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Virtual Reality

Infusing VR with Traditional ELA Lessons

June 3, 2019

Virtual reality and ELA

As the Dynamic Learning Project Technology Coach in the McGuffey Middle School, I’m always excited to help teachers with building innovative and creative lessons for their students. When Dynamic Learning Project Innovation Advocate, Paige Cizmek, asked me to help her with infusing VR in a traditional ELA 8 lesson, I was happy to do what I could to assist.

A traditional middle school ELA class covers vocabulary review, parts of speech identification, literary elements, reading comprehension activities, and writing assignments such as essays, research reports, and poetry. On any given day in any ELA classroom, you might see students working on spelling worksheets, using dictionaries to define vocabulary words, writing sentences, or reading stories. Paige Cizmek’s ELA 8 class is far from traditional. She successfully infuses meaningful and innovative technology use by integrating apps and tools into her traditional lessons, while highly engaging her students in the learning process.

The students in Paige’s classes use technology daily. She posts assignments to Google Classroom, they often use shared docs and sheets to complete group work, and they post research information using Padlet and Wakelet. Every spelling test is on a Google Form, and online games such as Quizizz, Quizlet, and Kahoot make regular appearances for reviewing everything from literary elements to identifying parts of speech. Paige regularly uses Flashcard Factory and Pear Deck, she lets students write stories with StoryJumper, and she uses programs like Commonlit, Edulastic, and Khan Academy for personalized learning and skills review.

Paige has welcomed me as her tech coach into her classroom. For the past two years, we’ve been teaming up to create interesting and innovative ideas for presenting traditional ELA lessons. I co-teach lessons with her and collaborate with her on how to use various tech apps and tools with existing ELA lessons and units, and she has earned many badges for her successful implementation. It was no surprise to me when the opportunity to do more with technology presented itself. Paige was onboard and eager to try something new.

NONFICTION TEXT ANALYSIS

Scholastic Scope magazine always has intriguing nonfiction articles for the students to read. One article in particular was about the lionfish. As a paired text activity the teacher also used a companion newspaper article about the giant goldfish. The students completed traditional whole-group activities in class by previewing vocabulary terms and definitions, addressing text features, and reading closely. Student teams then responded to critical thinking questions and analyzed cause and effect relationships presented in the paired texts. After a second reading of the paired texts, students individually explored three text structures that the authors used to achieve different purposes. Students also practiced using text evidence correctly to support inferences. As an extension activity, Paige wanted to use VR to help students make a real-life connection with the lionfish in a realistic way.

INFUSING TECH

In order to add a little twist to the lesson, the teacher found National Geographic YouTube videos about the lionfish and students were able to use the Google Cardboard VR goggles to view underwater footage of these beautiful, yet dangerous, sea creatures.

There was a lot of energy in the room when the students started the videos. They were intrigued and wowed by the feeling of being underwater. Students were up and moving and seemed to be “swimming” right alongside the fish.

Middle school students are not always enthusiastic about reading nonfiction material. Watching the videos made reading the information in the Scope Magazine articles easier to comprehend and allowed students to make real-life connections to the content presented. Discussions were prompted about the lionfish being categorized as an invasive species and the devastation caused by its presence in the Atlantic Ocean.

Paige has other ideas about using VRlessons with ELA students:

Visit La Paz when introducing The Pearl, by John Steinbeck

Look at the Annex when reading the play, The Diary of Anne Frank https://youtu.be/ttaQ0VaYG_I

Discover background information about Ishi in Two Worlds: A Biography of the Last Wild Indian in North America

Visualize the dramatic effects of the poem The Cremation of Sam McGee

Google donated the goggles to our school as part of the Dynamic Learning Project coaching program. Our students have used Virtual Reality in other classes for virtual experiences. Our history classes have taken VR trips to Greece to study the ruins, studied ancient Rome, and looked at the vast area of South America from the mountains to the Rainforest. Using them in ELA classes, however, is unexpected and interesting and shows the students another point of view that can only enhance their learning and spark their curiosity and creativity.


Teresa Engler is an educator and Dynamic Learning Project Technology Coaching Fellow at McGuffey School District/McGuffey Middle School in Pennsylvania. You can follow Teresa at @MrsEngler1.

ELA, Virtual Reality 1 Comment

Getting started with AR and VR: Defining Terms

October 2, 2018

When diving into the world of Virtual Reality and Augmented Reality it’s very important to understand how they are two distinct mediums for learning.

Virtual Reality (VR) is meant to take you somewhere else.  Augmented Reality (AR) is meant to add to where you are. We place these on a mixed reality continuum where we see a Virtual Reality environment on the far right and Augmented Reality leading towards a Real Environment.

Mixed reality continuum showing how VR and AR are different.

