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Virtual reality can be a powerful tool for project-based learning by providing an interactive element.
AI/VR

Engage Students with Virtual Reality (VR) and Project-Based Learning (PBL)

by Miguel Guhlin
written by Miguel Guhlin

A combination you seldom find in classrooms brings two popular areas together: virtual reality (VR) and project-based learning (PBL). Combining these two approaches to teaching and learning can deepen students’ understanding. VR within PBL can drop students into an immersive learning experience. But how does that work? VR is increasingly creating interactive opportunities in the immersive internet. See how VR is moving beyond entertainment. Watch Bernard Marr’s video below to assist you in understanding future trends for 2024.

What Is Project Based Learning (PBL)?

You may already be familiar with project-based learning (PBL). TCEA offers a variety of blog entries and an online course about PBL. Moreover, there are many ways to blend game-based learning and PBL. You can see one approach in the Virtual World Builder online course. It shows you how to use a free, open-source, Minecraft-style environment and introduces you to PBL. There’s also some discussion about virtual reality in TCEA’s blog.

One definition of PBL appears below:

Project-Based Learning (PBL) is a student-centered pedagogy. It seeks to involve student in active engagement with real world projects. These projects are meaningful and immerse students in a novel situation. To that new situation, they must apply what they have learned and any skills they have developed. They often do so through the creation of a product.

As they do this, they engage in transfer learning. This engages them and allows them to develop their critical thinking skills. What’s more, it scaffolds student collaboration and problem-solving to a specific task. Human brains love this kind of task-oriented learning. Tasks often come in a wrapper such as a scenario, complex question, problem, or challenge.

What Is Virtual Reality?

Often, virtual reality and PBL don’t mix well in the classroom. Some define virtual reality in this way:

Virtual reality (VR) is the use of technology to create a simulated environment. Students are able to interact with it in a way that mimics real life.

This interaction is different than screen-based, computer imagery. Instead, VR simulates as many senses as possible. Those senses include, of course, vision, hearing, touch, and even smell. The goal is to transport students to places they have never been.

VR provides hands-on experiences that are impossible or impractical for schools and students. Bringing these two areas together can yield big results, enhancing digital literacy, critical thinking, and collaborative problem-solving.

Let’s examine how these two exciting areas can complement each other.

Three Approaches to Using VR for PBL Projects

You can use VR as an engagement tool to grab students’ attention before dropping them into the deep end of PBL. Here are three approaches to pair VR and PBL for boosted engagement.

VR experiences might lend themselves well to lesson or unit introductions. Use them to pique students’ curiosity and lead to more in-depth activities. (Adapted from source)

Approach #1: Take virtual field trips.

With VR, students can visit historical landmarks, explore different ecosystems, and more. They can also journey to foreign countries— no passport or plane ticket needed! Discover this Texas middle school’s example of VR use:

Approach #2: Explore curricular topics.

Use VR to bring complex subjects to life, enabling students to get a deeper grasp of abstract ideas through visualization and manipulation of interactive 3D geometric models. For example, The Body VR helps students learn about human biological systems by journeying inside a cell. Apps like MEL Science VR, which has over 70 VR lessons, provide immersive learning experiences on everything from the periodic table to atoms and ions. See more suggestions for exploring curricular topics in this article.

Approach #3: Develop computing and technology skills.

Use online spaces like CoSpaces for students to create their own 3D virtual worlds. Additionally, they can learn the basics of coding and digital design while experiencing VR.

Here’s one CoSpaces video focused on creating simulations for science:

Captivating Hooks for PBL

Crafting captivating hooks or problems for your projects can be challenging, but VR can set the stage for PBL’s real-world challenges. Here are some suggestions for engaging students with VR-based hooks:

VR SolutionSuggested Use in K-12 PBL Engagement Hook
CoSpaces EduStudents can create and explore their own virtual worlds or simulations, which can be used to present their PBL projects in an immersive way.
Global Traveler appUse the app for virtual field trips, allowing students to explore global landmarks and natural wonders, which can be integrated into geography or social studies projects.
Merge CubeMerge Cude can be used by students to design 3D objects related to their PBL topic and then use Merge Cube to interact with their models, enhancing their spatial reasoning and presentation skills.
TinkercadStudents can use Tinkercad to design 3D models that can be integrated into their PBL projects and visualize them using Merge Cube or VR.
VictoryXREngage students in virtual dissections or explore historical events, making abstract concepts more tangible and relevant to their studies.

