Thing 13: Augmented & Virtual Reality

I knew what virtual reality was before I started this Thing but did not know what Augmented Reality was.  My daughter was obsessed with Pokemon Go for a while as was the entire population under 30 from what I could tell. My bf and I went to Niagara on the Lake in Canada and were outside a restaurant waiting for our table when we noticed that dozens of people were walking around looking at their phones.  At first it didn't occur to me what they were doing because the craze had died down in Rochester but then it hit me.  They were all playing Pokemon Go.  It was hilarious.  There were literally dozens of young people, adult-ish young people.  I installed it on my phone during the height of the phase but couldn't figure out how to do it although, admittedly, I gave up quickly.

I listened to the 10 Minute Teacher Podcast and was laughing when the guy said that all you need are some old devices and Google Cardboard to use Virtual Reality in the classroom.  Correct me if I'm wrong but don't the "old devices" have to have internet so they can access the videos to watch through the Google Cardboard?  In my school, 7th and 8th graders have to check their phones at the door and don't get them back until they leave school.  K-6 students are supposed to leave them in their lockers if they have them.  I know most people have their own cell phones at a very young age but access to a personal device varies by age and finances from family to family. Also saying that Google Cardboard is cheap at $10 each does not take into account that $10 has to be multiplied by the number of students that you have.  But for the sake of this blog, I will pretend that all of my students have their own phones, with service, and that I can purchase a Google Cardboard for every one of these fictional students.  In reality, I usually can't reach parents because their service is turned off.

I would love to be able to teach using Virtual Reality.  Nothing would be more immersive that being able to have all of my students be able to walk around the pyramids or climb Mt. Everest.  I really don't have to be convinced that this would be an extremely valuable teaching tool but it's not going to happen in my teaching career, not in my district.  I am sure that in suburban districts they are already doing this.

10 Reasons to Use Virtual Reality in the Classroom:

"an artificial reality can be designed to enable experiential learning, scenario-based learning, social learning, workplace training, and more. Virtual reality can be used for pure entertainment–digital toys, video games, or to swim with whales.”

I think this quote says it all.  Using virtual reality would be incredibly immersive teaching tool.  

I like the graphic by Sylvia Duckworth and am very jealous of the last name "Duckworth"! What a hoot it would be to have that last name! Almost as good as Quackenbush! 

I never thought of teaching children empathy by using virtual reality.  I was also very interested in the list of books provided to teach empathy, something many of my students seem to struggle with.  Looking at the list I found that I have either read or have in my collection, most of the books. I bookmarked the article to add the ones I don't have to my collection. I found it interesting how many of them are part of the Common Core Curriculum, such as Inside Out & Back Again and Long Walk to Water.   The problem is that although children will empathize with characters (Wonder) they still bully each other and do not see it as they same thing they were horrified with in stories.  What confuses me the most is when one historically oppressed group cannot or will not empathize with another oppressed group. 

I also didn't think of using virtual reality for experiencing different careers.  Stepping into the shoes of a factory worker, an accountant, a collection agent, a garbage collector.  The possibilities are endless.  

Exploring the bottom of the ocean or the vastness of space are what I think of when I think of virtual reality.  But what about being one of the people who sat down at the "whites only" lunch counter in a southern restaurant during the civil rights movement?  Talk about teaching empathy! What about walking around the slave quarters on a plantation in the early 1800's? So cool.  I did not know that virtual reality experiences could be created by students.  I would love to see what goes into the creation.  I have seen what can be done in Minecraft.  My daughter created an entire town based on the suburb that we live in, with an exact replica of our town hall.  Her town included her house that she designed with all the comforts that she could possibly imagine.  