Mixed Reality Continuum [1]

More academic definitions:

Virtual Reality (VR) – creates interactive computer-generated worlds, which substitute real-world sensory perceptions with digitally generated ones, producing the sensation of actually being in life-sized new environments. [2]

Augmented Reality (AR) – the most significant advantage of AR is its unique ability to create immersive hybrid learning environments that combine digital and physical objects, thereby facilitating the development of processing skills such as critical thinking, problem-solving, and communicating through interdependent collaborative exercises (Dunleavy, Dede, & Mitchell, 2009). [3]

How do we interact with VR and AR experiences?

Within these definitions, we can come to the conclusion that these are two different mediums for learning. For example, VR can be experienced through head mounted devices like those offered through Google Cardboard, Oculus, HTC, etc. but it can also be experienced on a laptop or tablet screen. Of course, using a head-mounted device that blocks out the real-world would increase your level of immersion in a VR experience.

Likewise, AR experiences come in several forms.

    • Target-Based AR uses your device camera to trigger a response from something like a QR code.AR experiences: Target, location or device based.
    • Location-based AR uses GPS coordinates and other geolocation features sometimes connected to Wi-Fi to launch or trigger an AR experience for the user these are not dependent on a specific Target rather on the location of the device being used.
  • Device-Based AR asks that you download the appropriate application to view in the real world. An example would be filters that you can add to your face when you take a selfie. Using these apps, you augment your face through stickers and effects that that do not require a target nor a geo-location.  They simply require your selfie.

Who’s using VR and AR?

We are starting to see the application of these emergent technologies in many different fields: Industry, Medicine, Corporate, Higher Education and now K12. While the novelty factor of these tools is enticing,  it is important that we start to recognize them as tools that students can use to increase understanding and achieve learning objectives.

I have found the application of emerging technology in my classroom to amplify my instructional practice. The things that I do well seem to be highlighted and the things that I need to work on pedagogically are also highlighted. It’s easy to get wrapped up in the excitement and enthusiasm students have around trying something new, but the most powerful learning experiences are in the conversation that follows the tool use.


Micah Shippee, PhD
Social Studies Teacher
Google Certified Innovator, Trainer, and Teacher
Google Earth Education Expert
www.micahshippee.com

[1] “Milgram’s continuum (Milgram and Kishino, 1994) The specific ….” https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Milgrams-continuum-Milgram-and-Kishino-1994-The-specific-characteristics-of-augmented_fig1_235910711. Accessed 6 Sep. 2018.

[2] “Virtual reality in the assessment, understanding, and treatment … – NCBI.” 22 Mar. 2017, https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28325167. Accessed 6 Sep. 2018.

[3] “Affordances and Limitations of Immersive Participatory Augmented ….” https://eric.ed.gov/?id=EJ829255. Accessed 6 Sep. 2018.

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Pedagogy, Virtual Reality Leave a Comment

Build Your Own Adventure: Tour Creator for Google Expeditions is Here!

May 9, 2018

Did you hear? There’s something new from Google that can get your students exploring the world (without ever leaving their seats)! Read on to learn about this powerful new tool.

Introducing  Tour Creator

Today Google is introducing Tour Creator. Head to vr.google.com/tourcreator right now. Run, don’t walk! Once you’ve arrived at the site you will notice a pretty purple surprise waiting for you. A little button that will get your heart racing as your dopamine levels spike. Does that say, Get Started to create your own virtual tour? Yes, it does. Does this mean that you can click it and actually create your own virtual experience, like Tour Builder, except in VR? That you can add your own 360° images, add your own content, take your students on a personally crafted experience to match your class topic of inquiry or study? Yes to all of the above! Now you can create your own custom adventures for your students to explore!

The Wait Is Over

One of the top requests Google has heard from educators is the ability to create their own Expeditions, and they listened! For several months Google has been testing a beta program for Expeditions allowing teachers and students to capture and curate unique virtual tours. If you were not a part of the beta program but have been patiently waiting for this capability to be opened up to the public, the wait is over – Tour Creator is now open for all to use!

Create Your Own 360° Content Now

Using Tour Creator, you can easily create your own virtual tour using footage from a 360° camera or even curate photos from the vast collection found on Street View. Not only can you add 360° footage, but you can annotate the images with your own custom content. You can then publish to Poly (again, the magic purple button) for your tour to be viewed via the web or in VR by loading the published URL on a mobile device and placing it in Cardboard. It has been confirmed by Google that they will be adding the ability to import these tours directly into the Expeditions application later this year.

It’s time to activate your students and get them exploring and creating their own virtual tours using Tour Creator today! Google has asked educators to get started by, “showing us what makes your community special and why you #LoveWhereYouLive!” Read more in this official blog post from Google.

