Thing 13: Augmented & Virtual Reality

Thing 13 was an interesting topic to explore.  I like the ability to transport my students into their learning using AR or VR without the expense and paperwork necessary to take the students on a field trip.  I explored a few different aspects of this Thing.

First, I explored YouTube 360 videos and was constantly thinking of Ms. Frizzle and the Magic School Bus.  I watched a National Geographic video of a volcano erupting.  It was rather interesting.  It is something the older students would definitely enjoy seeing.  For the younger students I explored a fire house, harvesting corn, and butterflies.  I felt as though I was there experiencing it first hand.  A problem I think students could have is not facing in the correct direction and missing some of the text information embedded in the video.  During a rainforest video I missed animals scampering about as I was facing the wrong direction.  It wasn’t until a few times watching did I catch the animals I missed.  To get a good viewing students should watch the same video multiple times and view from different angels to see everything the video has to offer.

Next, I explored Story Spheres.  Initially from what I read about it I thought it would be a great tool for the students to create a scene from a topic they learned about.  They could then add description to allow the view to see and hear what they learned.  However, I’m not sure how they would get the 360 pictures.  Also, I watched a few examples of the Story Spheres and I was only impressed by the Mason School House example.  They others I saw weren’t really what I would be looking for in a final project for the students.

Lastly, I looked at Book Creator.  I was really interested in using this as a way to create a collaborative eBook with the students for our Black History Project.  Upon reading a few articles and watching a video I believe it is something I can use with the students.  My thought is to have each student create a page for the person they are researching.  Then I’ll put it all together and we can show it during our Black History Month Assembly.  It looked very professional and rather simplistic to use.  At the end of the article I read on Book Creator it did say you could do pretty much the same thing with Google Slides.  This is again the problem I run into.  I find other tools to use instead of using the ones right at the students finger tips.  If we don’t use Book Creator for this project I’ll keep it in mind for the next one.