Using VR in the classroom certainly deepens student engagement and prepares them for the exciting undertaking of a PBL project. Start your PBL class lessons and projects with VR scenarios and set your students up for memorable learning experiences that will help them retain and demonstrate learning.

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Content AreasContent CreationEnglish Language ArtsGood TeachingMathScienceSocial StudiesSTEM/STEAM

Virtual Reality with Panoform Is Easy, Engaging, and Fun for Everyone

by Dr. Bruce Ellis
written by Dr. Bruce Ellis

What is Panoform?

Panoform combines real-life drawings with immersive VR (virtual reality) experiences. It’s a revolutionary tool that is still making great experiences for students, and it is a game-changer in classrooms. Panoform allows students to download and print a grid from the website, sketch on the grid, and upload a picture of their grid drawing to the website. Then, they can have a VR experience of their sketches in a virtual reality headset, on their phone/tablet, and even on the computer. For example, it’s a simple and easy way to diagram an organism and use VR tools in the classroom. Did I mention that it’s free? And– no ads!

How Does Panoform Work?

The Panoform system requires a pen and paper, colored markers, and a grid. Panoform is a tool that students can use in their classrooms in their learning process. Using crayons, pencils, and markers, students can create a world and upload it to a website. Students can also cut out pictures and lay them on their paper grid. Once done writing or illustrating with the grid, students take a picture of it. Before uploading to the website, students need to make sure that they crop out anything outside the grid image. Once uploaded, Panoform will wrap the grid into a VR cube– one in which the viewer is placed inside the cube and can look around at the four walls, ceiling, and floor. Items drawn or written on the grid will appear accordingly in the virtual room.

https://panoform.com/#how-it-works

With this tool, students can easily create VR worlds without any programming knowledge, and they can use the VR environment to express their creative talents. They can use their imagination to design! Teachers can also use the VR world to enhance learning experiences. Additionally, the virtual environment is accessible to anyone with an Internet-connected device. All you need is content to put on each of the four virtual “walls.”

Types of Grids

Is it Safe for Sharing Student Work?

No student work is stored (or uploaded) to the Panoform cloud. The tool pulls the image from the device but does not store it in their servers, making it super safe for students. Because the work is not uploaded and stored on Panoform’s servers, the viewer will need to have a copy of the image to pull into Panoform. When you want to share content with students or have them share their work with you or others, you’ll need to curate the images in a shared drive or post/link them on your class website. Students can then download them to their devices and upload them into their viewer. They can also store images on their devices to upload directly.

Screenshot by author

Using Google Slides with a Panoform Grid

You can print out a grid to draw or write on it. But you can also use Google Slides for your layout!

  • Open a new Google Slide.
  • Go to File, Page Setup, and then set the dimensions to 10 inches across by five inches high. This will make sure the slide deck is the same layout and size as the Panoform grid.
  • Now you just need to upload one of the grid images as the slide background. Having the grid background allows you to see where items should be.
  • Add clipart, text boxes, icons, and more just like you would when creating a presentation.
  • When done, be sure to delete the grid background (unless you don’t mind it being seen).
  • Save the slide as an image by clicking on File, Download, and then choosing JPG Image.

You can now use this file to upload to Panoform for your VR world. Instead of creating your own Google Slide for Panoform, feel free to use this template to jumpstart the fun.

Trying Out Virtual Reality

Here are a few images you can download to your device to use for exploring Panoform to get an idea of how it can be used.

  • Right-click on the image and choose Save Image As.
  • Save the image to your device.
  • When you are ready to upload to Panoform, go to https://tool.panoform.com. Click on the Choose an Image button to upload the image.

You can now drag the image around by using your mouse or clicking on the VR headset icon (lower right corner) to transfer the image to be used on a phone.

Though these are simple examples, think of concepts or content that could be divided into four parts (because there are four walls in the virtual cube). Each wall could be completely different or show a process being studied.

What concepts will you reinforce with Panoform? Will it be vocabulary (word, definition, used in a sentence, and illustration), world countries (country name, capitol, location on map, and major facts), the steps in solving Algebraic equations, or a summary of Macbeth (Title/author, setting with image, protagonist name with sketch of person, and themes)? Whatever you teach, Panoform can be an interesting way for students to summarize and demonstrate their learning.