Dee Lanier
Program Coordinator
EdTechTeam

Geo Tools, Google, Virtual Reality 3 Comments

Exploring and Learning with Google Expeditions

May 18, 2017

I don’t know about you, but when I was a kid, one of my favorite toys was the View-Master. I’m sure you know the one. That red toy that you put a thin cardboard disk in, pull the handle on the side, and step into a new scene with each arm pull. It was like being transported to a new world. Through the View-Master’s pictures, there was an excitement that I had for learning. Well fast forward 30+ years from my childhood, and I find myself with another View-Master, it’s name, Google Expeditions.

Back in February, I had the opportunity to host Google Expeditions at my school site. These expeditions are virtual trips that students can take to locations in and out of this world. A teacher, through the use of a tablet app, can lead students through ancient ruins, national monuments, or outer space. Exciting, right?!?!

To be honest, I wasn’t excited, I was terrified. When the kit arrived, I saw that there were so many cords and plugs. Would I be able to connect with all of the devices ? Would there be enough devices for all students? Would I break the red and white cases when trying to take the devices out to charge? All of these questions raced through my mind. As it turns out, the expeditions were a phenomenal success.

The screams of excitement, the “oooohs”, “ahhhs”, and “WOWs” of students as they looked through the Google Expeditions View-Master, was my favorite indication of success! It transported me back to my own childhood excitement. Students who don’t have an opportunity to travel to exotic places, were delighted to see and virtually interact with underwater sea creatures, “climb” Mount Everest, and explore the inside of the human body. Topics they were learning about in their textbooks, but laid static and two dimensional on a desk, were virtually brought to life.

To hold students accountable for their learning, they were instructed to work through a hyperdoc with video resources that supplemented the content of the expedition. Afterwards, students answered questions and completed a Google Form reflection log.

Here’s what I found to be the key to having a successful expedition, ditch the script. Though it gives students and teachers a great amount of background content information, your main goal shouldn’t be to read through all of the content, word for word, during the expedition. Give students time to be completely engulfed in the wonder and excitement of virtually exploring the world through Google Expeditions. It’s this natural, unabashed excitement that sparks their interest. When student interest is sparked, therein lies the flame that fuels authentic learning.

Canesha Wrathall
Elementary School
TOSA- Digital Learning Coach
Orange County, CA 

 

 

 

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Virtual Reality Tagged: Virtual Reality Leave a Comment

Going Places! The Google Cardboard Book

May 12, 2017

I received this book by Holly Clark, Sylvia Duckworth, Jeffery Heil, David Hotler, Donnie Piercey, & Lisa Thumann the other day and within two days I had scoured through it, tabbed some pages, and started formulating some ideas. This book isn’t meant to be an amazingly detailed read, it’s meant to be an amazing resourceful read full of ideas, learning opportunities, and how to improve and elevate how our students engage with our content.

I appreciated the background information on how the whole thing started as a 20% project. I was particularly interested in the information about the Google Expedition resources, which is a big interest of mine and integrating it within my school. I was intrigued by Chapter 2 and the classroom uses in multiple content areas. The chapter will really help me start a conversation with the core content area teachers to find ways to provide Google Cardboard opportunities with them. Additionally, on pages 18-19, there are some great ideas or lessons that teachers shared in the book to integrate Google Cardboard in fun and engaging ways.

One resource I found was the TES website of Google Expeditions shared lessons. Many educators who have created lessons and activities involving Google Expeditions shared their resources. I also love how it is filterable by grade level and content area. Currently there are 173 resources, but I’m sure that will be growing rapidly. I’m also a fan of Kasey Bell, she posted a 3-part series on VR and Google Cardboard, check it out on her ShakeUpLearning blog.

As we work toward getting our students to be more creators of content instead of consumers, Chapter 4 offered some excellent insights into creating pictures and videos suited for the VR arena. Along with that, Chapter 5 included excellent ways in which we can have students share their creations with the world. It really isn’t that challenging, just takes a little planning and encouraging to promote this side of what we can do with VR in the classroom.

There are so many exciting ways to integrate VR and Google Cardboard into the classroom, and we’re only in the infancy phase of it. The Google Cardboard Book will be an essential resource for me and as I work with teachers to help them provide amazing learning and exploring opportunities with their students. I’ve gathered some resources and put together a small informational website on Google Cardboard in the Classroom, feel free to check it out!

Chad Sussex has been a teacher of technology for nine years at Hinton (northwest Iowa) since 2008. He has a M.S. degree in Education in Curriculum Instruction & Design from Wayne State College. Makerspaces, technology, STEM, and all things Google are some of the driving forces for him as an educator. Chad proudly served our country in the U.S. Army with a tour of duty in Iraq in 2005. He is a Google for Education Certified Trainer, Educator Level 1 & Level 2. Feel free to follow Chad on Twitter @SussexChad and on his website, TheTechSuss.

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Virtual Reality Tagged: Virtual Reality Leave a Comment

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