If you’ve considered using virtual reality in your course but are daunted by the tech required, there is a simple version that requires nothing more than a smartphone and free online apps. Three-hundred-sixty-degree panorama images, the kind made famous by Google Street View, can
Many institutions are experimenting with virtual reality (VR) to provide students with simulations that apply their theoretical learning to practice. We developed a VR experience, adapted from Joyner and Allen’s (2015) case study “Farming in Space? Developing a Sustainable Food Supply on Mars” and inspired
Nearly everyone has heard of virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR), and while these terms tend to be used in different ways, all involve creating a digital world. In VR, the user enters a wholly digital world, as in Second Life or World of
Virtual reality (VR) has evolved from a technology of the future into a practical educational tool for students to interact with the world in ways previously not possible. Many K–12 and college courses use free, off-the-shelf VR apps, such as Google Expeditions and Google Earth
Long ago I learned that the best way to tour a city is by bike. A car isolates a tourist from a city, while a bike immerses them in it. A car is a means of racing from tourist destination to tourist destination in as
There is a wide range of apps offering free virtual reality content for educators that can be viewed with a $10 Google Cardboard Viewer, including Google Expeditions, 360 Videos on YouTube, New York Times VR, and others. Take a look at Virtual Real for Education
Last month we covered the many uses of virtual reality in education. This month we look at how educators are using augmented and mixed reality. While virtual reality gives the user the experience of being in some other location, such as a museum, scientific expedition,
The terms “virtual,” “augmented,” and “mixed” reality have been thrown around a lot lately in education, leaving many instructors understandably perplexed over their different meanings. Worse yet, discussions of these concepts often fail to adequately disconnect them from their gaming origin, making one wonder whether
Interest in virtual reality (VR) has exploded over the past year, with news agencies, sports teams, and gaming companies creating VR content. But its adoption in education has been hampered by confusion between two different meanings of the term. When VR first emerged a number
This past November, all subscribers to The New York Times received a Google Cardboard Virtual Reality Viewer in the mail. Puzzled looks quickly turned to awe as recipients took 3-D virtual reality tours of a variety of locations through the viewers and their cell phones.
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If you’ve considered using virtual reality in your course but are daunted by the tech required, there is a simple version that requires nothing more than a smartphone and free online apps. Three-hundred-sixty-degree panorama images, the kind made famous by Google Street View, can be shot on any smartphone, and when accompanied by audio, they provide a reasonable facsimile to virtual reality. Plus, multiple websites will bundle the images and audio into a story that leads the viewer through an exploration of a place.
The result is that instructors have started giving students 360-degree tour projects that illustrate what they have learned by teaching others. Students can use their smartphones and a website to demonstrate how principles from a class apply to their environment. Creating these multimedia tours requires students to think from the viewer’s perspective by choosing what is relevant and communicating that in a way that is engaging and easy to understand. Here is an overview of how to create these tours for course content and student assignments in your classes.
There are three basic steps to creating a 360-degree tour:
Any smartphone can shoot a 360-degree image, though the app used will depend on the phone and operating system. All apps work in essentially the same way: the user starts the shoot and then rotates around their location as directed by the app through arrows or buttons that appear in the viewfinder to take a series of still photos that the app stitches together into a single panorama. Nearly all smartphones built in the past five years include a panorama mode as part of the camera. There are also apps available in both the Play Store and App Store. Panorama 360 is a popular option. Note that many smartphones and apps have both a Panorama and 360 Panorama mode for their camera. The 360 Panorama mode is the one you want to use as it shoots in the 2:1 aspect ratio needed for the image. The other mode shoots a wider image, which will cause the photos to be unnaturally compressed when viewed on the hosting platform.
Students can be assigned to shoot either one panorama with multiple narrations attached to it as hotspots or multiple panoramas each with a single accompanying narration. This is a good opportunity to guide students in developing their use of vocal inflection, pacing, and word choice to draw the listener in—an increasingly useful but rarely taught skill. Most people sound robotic when first recording their voice, so instructors should give students feedback on how to improve their narration in both content and tone and require them to rerecord to see the improvements. A good resource for teaching narration is the NPR guide “How Audio Stories Begin.” I also direct students to a sample NPR podcast to show how to create interest through wording and tone.
As for the technology, Audacity is an excellent free program for recording and editing audio, though it does require a little training on audio editing. A simpler way to record audio that you do not plan to edit is with Vocaroo, a free website that allows users to record and download audio in one click. Students can use it to record short audio segments for their project; they can then save these to their computer along with their images.
The last step is to upload both images and narration to a hosting site and combine them into a story. Here are some of the best hosting sites to use:
Three-hundred-sixty-degree tour projects provide a way to teach students multimedia communication skills for today’s media environment while also allowing them to exercise their creativity and ground their learning in the real world.
