Well before Pokémon GO got millions off of the sofa and out in “The Real World” searching for virtual characters, teachers were using virtual and augmented reality to transform their instruction, to bring the world into their classrooms for students to experience and interact with. Here are a few resources to help you get going using this technology in your instruction:
- Our Media Specialist, Chris Haught, has a great page on her blog on Virtual Field Trips
- Google Cardboard is a DIY kit to build your own VR viewer using your mobile device. You can search the app store for virtual reality and find apps to use to look at constellations, foreign countries and more.
- View-Master has a viewer that is quite a bit more sturdy for not much added cost. There are extra apps and experience packs or ‘reels’ you can get to take your students on an array of virtual expeditions.
- You and your students can use the Google Cardboard viewers with the Google Street View app (iOS and Android) to view any location in Google Maps that have been photographed. With the app, you can even create your own 360˚ photo spheres on your phone with the app, without purchasing expensive camera gear!
- If you want to take photosphere creation to the next level, you can use Story Spheres to add audio and other information within a sphere, as well as connect one photo sphere to another.
- Aurasma helps people use augmented reality (AR) to turn everyday objects, images, and places into new, interactive opportunities to engage with their fans and customers through striking graphics, animation, video, audio, and 3D content. Use the app on iOS or Android to begin viewing the world through this ‘enhanced’ version of their world.
- For Chemistry, or really for anyone curious about how the natural world works, the Elements 4D app is mind-blowing. Using real ‘cubes’ that you can print and build, you can combine different elements by just putting the blocks next to each other in the augmented ‘space’ through the camera on your device. If the elements react, you’ll see the actual product along with the balanced chemical equation. There is a growing list of lesson plans for elementary, middle school, or high school (all in PDF).
