360 Degree Tour: Using Immersive Technology to Enhance Student Learning
About two years ago, a few colleagues and I were talking about wanting to use virtual reality in our classrooms. We began writing grants and received starter funds from our school’s Innovation fund
which were used to purchase a set of ten VR phones and glasses and two 360 cameras. We continued to write grant applications and our project was enhanced with money from Boulder Valley School District’s Impact on Education Classroom Innovation Grant, the InnEdCo Special Projects grant and the CenturyLink Teachers and Technology grant and our program has grown to a class set of VR glasses and phones, a smaller set of augmented reality capable phones and accessories, and ten 360 cameras. With this equipment, we have been able to do some amazing things with students.
At the high school level, world language teachers use the VR equipment to take students on virtual field trips that align with the content they are studying in class. Teachers lead the trip in the world language they are studying to provide both exposure to the language and the locations. Our chemistry teacher is using MEL chemistry to engage students in chemistry simulations, while our anatomy teacher uses Google Expeditions to lead students through the human body. Students use the virtual reality equipment to identify colleges they would like to apply to.
Middle school history teachers use Google Expeditions to activate student schema and provide visualization of the locations where historical events took place. World language teachers lead students on virtual field trips to the countries they are studying. In technology class, students use Google Expeditions to explore careers that utilize technology.
At the elementary level, you can find the students exploring 3-dimensional art before beginning their own artwork. In language arts, students use virtual reality to explore the setting of a novel. In science students use Virtuali-Tee app to travel through the human body with augmented reality.
Virtual and augmented reality provide students the ability to experience places and things that would otherwise be difficult for them to explore. But VR and AR are not just for consumption. Students at multiple levels are using the equipment to create their own VR tours.
At the elementary level, students use 360 cameras, ThingLink 360/VR and a variety of multimedia tools to create virtual reality tours of Colorado. Students build knowledge by actively exploring actual ecosystems and discovering the landforms, animals, and plants that live in the ecosystem. They use 360 cameras to photograph habitats within colorado. Then the use ThingLink 360/VR to show what they have learned researching the life zone climate as well as plants and animals that are typical in that habitat. Students also collect images and animal sounds for their presentation from Pics4Learning and audio from SoundBible. With all of the individual components complete, students create their ThingLink 360/VR tour of a Colorado life zone. Student work is showcased at our school Art Show in the spring. Students love this project. In addition to the content, students learned many digital citizenship and digital literacy skills.
High school students have the option to take an extended field trip in AP US History and Humanities to South Dakota. One high school student on the trip checked out a camera and photographed the trip. She then created a VR tour to share with students who were not on the trip. A middle school student traveled to Greece with his family, took 360 pictures on his trip, and then used those images to create a VR tour to share with his history class as they studied Greece.
As we enter our third year with this project, we are working to extend the use of the equipment to more areas of the school. By offering workshops during our school professional development days more teachers are becoming comfortable with this new technology. In addition, we created a website to support other teachers in our school in using the equipment.
I am incredibly grateful to CenturyLink, InnEdCo, Impact on Education, and the Peak to Peak Innovation Fund for the funds to make these projects a reality.