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virtual reality
Content AreasEducational TrendsGood Teaching

Free Virtual Reality Resources in YouTube

by Lori Gracey
written by Lori Gracey

Virtual reality is becoming more useful and relevant in education today as the technology becomes easier to use. A lot of VR, however, can be pricey, which often doesn’t meet the needs of strapped districts. But there is a wealth of free virtual reality resources available in, of all places, YouTube. Let’s see how you can find them and what some of the best ones are.

What Is Virtual Reality?

Virtual reality is “the experience that has been created by the computer to generate a new environment” (source). It can take us to places that we realistically cannot go like Mars or the human stomach or running with a cheetah and it’s a fabulous tool for the classroom. These will allow you to view content in 360°. You can learn more about augmented reality, virtual reality, and mixed reality from Jamie Donally, the ed tech AR/VR/MR guru.

A Few Caveats

While YouTube has some amazing educational resources, there is also, if we are honest, a lot of trash to be found there, as well as material that is not appropriate for students of any age. So I recommend that you, the teacher, find and select the content that you want students to use and not send them out on a search for it.

Once you’ve found a video you want your students to see, copy the URL and then place it into ViewPure. ViewPure is a free tool that will remove all distracting comments and side-bar related videos, just showing the content that you want. You should know that some ads may still be played during your video; there’s no way to prevent that unfortunately. But ViewPure does cut out a lot of the clutter. The site is free and does not require registration. But they also offer a premium version for teachers and schools. To see the difference with ViewPure, look at the two videos below. The first one is directly from YouTube and the second one is with ViewPure.

virtual reality

virtual reality

The second caveat is that virtual reality can make some people a little “seasick.” So keep an eye on your students while they are watching the videos to make sure everyone is doing okay.

Maneuvering Inside a VR Video

It may take a minute or two for you to become accustomed to maneuvering around inside the virtual reality video. Each one will be a little bit different, but they all can be stopped and started by simply clicking somewhere inside the video itself. You can also click and drag around inside the video to look at different parts. Your students will master this much faster than you will!

Educational Virtual Reality Videos

To find the VR gems in YouTube, you can start by simply searching the site. Use “360 video” to begin with; that will show you both the good and the bad available. You can then refine your search by using the same search you previously used plus the terms of your needed content. So I did a search for VR about the human digestive system with “360 video human digestive system” and found 12 good videos for students to watch and learn from. While 12 may not seem like a lot, that is enough for my needs. If you just want to see a sampling of what’s available, try the search “360 video education.” This will give you lots of good videos to play and learn with.

Here are a few 360° videos that I recommend:

More virtual reality videos are posted every day on YouTube, so the content will continue to grow and develop.

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digital learning
Digital LiteracyEducational Trends

Buzzword Breakdown: Making Sense of Digital Learning

by Carolyn Mitchell, Guest Author
written by Carolyn Mitchell, Guest Author

As teachers, we all want to prepare our students for educational and career success in their future. We also know that there are multiple ways and multiple environments in which to do this, and understand that technology and digital learning can be key in delivering and differentiating instruction.

So why does the rapidly changing terminology for learning with technology confuse us and make us want to scream? (Feel free to take a moment to put your hands to your cheeks and scream aloud in your best Macaulay Culkin – Home Alone imitation).

Blending, Flipping, and Flexing

Let’s go back in time for a moment. Besides the always popular face-to-face classroom learning experience, we have heard the terms e-learning, flipped classroom/flipped learning, hybrid learning, blended learning, flexible learning, online learning, virtual learning, distance learning, digital learning, and many others. You are probably familiar with at least one of these terms and maybe familiar with all of them. If not, put the unfamiliar words in your favorite search engine and get a feel for the latest and greatest buzzwords in educational lingo.

Don’t be confused or perplexed by the plethora of terms. The following should be your mantra as an educator who has a relationship with technology but wants to increase the engagement and experience level of your students:

  • Technology is a tool to enhance classroom learning and does not take the place of the teacher.
  • I am not afraid to fail in front of my students.
  • TCEA is here to help me.

Putting Tech to Work

Want to branch out in your technology use but maintain some structure and control? In the Canopy project, a collaborative effort undertaken by the Clayton Christensen Institute in order to discover innovative schools and their approaches to student-centered learning, the schools identified as using the blended learning practice ranked the station rotation model as the number one most commonly-used model. Students rotate through online learning stations on a fixed schedule and the learning is student-centered with the teacher as the facilitator.

Everyone is familiar with the ubiquitous surveys that say the number one fear for humans is public speaking. In a Psychology Today blog post, Dr. Glenn Croston makes a connection between the survival of our early ancestors and our fear of public ostracism. I would add that, as a teacher, our number one fear is failing in front of our students.

