Technology progress influences the way kids learn, and it’s constantly changing. Internet, smartphones, and apps have connected people globally without caring about the distance. Within seconds you can communicate with anybody anywhere. Virtual reality has taken it a step further. Now it’s possible to visit these faraway places or go back in time without moving an inch. Technology, like virtual reality apps, has brought the real world into the classroom and once again, changing how kids learn.
This article discusses some innovative methods that teachers can use Virtual Reality (VR) in the classroom to improve student learning. It offers experiences that would otherwise be difficult due to geography or financial constraints, and children will learn by exploring as if they were in a real situation. Students can absorb and understand things faster by engaging in these activities rather than hearing and reading about them. Educators find it tough to explain arithmetic to students, but these apps will help them understand it better. CalcFLow allows you to interactively explore and manipulate vectors while visualizing math topics. VR Math allows students to see geometry, graphs, and vectors in 3D, and students can better understand them.
As the director of technology and instructional innovation at a small school district in Pennsylvania, Kris Hupp has a better than average handle on how virtual reality can shake up and shape K–12 education. That’s because Hupp and his colleagues at the Cornell School District outside Pittsburgh worked with experts at Carnegie Mellon University to bring VR to 600 students there, many of whom live in poverty.
With a grant and partnership to support the program, Hupp and the district’s teachers teamed up to help their curious students explore exotic lands and immerse themselves in nature — all without leaving their classrooms.
Hupp spoke with EdTech Managing Editor Jena Passut about the VR program’s past and present and the ways in which other districts might incorporate the emerging technology into their curricula.
Dr. Oakley is not the only person teaching students how to use tools drawn from neuroscience to enhance learning. But her popularity is a testament to her skill at presenting the material, and also to the course’s message of hope. Many of her online students are 25 to 44 years old, likely to be facing career changes in an unforgiving economy and seeking better ways to climb new learning curves.
Dr. Oakley’s lessons are rich in metaphor, which she knows helps get complex ideas across. The practice is rooted in the theory of neural reuse, which states that metaphors use the same neural circuits in the brain as the underlying concept does, so the metaphor brings difficult concepts “more rapidly on board,” as she puts it.
She illustrates her concepts with goofy animations: There are surfing zombies, metabolic vampires and an “octopus of attention.” Hammy editing tricks may have Dr. Oakley moving out of the frame to the right and popping up on the left, or cringing away from an animated, disembodied head that she has put on the screen to discuss a property of the brain.
Jim Lerman's insight:
Outstanding article with several links to valuable resources. Don't pass this by...it's worth your time.
"Virtual reality has been the driving force behind Google’s Expeditions app since it launched three years ago. And recently it’s added another layer of “reality” to the virtual field trip tool—AR, or augmented reality to be precise, which take the form of features such as narration, annotations, and a new “solo mode,” going on virtual trips without a guide.
"One of the most interesting things we are seeing from a trend standpoint is there are really six New York City anchor industries that are utilizing VR and AR: healthcare, education, real estate, retail, live entertainment and video entertainment.
"This past school year Google says over one million students have used the AR tools as part of the company’s Expeditions Pioneer Program. In New York City, 99 different schools experimented with the program for the first time, giving students an up-close look at everything from famous world landmarks to the human body."
The other day I was talking to a former colleague about the power of edtech. Since she is a social studies teacher, I told here about the power of virtual reality and augmented reality. Apparently, she knows a lot about VR, but not much about AR and its benefits. In response, I decided to pen an article that discusses 4 benefits using AR in the classroom.
Along with Virtual Reality, Augmented Reality is quickly becoming popular in the classroom. One of the most popular AR experiences right now is the Merge Cube. With a recent hot dollar deal on the Merge Cube at local Walmarts, many teachers caught the craze and bought out entire stocks of this amazing AR tool! But now what? What do you do with all those Merge Cubes in your possession and how can they be useful in the classroom? Let’s dig a little deeper and find out!
One of the most exciting arenas for innovation in education with technology is that of augmented reality and virtual reality. I’ve been a fan of exploring how these types of apps can be used …
"Presence is affected by deficits in cognition and perception. It is thought to be associated with a preference for the visual domain, but has been not been extensively studied in those without sight. Audio description (Ad) is a verbal commentary conveying visual information, enabling blind and partially sighted people to access visual media. Ad is currently only provided for low-immersion media, e.g., films. this project compared levels of presence for the same film clip watched with no Ad, “standard” Ad (describing characters, locations and actions) and a “cinematic” Ad, which also includes details of camera shots. surprisingly, those with impaired sight reported higher presence levels when watching the stimuli with Ad, than sighted people watching the stimulus with no Ad. engagement scores reported by blind and partially sighted people for cinematic Ad were highest overall. this suggests the need to revisit Ad guidelines, which currently advise Ad providers not to include filmic terms. It also suggests Ad has potential for people who are blind or partially sighted to engage in more immersive Virtual reality (Vr) environments."
