Happy New Year everyone! Seems hard to believe that I have started my journey with this blog three years ago. This blog has been one of those places that I have been able to reflect on things that have been accomplished in my school as well as share some of my favorite tips and tricks. My only hope is that I have more time to share more of my thoughts throughout this year.
One blog post that I have been meaning to write about for a couple of months now is how teachers at Bedford High School are implementing virtual and augmented reality in the classroom, beyond using Google Expeditions. This has been done through the use of station work. Mrs. Pingree & Mrs. Nardion (science), Mr. Guerard (Wellness) and Mrs. Sarsfield & Mrs. Orrego & Ms. Close (Spanish II) have all followed this type of model. One specific example that I want to share is what Mrs. Pingree and Mr. Guerard did.
Exploring the Heart
Heart Example 1:
Mrs. Pingree teaches a Sports, Health & Exercise science elective course. She wanted to explore the heart using virtual and augmented reality. We found a Google Expedition that gave students a different perspective of the heart and pointed out specific parts. After about 10 minutes of conversation and facts through the expedition app, students were directed to walk through 3 different stations to continue the exploration.
We had found two different YouTube videos that allowed for students to view in a VR headset. (I wrote a previous blog post indicating how you can tell if a video on YouTube will actually behave as a true 360 video – Click HERE.)
The last station dealt with augmented reality. We had purchased two t-shirts (Virtuali-Tee from Curiscope, a company from over the pond), that allowed for augmentation of a body. By using their app and scanning the shirt with the mobile device, students were able to take a augmented look into the body. Students seemed to enjoy this aspect.
Heart Example 2:
Mr. Guerard teaches Wellness 1, a freshmen course. When the heart unit came up, he knew he wanted to change up his curriculum and do something ‘new and fresh’ with his students. So we actually took what Mrs. Pingree did and took it to a different level based on what he needed to cover. Below was completed in one block period and was given on the first day of the unit to help introduce the concept.
Mr. Guerard started off with the same idea. He wanted to lead an expedition of the heart but only had students explore around with the first scene. Then in 10 minute intervals, groups rotated through 4 stations.
Station 1: Virtual & Augmented Reality
- This was an exploration station.
- Students explored around with two YouTube videos relating to the heart that were shared above.
- Students also explored around with augmented reality and the t-shirt from Virtuali-Tee.
- In groups, students watched a video about the heart from Crash Course
- We provided audio splitters so that only one chromebook had to be used to help with conserving our bandwith.
- Students completed notes on a sheet as they watched.
- Students had to test their heart rate and figure out what their numbers are for best work out conditions.
- Students either used their chromebook or their phone to help with calculations
- Each student received a word search with the vocabulary words for the heart unit
- Teacher used flippity.net to create the word search. This was new to me as I didn’t know that flippity had created a word search script through Google Sheets.
Craig M Sheil 