The ‘Minecraft Effect’? Educators Hope to Move Students From VR Consumption to Creation

Panoform sounds really cool.  I know some students who would take their time and make awesome drawings.  I'm going to share this with the good art teacher in my school.  We have one full time art teacher who has been there for years and is burnt out and doesn't teach.  He puts the kids on computers and calls it "graphic art".  Then we have a half time art teacher that we share with another school.  This person changes every year because they find a full time school and move on.  The part time art teacher is always known as the "good" one.  This year's is especially good and I have become friends with her.  She will love this.  In case you don't know what Panoform is: you download a grid paper and draw a picture on it, color it, take a picture of it with your phone, then look at it using a Google Cardboard.  It becomes a 3D image! The examples shown on the site are really cool.  Of course you can also search for Panoform images and find some really nice ones that other people have done.  Such as these: 
Image result for panoform imagesImage result for panoform images


I had to laugh at what the article said about SecondLife and how educators were so excited about using it in an educational setting.  I remember trying SecondLife because it was supposed to be a new and exciting educational tool....I never got the attraction or the purpose.  I can't help but think of a fat lady with chin hair who has an avatar that wears leather and whips men who pay her on SecondLife.  I think there was a Law & Order about something like that. Did people really pay money for virtual sex?  Hard to believe but I guess it was a thing.  Does it even still exist?  I had a login at one time.  I hope my avatar isn't up to no good behind my back.  

I don't think VR will go the way of SecondLife.  I don't know why there's so much concern about students creating their own when there's so many educational possibilities with virtual field trips and historical fiction.  I guess it would be great to have students create their own VR but it seems more educational to be able to go somewhere that they most likely will never get to go in real life.  

Major institutions invested real money in this vision. In 2006 it seemed like every big company was setting up a storefront in Second Life, and many colleges and universities invested tens of thousands of dollars building virtual campuses in this alternative digital reality." Remember SecondLife? Are you kidding me?  Tens of thousands of dollars?! I just don't get it.  

This was a great article.  You can tell I got a lot out of it since I wrote an entire book about it here.  Let's move on!

Well not quite moving on.  I'm still reading the article called Remember SecondLife and this part blew my mind, the author wrote...
"In 2010 I wrote an article for The Chronicle pointing out that some colleges were moving away from Second Life, arguing that the virtual world hadn’t lived up to the hype. I got more hate mail for that article than for anything else I’d ever done. And in one of the strangest moments of my journalism career, I was invited to discuss that article in a forum within Second Life called Virtual Worlds Education Roundtable."Remember SecondLife? By Jeffrey R. Young

That's hilarious. If you haven't read this article, it's really good.  The author goes on to describe the discussion forum that he was invited to.  There were virtual bouncers in case someone tried to vandalize his avatar! I love it.

5 Augmented and Virtual Reality Creation Tools for Students 

by Brian and Jennifer Cauthers.

I am starting to see the value in students creating their own AR and VR especially as a way to learn programming.  I think some students would really embrace creating their own. Probably the ones drawn to this will be the ones who enjoy building in Minecraft or Sims.  Personally I have not been entertained by either of these types of creations.  My children (who are not children anymore) really enjoy these "games".  I mentioned earlier that my daughter has created a whole town in Minecraft.  She will also spend hours on a game that I think is called Farm Life where she has to feed animals and plow fields and get a husband.  She will yell at me if I don't pay attention to her virtual worlds.  She is 23 and an Electrical Engineer but she will still spend hours creating her farm.  Students like me will most likely be drawn to virtual field trips rather than creating their own AR or VR.

"Cospaces...a creative outlet for storytelling, imagery, step by step processes and even virtual galleries or tours." This sounds like a perfect fit for libraries.  I love anything that will encourage students to retell stories or create their own.

   Tour Creator is a way for students and teachers to create their own Google Expedition.  Apparently it allows users to obtain 360 imagines from street view on Google maps...can I really picture what this means? No, but I'd like to learn more about it.  It sounds like it would be fascinating to be able to grab an image from your own neighborhood and include it in your expedition.  Kids love to see their houses from street view on Google maps.  Being able to incorporate that image into their own creation would definitely keep them invested in a project.  

Thinglink sounds very complicated and above my head at this point in my VR education.  I think I would start with Tour Creator before trying something this intense.  The advantage here is that users have the ability to create popups at specific times on a 360 video.  

"Metaverse allows users to program an AR experience in a web-based interface that is easy to use and highly customizable. Creators can add images, interactive questions, animated objects, sound and more to engage the user." The example shows an elephant with various facts popping up.  This is supposed to be easy to learn, which is my favorite.  The disadvantage is that it is only for mobile devices so we are back to students all having and responsibly using their phones.  

Quivervision sounds like creating your own Snapchat filter.  The user prints out a coloring sheet masks and can then use it to make the mask come to life on their own face using the self facing feature on a smartphone.  Very cool.  I may be almost 58 years old but I can still waste a lot of time playing with filters on Snapchat.  