When I started out as an instructional technologist more than a decade ago with a mandate to help teachers integrate technology into their instruction, the main reason for not integrating technology was “I don’t want to look stupid in front of my students.” I would hope that we are past that reasoning. But if not, utilize your students’ knowledge of technology! Ask a friend/colleague/mentor for help. 

Your Support System

Finally, TCEA is here to help you with a vast array of opportunities to add to your pedagogy and skills. There are special interest groups (SIGs) that cover a wide range of technology specialties. And if online, blended, virtual, or whatever-you-call-it learning is an area of interest, check out the Virtual Learning SIG during the 2020 Convention. We are stronger together!

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virtual reality
Educational TrendsFuture

Exciting Students with Virtual Reality Field Trips

by Tiffany Barton, Guest Author
written by Tiffany Barton, Guest Author

Recently, I had the immense pleasure of introducing one of the most exciting and significant Greek tragedies ever, written by the great Sophocles, to a group of highly motivated, supremely intelligent, and innately curious ninth graders.  Our discussions were intensely profound and our analysis was rhetorically brilliant. 

Well… that is what I would have posted on Twitter to make everyone think I was the best teacher ever. The truth is that this is my first year teaching ninth-grade English and I didn’t know any more about Greek tragedies than my students. I have taught English for many years, but Sophocles was a mysterious and abstract idea, and to be honest, quite scary.

As you can imagine, my freshmen weren’t really that interested in a Greek playwright who was alive 2,500 years ago. Nor were they fascinated by the evolution of drama or the creation of the first actor.

Overcoming “Tragedy”

So what’s a teacher to do? In my preparations, I kept reading about the Theater of Dionysus, where Sophocles and the other superstars of Greek tragedy duked it out in front of the entire city of Athens in yearly competitions. I am such a visual person, I just couldn’t imagine the parts of the orchestra and stage, etc. that my teacher materials kept talking about. 

During one planning period, while wrestling with my “tragic” ignorance, I Googled this Theater of Dionysus to see what it looked like.  By happy accident, I found a link to the Google Earth location. I clicked the little person in the lower right-hand corner that symbolizes Street View and excitedly watched all the little blue dots pop up that represent a 360-degree view of that location. There had to be at least 30 or 40 different panoramic, wrap-around, concrete, informational, reach-out-and-touch-it images of this most famous of Greek theaters! I began clicking on all of them, observing with my own eyes the remains of the stage, the location of the chorus, and the amphitheater-style seating for 17,000. After I shared this with my students, I was going to be Teacher of the Century!

There is something magical about students being virtually transported to other places around the world. The engagement level is through the roof.

That’s a bit of an exaggeration.  I don’t think any of my students were inspired to become Greek playwrights (or English majors). They were, however, considerably more engaged in our lesson about Greek culture 2,500 years ago!  

After this virtual reality field trip to view the theater with our own “virtual” eyes, it was so much easier to make connections to this historical content. Then I could create new meaning out of those connections.

Virtual Reality Explorations

Since then, I have used virtual reality field trips in all of my classes when the students will benefit from “seeing with their own eyes” a place, setting, or a concrete example of a concept. There is something magical about students being virtually transported to other places around the world. The engagement level is through the roof. In addition, the concrete details and clear observations they take away are invaluable. They create a sturdy scaffold for students to create more content connections and engage in deeper learning. 

If you have VR headsets, the trip is even more immersive.  But these are not necessary. Students can still reap the benefits from virtual field trips without fancy equipment.

So that you can be Teacher of the Century, too (or at least brag on Twitter), I have curated a few fall-themed virtual trips and 360-degree panoramas that you can use with your students quickly and easily!

Field Trips, Right in Your Classroom

360Cities.net is a great resource for 360-degree videos or panoramic photos.  

  1. Inside a Red Apple Tree – Looking out from inside the tree covered in bright red apples.
  2. The Big Apple Farm – Harvesting apples
  3. Pumpkin on Vine – Foliage and a pumpkin still on the vine
  4. Pumpkins Ready for Harvest – The foliage has died back and pumpkins are laying right where they grew
  5. Halloween Hide and Seek – Over 30 Halloween-themed items are hidden in this panorama for your students to find. Don’t forget to look up!

YouTube 360 videos lets you search for a plethora of immersive videos on all different topics.  They can be used with VR goggles or you can drag the screen on a laptop.

