VR's Place in Education

The Google Expeditions app provides a vertical reality (VR) experience using a simple device such as a phone. The app can be used with or without internet and is suggested as a technology tool to engage student learning.

The part of Google Expeditions that I liked was the interactive movement of the images. Being able to move the screen 360 degrees made me feel like I was in the experience. I also liked the simplicity of each scene. Each scene had one central focus with 3 – 4 informational tidbits. This simple format provided enough information to be intriguing, but not so much information that it it was overwhelming. I also liked the suggested questions linked to each scene that ranged from beginner to advanced.

When using the app, I did face some challenges. I was not able to get the sound to turn on this round and I did not have access to the cardboard viewers, so I was not able to fully experience the capacity of the app.

To pull this off with my student, I would need to order in cardboard viewers and ensure I had enough devices for each student. We could also use the google expedition on iPads and lap tops, but I think the best experience would come through being fully emerges in the VR experience using the cardboard viewers. I would also need to ensure that my learning goals clearly outlined and linked the VR experience.

I would use Google Expeditions with my students. I feel the app provides an engaging hands-on way to learn about our world. I think experiencing various places through a VR experience would provide a meaningful learning moment that students would remember. As long as it was well thought out, the VR experience can support multiple learners such as kinaesthetic, visual, and auditorial.

If you want to know more, a Google’s presentation on the use of Google Expedition highlights the use of VR in schools as well as the apps strengths and areas to develop..

As educators we will need to keep asking how we can enhance our learning environments. As Dewey said to fully know something we must do it. Google Expeditions, VR seems to have the potential to provide this doing or lived experience in places we cannot get to (E.g., Jupiter). This experiential way of learning might just be the next step towards making education more relevant and effective. Bailey & Bailenson* (2017) highlight how VR has the potential to benefit children’s education because people respond to VR content as if it were real, but that we need further research on exactly how effective VR is in schools.

*Bailey, J. O., & Bailenson, J. N. (2017). Considering virtual reality in children’s lives. Journal of

Children and Media, 11(1), 107–113. http://doi.org/10.1080/17482798.2016.1268779