Ikea is the biggest furniture retailer in the world–a title that the company has managed to hold on to, amazingly, without a serious digital presence. In the age of free Amazon same-day delivery, Ikea still does a vast majority of its sales through its physical stores.
Its commitment to digital is quickly increasing, though. People visited Ikea stores 936 million times last year, but they visited Ikea online 2.3 billion times. Meanwhile, the company debuted new ways to shop using AR and VR, partnered with the visual AI startup GrokStyle, and acquired the gig economy company TaskRabbit. In short, Ikea is acting more like a tech company than a furniture maker. And within the next few years, the way you think about shopping at Ikea will probably change entirely, as the company is aggressively pursuing a new, digital identity through its evolving wave of experimental apps.
“The business model of Ikea having a blue box in a cornfield, and you jump in the car with your family and have an ice cream [at the store], is not the only thing we should offer our customer,” says Michael Valdsgaard, leader of digital transformation at Ikea. “For the majority of people in the world, Ikea isn’t accessible. Apps can make Ikea accessible.”
"I create all of my stickers and blog post featured images in Google Drawing. It is something I use daily to communicate visually and digitally. I have created two tips sheets to share with some ways to get the most out of Google Drawing.
"You can create a Google Drawing from Google Drive using the “New” button, or you can go directly to create a Google Drawing at drawings.google.com."
The inaugural #VRwolweek unearthed 20 real-world examples of the emerging technology, and the enduring popularity of that blog post tells me that we are hungry for more.
Loath to disappoint, I hereby present 25 more real-world examples of virtual reality, drawn from this year’s and last year’s events. I thank everyone who contributed to the following list."
"Preparing education students to become classroom teachers is a challenging task. There are lots of skills that are easy to teach—how to write a lesson plan, or the best method for teaching basic reading skills, for example. But there are just as many skills that are nearly impossible to teach in the classroom. How can a professor teach future educators how to manage a classroom of behavioral challenges or keep their cool when a student challenges their authority? The answer may lie in the virtual classroom."
While AR isn’t difficult or expensive to use (especially when compared to 3D Printing or Maker Spaces), it does require forethought and planning. You’ll need a smartphone or tablet with a back facing camera, an augmented reality app (many free), a trigger image (you create yourself, probably for free), and an Internet connection. Then, scan the trigger image with a mobile device app and see what happens!
Although AR isn't one of my favorite uses of technology in the classroom, I do think that it can be educational if used on occasion or as a one-off activity. Kids will certainly be amazed at what they see and you can build on that initial engagement to create real authentic tasks.
Virtual Reality In The Classroom Infographic. In this infographic yoy'ill discover 5 Incredible Ways That Virtual Reality Is Improving Education Infographic
To the point evaluation of the benefits of VR in the classroom. Fantastic little Infograph to show students to motivate them and to show them the real world benefits of learning through VR experiences.
The researchers found that people remember information better if it is presented to them in a virtual environment. The results of the study were recently published in the journal Virtual Reality.
""Immersive learning employs technology to intercept the learner's senses with synthetic signals. The consistency of these signals persuades the perceptual system that it is embedded in the virtual environment. The learner is promoted from an observer of the synthetic world to one of its inhabitants. Immersion promises learners new access to experience.
I’ve put together a list of virtual reality discussion prompts you can tailor to your classroom. If your students are using headsets with Google Expeditions, or a Google Cardboard connected app, you can have students pause to talk about what they see.
"Tour Creator enables students, teachers, and anyone with a story to tell to make a VR tour using imagery from Google Street View or their own 360 photos.
"Since 2015, Google Expeditions has brought more than 3 million students to places like the Burj Khalifa, Antarctica, and Machu Picchu with virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR). Both teachers and students have told us that they’d love to have a way to also share their own experiences in VR. As Jen Zurawski, an educator with Wisconsin’s West De Pere School District, put it: “With Expeditions, our students had access to a wide range of tours outside our geographical area, but we wanted to create tours here in our own community."
"That’s why we’re introducing Tour Creator, which enables students, teachers, and anyone with a story to tell, to make a VR tour using imagery from Google Street View or their own 360 photos. The tool is designed to let you produce professional-level VR content without a steep learning curve. “The technology gets out of the way and enables students to focus on crafting fantastic visual stories,” explains Charlie Reisinger, a school Technology Director in Pennsylvania.