Google Earth – Go anywhere in the world and chances are there is a 360 street view.  Google also has Google Voyager, which showcases 360-degree pictures with a theme.

  • Voyager – Thanksgiving Traditions – This tour takes you from Plymouth Rock to the Lincoln Memorial and explains how the Thanksgiving tradition evolved in America.
  • Voyager – World War I Memorials around the world – With Veterans Day approaching, this is a great tour of ten different World War I memorials around the world.

Award-Winning Ideas

There are so many options available for VR field trips. This is just the tip of the iceberg. But no matter where you decide to take your students, they will reward you with excitement and engagement.  

You can even be Teacher of the Century. I’ll share my podium with you. I don’t mind.

Let me know what other VR apps and tools you use to take students out of the classroom and into meaningful connections in comments.

Photo: Lucrezia Carnelos

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ed tech news
Educational Trends

Ed Tech News Roundup: Learning Math on YouTube and Praising Teachers on Twitter

by Andrew Roush
written by Andrew Roush

Howdy, folks! Welcome to another in a series of biweekly ed tech news roundups. We hope you enjoy — and if you have a story you’d like to see included, let us know.

VR for Accessibility

In a recent post on designing effective learning spaces, we pointed to the ability for ed tech to improve accessibility for students with diverse learning needs. A few recent examples involving virtual reality (VR) illustrate the potential.

  • In Massachusetts, a virtual tour is giving students with disabilities the chance to tour their new school in a low-stress environment. [The Hechinger Report]
  • Meanwhile, in Ector County, Texas, investments in VR are being made to help students with autism. [the Odessa American]

Keeping Schools Safe

Safety at school is on everyone’s mind, including in digital spaces. In Texas and across the country, schools are looking to ed tech for solutions. 

  • In Corpus Christi, a combined audience of law enforcement and school administrators met to discuss school safety, including the ways in which technology might make schools safer. [KXAN Austin]
  • Diving deeper, NPR has a discussion of examples of technology used for school safety, and the potential trade-offs involved. [All Things Considered]

Teaching Through Video

Video can be a powerful tool in not just preserving knowledge, but sharing it. Here are a couple of examples we’ve found recently. 

  • Cree elders in Canada are preserving indigenous language — through rap music videos. [CBC]
  • An elementary math teacher in Georgia is flipping his classroom with his cell phone, recording helpful videos to help students with homework on YouTube. [WMAZ Macon]

… And Finally

On the day Glenda Funk retired from teaching, a former student reached out on Twitter with a moving message: “Once a teacher, always a teacher.” [The 74]
Photo: bradley

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e-learning trends
Educational Trends

E-Learning Trends Transforming the Classroom

by Guest Blogger
written by Guest Blogger

It’s no secret that classrooms are undergoing significant changes in the ways they deliver education. As e-learning grows in popularity, students both in PreK-12 classes and colleges have a whole new world of learning opportunities at their disposal.

Today, educators are finding new ways to engage students and hold their attention. Through e-learning, the use of technology to augment the classroom experience, you can give students more opportunities to learn in more ways.

But where should you start? Let’s survey a few major trends. Here’s a look at five e-learning trends — with plenty of helpful links — that you should know about.

Learning Management Systems

One way to engage both students and teachers in e-learning is through learning management systems. Learning management system (LMS) software can provide your students with educational materials accessible anytime and anywhere using their own devices. LMS software can help you create an online course based on the curriculum that you’ll deliver in the classroom.

With LMS software, not only can you deliver content, but you can also track students’ progress. Your students can share their completed assignments, and you can share grades on the platform.

These systems come with several challenges, but if set up well, they can offer concrete benefits. Considering getting started with an LMS or switching to a new one? Check out these 12 criteria to consider. 

Gamification

Learning is always more interesting and engaging when it’s fun. And what better way to make learning fun than to enhance it with games? In practice, this means applying game-like elements in non-game contexts, which includes point scoring, levels, badges, and learning paths.

Finding ways to gamify learning isn’t all about fun, but is about enabling students to interact with their learning materials in a way that increases their interest and engagement level. Tools like BreakoutEDU can help students (and educators) work collaboratively, think creatively, and retain knowledge.

Are you ready to get started? Take a look at GooseChase, an easy way to gamify your lessons.

Adaptive Learning

Adaptive learning may still have a long way to go to be fully implemented in  classrooms, but it is finding its way in. This style of learning is focused on personalizing learning paths for each student, helping them learn at their own pace and in their own style. These technologies can also help campuses and districts build future-ready ways of teaching.

