is a National Board Certified Teacher-Librarian at Simpson Elementary School in Franklin, Kentucky. He currently serves as President of the Kentucky Association of School Librarians. In 2014, Sam was selected for the Fulbright-Hays Summer Seminars Abroad Program where he spent four weeks in China. Since then, Sam has voyaged to Antarctica as a National Geographic Grosvenor Teacher Fellow and worked aboard a research vessel on the Atlantic Ocean as a NOAA Teacher at Sea. From January to April 2018, Sam traveled to Finland as part of the Fulbright Distinguished Awards in Teaching Program to research best practices for project-based learning. Connect with him on Twitter @Sam_Northern and Facebook @themisterlibrarian.
Categories: Blog Topics, Technology
As a 20 year high school educator and a current doctoral candidate working on a dissertation about CVR in the classroom, I find VR a fascinating new possibility for instruction; however, I am a bit more cautious with VR’s use.
While empathy and motivation increase, the impact on students’ cognitive development, especially young students, is still relatively unknown. I recommend Segovia & Bailenson (2009 which can be found at https://vhil.stanford.edu/mm/2009/segovia-virtually-true.pdf) to learn more about how VR can implant false memory in children. This, coupled with the unknown of how VR’s impact cognitive and social development should be a cause for cautious implementation.
I recommend reading Bailenson’s Experience on Demand (2018) before bringing VR experiences into a school or a classroom. Further, when VR is used, it should be accompanied by lessons on what it is, how it works, and how it can be analyzed – in short, a virtual reality literacy lesson should be given so that students can learn how to decode the technology they are being asked to use.