Virtual Reality Tours for History Teachers

-

Virtual Reality Field Trips


As a history teacher in the making, new ideas flow through my head every single day. During my Educational Technology class, we took a tour through virtual reality. Here, we got to see the ocean floor, inside the human body, and even on a ship during World War II! I thought this was amazing. Walking out of that classroom, my mind was racing with different ideas on how to implement this into the classroom. 

It is very unlikely that a first year history teacher can take a group of high school students to Rome to visit the Colosseum, or maybe to Washington D.C. to tour the top federal government buildings. Unfortunately there isn't enough time and money for the students to experience that on a daily basis. However, with the new technology of virtual reality, students can have a virtual tour of almost any place around the world. They can tour the White House, the Taj Mahal, and even places throughout history like the beaches of Normandy France. The Virtual reality does not have to be an expensive peace of equipment. Google has come out with something called Google Cardboard which allows students to transform their cell phone into their own piece of Virtual Reality Equipment!. 

This link will take you to a site that further explains google cardboard and what features it has. https://vr.google.com/cardboard/

Google-Cardboard.jpg




Here is an example of what a Google Cardboard looks like.













This video is a Ted Talk by Tony Ford in which he discusses how virtual reality can be the next new wave for students to learn history. It can not only make them learn but it can also make them experience it as it happened. If you can not access this video, follow the link at TEDxTalks, and Tony Ford. “Transforming History Education through Virtual Reality | Tony Ford | TEDxTucson.” YouTube, YouTube, 6 Mar. 2017, www.youtube.com/watch?v=ea08yn4emPg. 



With the progression of virtual reality in the previous 5 years, I can only imagine what it will be like while I am teaching. One thing that I hope to see as a history teachers is for students to be able to take virtual tours to different events throuhgout history. It would almost be like they are time traveling. With this, students will be able to enhance their learning, have fun, and make memorable experiences with history.


The image was taken from Wikipedia. Citation for the picture is: "File:Google-Cardboard.jpg." Wikimedia Commons, the free media repository. 12 Jan 2017, 20:54 UTC. 18 Apr 2018, 20:28 <https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=File:Google-Cardboard.jpg&oldid=229517042>.

The Ted Talk citation is:
 TEDxTalks, and Tony Ford. “Transforming History Education through Virtual Reality | Tony Ford | TEDxTucson.” YouTube, YouTube, 6 Mar. 2017, www.youtube.com/watch?v=ea08yn4emPg.










Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

PLN Expansion INSTTECH 1020-01

-
Image
Personal Learning Network (PLN) On the first day of my Education Technology class, the teacher instructed us to all get out a piece of paper and create a diagram that illustrates how we learn. We were told to brainstorm and think about all of the different types of media, technology, and other tools we used to learn, share information, and make connections with the outside world. After brainstorming for a little while, this is what I came up with. Pre-Map of my PLN  Made on January 17th, 2018 As you can see, the ways I learned were the stereotypical ways most people learn and explore new information. I learned mostly from my parents, teachers, and google. While I was able to share and or experience the outside world though twitter, Facebook, and podcasts. While the tools I listed on my PLN here have endless roads to information, as I went through the semester, I was able to expand my PLN to find so many more useful resources I either didn't know existed or neglected...
Read more

Learning Other Cultures Through Video Chat Technology

-
Image
Video Technology      Wouldn't that be awesome to learn about another culture from people of that culture. Teachers are always looking for new ways to make their lesson plans more memorable for their students. As a future educator, I was thinking about how I could make learning history more interesting. One thing I had in mind is learning about another state or country's history from their point of view. The best way to do this is having students from one culture teach the other students from another culture about their own culture. How cool would it be, as a teacher, to watch your students teach others about their country's history. One way I think this could be made possible is through the use of video chatting. Through an application like Google hangout, Skype, or even Facebook messenger this could be done. The first step would be making a connection with someone in a different state, country, or even a different continent. Once you have a connection with another te...
Read more