If you utilize LMS software, for instance, and see a clear picture of each student’s learning style, needs, and preferences, you’ll be able to adapt learning to meet all those needs. Note-taking tools like Microsoft OneNote also offer possibilities for adaptive learning. This personalized method can be effective, which is why we’re likely to see its continued adoption in the coming years.

Video Learning

Traditional classrooms are most effective for auditory learners, as standard lectures and note taking are focused around listening. With developments in e-learning, however, this doesn’t always have to be the case. Online learning brings all types of videos to education, and video-based learning is entering physical classrooms as well. Educators are giving video-based lectures or explainers, and providing students with instructional videos to study outside of the classroom. Even social media usage for schools, libraries, or classrooms — or in student projects — can be enhanced through video.

This trend can go hand in hand with microlearning, where you can use short, bite-sized video formats to help students easily digest the learning material. And yes — you can download YouTube videos! Find out how in this post. Explore more options in our “Simple Video Tricks” post.

Virtual and Augmented Reality

While much discussed, virtual and augmented reality (VR and AR) are still far from being fully implemented. But they are being increasingly used, especially in places like medical schools and aviation academies.

With VR and AR in the classroom, students can engage in a hands-on educational approach and fully immerse in their subject matter. They can explore the VR and AR interface, interact with graphical overlays, and explore 360-degree videos and real-life simulations. Students can gain knowledge and skills like never before, and better prepare for real-world applications of that knowledge.  Searching for good examples? Check out how Cleburne ISD is using VR tech here.

Kamy Anderson is an ed tech enthusiast with a passion for writing on emerging technologies in the areas of corporate training and education. He is an expert in learning management systems and e-learning tools, currently associated with ProProfs Training Maker.

Photo by John Schnobrich on Unsplash

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Educational Trends

Best VR Apps to Prepare Students for Careers of the Future

by Guest Blogger
written by Guest Blogger

Virtual reality being used in the classroom is not just an educational trend. It can have a positive effect on student learning and engagement. Here’s what you need to know about VR and how you can better prepare your students for the careers of the future without having to leave the classroom. And we’ll look at the best VR apps currently available.

What’s Fueling Immersive Technology in Education?

There are two reasons for the growth in popularity of ed tech in general and VR in particular – the rate of evolving technology and falling costs. Laptops are getting cheaper (bringing closer the day when every child will have a device in school) and Microsoft is set this year to launch a light and inexpensive Windows Core software that can run on cheaper laptops.

Along similar lines, immersive technology now has more affordable options like the Oculus Go headset and a glut of Augmented Reality (AR) kits and AR core enabled experiences for mobile. With the release of excellent VR experiences for Vive, Rift, and WMR headsets, the VR platform is now a real possibility for educators who want to assimilate this technology into their classrooms.

Navigating the Best VR Education Apps by Subject Matter

 Art

 Tilt Brush allows students to create their own artwork in 3D environments using a huge variety of colors and brushes. It’s available on Oculus Rift and HTC Vive, and students can share their creations in animated GIFs.

best VR apps

For a VR art museum experience, you can’t get any better than Boulevard. This app gives students the opportunity to walk through some of the world’s leading museums, experiencing iconic artwork in a three-dimensional space while a curator recounts the stories behind each piece.

Aviation and Aerospace

Titans of Space takes students into deep space to explore and understand the enormous awesomeness of our galaxy. Visuals (with accurate perspective and size ratios) are as stunning and all space exploration takes place to inspiring background music.

Even the Apollo 11 VR space expedition app has been given a recent upgrade with new demo modes that allow you to choose specific scenes from the full documentary experience.

With recent breakthroughs in aviation technology, VR is ushering in a new era of pilot training, which would be of special interest to students thinking about careers in aviation or aerospace.

best VR appsBiology

A Journey Into The Brain is one of the latest offerings from educational VR giant Unimersiv. The app takes students on a narrated journey through the brain and explains how this marvel of human anatomy works. The app is free and available for Samsung GearVR and Oculus Rift.

Another quality VR experience is The Body VR. This app allows students to travel through the bloodstream and explore how blood cells work and how they react to viruses.

Earth Sciences

One of the areas to benefit most from VR educational apps is geography. Earth AR allows the earth to be viewed in a new way while Discovery VR gives students opportunities to discover exotic natural locations and interact with the natural world around them. Just some of the experiences include swimming with sharks, rescuing rhino, mountain biking, or exploring base camp at Mt. Everest or the Taj Mahal. The app can be used on a number of platforms, including Oculus Rift, GearVR, and HTC Vive.