"Once you’ve created your tour, you can publish it to Poly, Google’s library of 3D content. From Poly, it’s easy to view. All you need to do is open the link in your browser or view in Google Cardboard. You can also embed it on your school's website for more people to enjoy. Plus, later this year, we’ll add the ability to import these tours into the Expeditions application."
Recently, the world of virtual reality was shaken up when the popular Merge Cube by Merge VR dropped in price from $15 to just a dollar at many Walmart stores. When using specific apps, these cubes showcase different experiences as you rotate the block around with your hands. If you haven’t held a Merge Cube yet, they're made of a soft rubber material that’s comparable to a stiffer stress ball. (If you want to test out the apps first, you can print out a temporary paper cube.)
[You owe it to yourself to read this. Despite what I thought I knew, I found it harrowing. -JL]
"When I downloaded a copy of my Facebook data last week, I didn’t expect to see much. My profile is sparse, I rarely post anything on the site, and I seldom click on ads. (I’m what some call a Facebook “lurker.”)
"But when I opened my file, it was like opening Pandora’s box.
"With a few clicks, I learned that about 500 advertisers — many that I had never heard of, like Bad Dad, a motorcycle parts store, and Space Jesus, an electronica band — had my contact information, which could include my email address, phone number and full name. Facebook also had my entire phone book, including the number to ring my apartment buzzer. The social network had even kept a permanent record of the roughly 100 people I had deleted from my friends list over the last 14 years, including my exes.
"There was so much that Facebook knew about me — more than I wanted to know. But after looking at the totality of what the Silicon Valley company had obtained about yours truly, I decided to try to better understand how and why my data was collected and stored. I also sought to find out how much of my data could be removed.
"How Facebook collects and treats personal information was central this week when Mark Zuckerberg, the company’s chief executive, answered questions in Congress about data privacy and his responsibilities to users. During his testimony, Mr. Zuckerberg repeatedly said Facebook has a tool for downloading your data that “allows people to see and take out all the information they’ve put into Facebook.” (Those who want to download their own Facebook data can use this link.)
"But that’s an overstatement. Most basic information, like my birthday, could not be deleted. More important, the pieces of data that I found objectionable, like the record of people I had unfriended, could not be removed from Facebook, either."
"A program called Playground City is trying to expand the number of students from low-income areas exposed to virtual reality — and Urbano said he hopes it can help him eventually land a job.
“I feel like I have a cheat code against other people my age,” said Urbano, who lives in the working-class Holden Heights neighborhood. “At first I thought it was gimmicky, but then I realized how big of an impact it could have.”
"Playground City is in its second year and focuses on providing services to low-income neighborhoods. This year, through an apprenticeship program that recently put one student through a pilot week, the organization hopes to introduce virtual reality to people between the ages of 17 and 24."
Mozilla has announced a new version of its Firefox browser for standalone virtual and augmented reality headsets. It’s called Firefox Reality, and Mozilla describes it as a cross-platform, open source, and privacy-friendly browser whose interface will be specialized for headsets. You can see an early demo of it working on the HTC Vive Focus, but it’s not available publicly yet, and Mozilla hasn’t specified which headsets will support it.
The Firefox Reality demo makes it looks a lot like a traditional browser, albeit one that’s streamlined and floating in a virtual void. The video demonstrates someone navigating through pages and smoothly scrolling with a simple VR controller, but they seem to have a little trouble hitting small buttons with its pointer. Mozilla’s vision sounds pretty broad and potentially ambitious, though:
Mixed reality is the wild west. How do you type? How do you express emotion? How do you view the billions of existing 2D web pages as well as new 3D content? How do you communicate? Who maps the world and who controls what you see? Can we build on our work with voice recognition and connected devices to create a better browsing experience? We love tackling these questions. Everything is new again, and we are constantly building and experimenting to find the right answers.
"YouTube video collaboration between Samsung and VICELAND explores the ramifications of how virtual reality can change the future of education. Reacting to perceived failings in America's education system, Samsung and VICELAND talk to education innovators and students about the ways VR is impacting the way people learn." (This quote from "Spark")
Jim Lerman's insight:
Quite an interesting comment on the YouTube page for this video:
None of that s**t amounts to a higher quality education. Certain technologies may enhance the learning experience, but spending should go towards better educators as well . As students we don't want vr or online textbooks, we prefer physical books and interactive classroom environments. The relationship between a student and quality teacher is essential, they are a school's most effective resource.
Every teacher I know has virtual reality on their radar. It’s one of those short-listed disruptive technologies that kids want to be involved in and will change teaching for the better. I was…
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