The last one in this article is not included in the top 5 because it has limited usability since it is only available for iOS on iPhones with an AR kit.  I had to mention it because it's made for math! I love math and tried to major in it during my undergrad but I only made it as far as Calc 2.  My daughter took it the rest of the way and became an engineer.   "Geogebra has a library of pre-selected images for users to explore, along with questions to engage." You can graph two equations simultaneously and see how they intersect. How cool is that!? Another example they gave is to explore a spiral staircase and look at it from every angle! I might have to find this one.  I am wondering what the "AR kit" is that you have to have on your iPhone.  I installed this on my iPhone and it is very cool but also very confusing.  I was able to look at the spiral staircase which you can turn and look at from different angles but I was having trouble seeing it from the top or the bottom.  The graphing feature is really neat, I am going to try to include one of the images here:

I don't exactly know what this graph means but it's pretty cool.  I can't wait to show the math teacher at my school.  

Story Spheres - OMG! I'm looking at the Eiffel Tower and all that surrounds it! These are incredible! I think I found my favorite thing on this "Thing".  When you go to the site, there are a bunch of example pictures that look really distorted.  They are 360 pictures that are not in 360 until you click on them.  Then you can see all around Yosemite National Park and hear the sounds that you would hear if you were there.  This tool allows you to upload a 360 image then embed sounds or audio in multiple places around it.  They can be background audio or triggered hot spots.  Then you can embed the image on your own website so people can interact with it.  I just looked up how to take a 360 photo and it says you can use your phone to take a panoramic view or you can use a 360 camera.  I'm going to have to try this but my living room won't make a very good picture.  Especially before I clean it.  It doesn't say on the site that you can use a panoramic picture so I'm not sure if that will work.  360 camera's are about $200 on Amazon.  If I were going somewhere exciting, I might invest in one.  I wish I had given my daughter one before she went to Japan.  I am going to Mexico in August so maybe I'll ask for one for my birthday :-)

I could see students using a 360 camera to tell stories with this tool.  They would love it.  They could take a picture in front of where they live and then add audio to explain what the picture shows.

Talk about teaching empathy! I just spent 10 minutes viewing what it is like to be a refugee fleeing war.  There were 5 different pictures of various parts of the route that 1000's of people are taking.  Each of five 360 views had several audio narrations explaining what you are seeing.  Each picture leads you to the next part of the process.  It is truly incredible.  The pictures are called "In the footsteps of a Royhingya refugee".  This is so powerful.  I am going to do some research on these refugees and show my students what these people have to go through just to stay alive.  They left their homes to walk for 7 days only to arrive in a tent city made of bamboo poles and plastic tarps.  The children play in the mud along side streams of human waste.  The smell must be overpowering.  Yet they have no choice if they want to keep their families alive. 

Well, I have spent a lot of time exploring this "Thing".  I have learned a ton and am very excited to try some of these tools for myself.  I am also excited to get my 360 camera to bring to Mexico so I can upload it to Story Sphere.  Now I just have to get my kids to buy me one.  We are leaving the day after my birthday! Woo hoo!

Thank you for another wonderful year of Cool Tools.  I like the new format because it kept me from leaving everything to do until the end.  Having 2 months to complete the modules was so much better than having to feel guilty for the whole year! I am the queen of procrastination so this worked very well for me.  See you next year! I'm looking forward to learning more. 

Comments

  1. Lol! Deadlines! I know just what you mean about the stress of guilt all year long. Glad those deadlines helped. And.... so much cool stuff about VR in your post! The 360 stuff isn't too hard to do yourself. I installed the Google Street View app on my android phone and it's just a simple tap on the camera button in the app to get into the mode for creating a 360 photo sphere. It takes a few minutes and a bit of patience, but you do end up with a great photosphere in the end. Here's an example of one I did that actually came out ok: https://goo.gl/maps/z9C2NbVMPgLcW4EWA

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  2. p.s. got a good laugh about the Second Life stuff. I was never able to get into it either, I really did try to see a use for it, but just never clicked with me either. I did play Pokemon Go for a while, it was a good bit of fun, but again, never really got into it. Though I think it did a lot to make people aware of augmented reality ideas.

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