History

best VR apps

Students can immerse themselves in the wonders of ancient Egypt with VR educational apps like KingTut VR that bring a reach-out-and-touch reality to hieroglyphics and the Death Mask of Tutankhamun. The Anne Frank House VR sets out in detail the secret annex where Anne Frank and her family hid for more than two years during World War II. The VR experience is enriched with quotes from her diary.

Languages

Learn Languages VR provides students with a multi-dimensional approach to learning a language by immersing them in a locale where they can communicate with native speakers in real life dialogue. This app had been download more than 500 million times.

 Math

 Number Hunt is where gaming meets math. Students get to travel through a number of interesting arenas and hunt down anthropomorphized numbers, shooting them with a device that applies either addition, subtraction multiplication, or division.

Science

Nanome, available on Vive, Rift, and WMR, was named one of the most exciting scientific apps in 2018. It allows the student to interact with chemicals and proteins, and supersizes nanotechnology while also providing opportunities for students to collaborate with each other or in groups.

The Future of VR Educational Apps

As educators use VR technology more widely, a demand for VR learning platforms that allow for an experience that is tailored to the unique life and environment of students is likely to grow. This is already seen in tools like Tour Creator that allows adjudicators to build their own interactive, multi-scene virtual tours. The attraction of Tour Creator is that it’s free and has a simplified creation process for educators to incorporate simple 360 tours across the curriculum.

Another wonder is the Merge Cube app – a foam block that works with Google Cardboard headsets and transforms into our solar system, a dinosaur, or almost anything else that can be thought up.

Many tech experts are saying that VR is about to go mainstream and 2019 may not be far off the mark. Recently, at Oculus Connect, Oculus and Facebook set aside $10 million dollars to invest in educational content creators. What are your students doing with virtual reality?

This guest blog is written by Jo-Ann Coetzee, the Organic Search Executive of The Media Image in London, England.

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active learning
Educational TrendsGood Teaching

Making Your Classroom an Active Learning Environment

by Guest Blogger
written by Guest Blogger

According to Nobel Laureate Carl Wieman, educators fail when they focus too much on lectures and don’t measure the quality of teaching. His solution to this problem is to incorporate active learning methods to improve education slowly.

In one of his case studies, Wieman let students attend lectures and then gave them a pop quiz right at the start of the next class. Student performance was abysmal. A few weeks later, the results deteriorated further.  The students only retained a minimal amount of what was taught during the lectures.

The solution to this problem means a radical change to the traditional methods of teaching. If you are planning to up the ante when it comes to teaching this next year, here are some of the essentials that you should consider to move away from lectures and incorporate active learning in your classroom.

Active Learning Methods to Replace Long Lectures

Active learning is a teaching approach that has a student-centric mindset. In this approach, the teacher wants the students to take something that interests them and probe into it.

  • One of the most effective active learning methods is to divide a problem into sub-problems and assign it to several small groups within a class. Occasionally, the teacher should bring the main group back together and also guide them in the right direction.
  • Another active learning method is the One-Minute Paper or The Muddiest Point Paper in which the students are given the opportunity to write down the most important points from the day’s session or the least-clear point (muddiest). The responses can be later addressed in the next class or through online groups.
  • A very popular active learning method is brainstorming. Students are encouraged to generate ideas on a certain topic or a particular category. The ideas they pitch are written on a blackboard and all of the ideas, however improbable they may seem, must be noted.

Active learning is not just about handing over responsibilities to the student. It involves a great deal of effort from the teacher’s side as well. The teacher must not only know the content, but also know how to create interactive experiments and challenging scenarios.

Building a Dynamic Study Environment through Gadgets

Laptops are not the biggest source of distraction in a class. Boredom and irrelevance are. Good teaching can benefit from well-placed tech when it is used to promote active learning. Students tend to stay attentive to topics that grab their attention. Exercising their curiosity has an impact beyond the classroom itself.

