Ideas for the use of VR in the Classroom
How awesome is virtual reality? Students can view places, monuments, natural wonders, etc. in 3D and obtain a hands-on experience of the world while still in a classroom.
I’ve used virtual field trips in my classroom. When working with our 6th grade social studies teacher, I found a great website for students to view caves from over 350,000 years ago. The students can see a 3D view of the cave drawings from ancient times. This was an excellent way for students to witness cave art first-hand. It is one thing to read about the communication through drawings or to view pictures of the stories, but it’s another to experience it with a virtual field trip. Here’s the website I used: http://www.lascaux.culture.fr/?lng=en#/en/00.xml. (You may have to translate it to English).
I really enjoyed using the Google Street View app on my phone to take spherical pictures of my surroundings. I took a spherical picture of the park where we walk our dog and also used it to take a 360 degree view of the pumpkin patch we visited! Students could use the Google Street View app to capture spherical pictures of places they visit and create a digital story of their adventures. Our world language students have a chance to visit Spain, Costa Rica, Germany, and China. How awesome would it be to ‘experience’ a 360 degree view of their journeys through other countries? The students would also have 3D memories to share and keep.
Virtual reality in the classroom gives students experiences they might not receive in real life. The use of this technology can make learning more exciting. Furthermore, students retain more information when they are excited about a topic and experience it first-hand. I’m eager to hear how other teachers are using virtual reality to take learning to the next step.
Check out my spherical picture here: Round.me & Flickr