  • Most existing classrooms have a specific set of hardware that the students and teachers are expected to comply with. This creates a lot of cable clutter, confusion, and difficulty for maintenance. But incorporating a device like Airtame into the classroom removes the necessity for cables when it comes to presentations and seminars and eases the maintenance overhead on IT admins. It also opens up the entire classrooms to learn collaboratively by allowing every student and teacher to mirror the contents from their device to the monitor independently.
  • Students nowadays don’t just want to learn about something, but they want to feel the context. This is where some of the most popular gadgets and technologies come into play. Virtual reality headsets can prove to be a boon for teachers as they allow students to virtually experience what is being taught. Whether it is learning about the solar system, different parts of a car, or historical monuments, these headsets can elevate the learning experience to a whole new level.

Hands-on Learning Is Crucial

Knowing concepts, but failing to understand where to use them, renders the knowledge useless. This is a very relevant statement in today’s world. Students are often only taught the high-level outline of concepts. They aren’t always encouraged to move deeper into the subject.

Hands-on learning through robotics, 3D printers, and more are proven to be better for the students in terms of retention capacity, problem-solving capability, and better engagement. What technology or strategies are you planning to implement next semester to bring more active learning into the classroom? There’s no time like the present to start planning for how to transform your teaching next fall.

This is a sponsored blog by  Luke Richardson. Luke is the Brand Director at Airtame. He’s motivated by the advancements in ed tech, and he’s an advocate for student-centered learning.

 

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Panoform
STEM/STEAM

Wallpaper Your 3D Virtual Reality Room

by Miguel Guhlin
written by Miguel Guhlin

Earlier in 2018, I had the opportunity to take colored pencils, colored markers, and crayola crayons to the Region 4 Digital Learning Conference. What fun it was to show off a tool that Dr. Bruce Ellis had introduced me to. Panoform turns any student (or adult) into a 3D virtual reality designer. In this blog entry, we’ll explore it. All you need are crayons and paper with grids on it.

Introducing Panoform

Able to work with any device (it’s a website), Panoform empowers you to draw/color a design on paper with grids on it. Your design, when placed online, is transformed into a 3D virtual reality space. You can even place 3D-friendly photos/images in it to simulate the 3D effect. Teachers can also create their own Panoform channel. For example, view or share your creations in tcea3D.panoform.com.

Panoform Example

Take a look at how this picture of the life cycle of a frog is transformed from a paper drawing to a 3D virtual reality space:

Simple paper design created by Alan, a DLC session participant

The drawing is converted into a virtual room that students can explore:

What may be not be evident is that images appear on 3D virtual reality walls

Before we review how to accomplish this magic with crayons and the Panoform website, let’s see how some of the teachers in my workshop session responded.

Classroom Applications

A wide range of educators reached for crayons, colored pencils, or colored markers to begin drawing on grid paper. I took a moment to interview them for a short voxercast. Here is what each had to say, approaching Panoform’s use in the classroom from their content area perspective.

  • Math: “I could use Panoform in the classroom to coordinate grid practice in math. Explore cartoon illustrations of process cycles, such as the states of matter and water cycles in science,” said Teresa (Eagle Springs ES, Humble ISD) at the Region 4 Digital Learning Conference.
  • Science: “You can use Panoform to help students visualize a plant cell in 3D,” says Ashley Cleaver (Aldine ISD).
  • Language Arts: “Use Panoform to teach sequencing. Students can make the drawing, then write about it. Other students can see it and learn how sequencing works,” said Alan. (See Life Cycle of a Frog above.)
  • Art: “This could help students experience their art in a new way,” said Grace.
  • Cross-Curricular: “This can be incorporated into any class,” said Brenda Quintanilla.
  • Video-game Design: “I can see students using this in my video game design class to setup the frames. Instead of storyboarding on paper, they can tell the story,” Denise.

No matter what the grade level, Panoform can be used. One second grade teacher said, “My second graders study peacemakers. They could draw their favorite peacemaker on one side and draw favorite attributes on the other.” While the teacher spoke of “one side” and the other, Panoform takes those sides, making them into 3D virtual reality walls.

How Panoform Works

The process takes longer to explain than it does to put in action. Here’s the process:

  1. Save a grid you can use to your computer.
  2. Print it out on regular sized paper.
  3. Draw/Color your design.
  4. Take a picture of your design.
  5. Go to the Panaform Tool website.
  6. Upload/Put the picture of your design online.
  7. View Your Picture on the Panaform website via a Google Cardboard headset to get the VR view.

This process works whether you are on a Chromebook, Windows/Mac computer, Android, or iOS device.

Wallpaper Your 3D Virtual Reality Room

Ready to see this process in action? Visit the Intro to Panoform website created for sharing. It features videos that walk you through the process and instructions, as well as a place you can share academic pictures.

 

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