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Using VR to Bring the World to Your Classroom

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USING VR TO BRING THE WORLD TO YOUR CLASSROOM

From deep-space exploration to a deep dive into the

signing of the Declaration of Independence, virtual

reality field trips are gaining traction in K-12 schools.

Augmented by detailed lesson plans aligned with

learning objectives, VR trips offer an immersive

experience that actively engages students and gives

them more control of their learning.

Using VR to Bring the World to Your Classroom

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USING VR TO BRING THE WORLD TO YOUR CLASSROOM

It is a common sight in Paris: A teacher leadings a gaggle of American students through Notre Dame,

stopping to point out architectural details. Occasionally, she asks them a question in French about the

building's history. Once atop the cathedral towers, though, she simply lets the students drink in the

magnificent views of the City of Light.

It sounds like an expensive study-abroad program, but these particular students aren't even in Paris. In

fact, they never left the classroom. The images of Notre Dame—so realistic that some students reach out

to try to touch a gargoyle—are part of a virtual-reality field trip that students experience through

inexpensive hand-held viewers.

Years after virtual reality became a commonplace training tool in medical and military environments, VR is

finally making inroads in K-12 education, as teachers pivot away from the talking-head instructional

approach. "Lecturing at the podium is not the way to teach Social Studies," said Geraldine Stevens,

Product Marketing Director for K-12 Social Studies at Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, which has launched 73

virtual HMH Field Trips to support its World Languages, Science, and Social Studies programs, with plans

to release additional trips covering World History and World Geography in 2018. "It's about making

connections, seeing patterns, and using an inquiry-based approach to study new content. The virtual

HMH Field Trips really allow teachers and students to do this in new ways that didn't exist five years ago."

“It’s about making connections, seeing

patterns, and using an inquiry-based

approach to study new content. The

virtual HMH Field Trips really allow

teachers and students to do this in new

ways that didn't exist five years ago.”

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USING VR TO BRING THE WORLD TO YOUR CLASSROOM

The platform for most of these virtual excursions is Google Expeditions, a growing repository of more than

500 free trips developed in partnership with an array of organizations, including HMH, NASA, the

National Park Service, and the American Museum of Natural History. Students experience the expeditions

through inexpensive headsets—cardboard or plastic—that hold a smartphone loaded with the free

Google VR app. Teachers use a tablet to lead

the trips and monitor where students are

within the VR environment (see "How Virtual

Field Trips Work," on page 8).

Active EngagementThe trip possibilities are enormous, giving

teachers a chance to take their students to

the furthest corners of the earth, back in time,

through the human body, or on a mission to

Jupiter. While most virtual reality trips cover

subjects where traditional videos are readily

available, there's one key difference: Watching videos is entirely passive, whereas virtual field trips involve

active participation. "The VR experience gives more agency to learners, because they can decide where

they want to explore," said Dr. David Dockterman, Lecturer on Education in the Technology, Innovation,

and Education Program at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. "VR gives you a level of agency and

ownership that other technologies do not allow. We want to build the capacity for kids to become

stronger, more independent learners."

By turning their heads or looking up or down, students can explore the virtual environment around them

and focus on the elements that interest them most. "It really is all driven by student curiosity," said Heidi

Bernasconi, a teacher at Clarkstown High School North in New York state, who uses Google Expeditions

in her biology, marine biology, and business classes. "Whenever you pique students' curiosity, they're

going to learn better. They ask so many more questions."

Bernasconi recalled her experience with a ninth-grade cohort that was struggling in her Living

Environment class. She had created a lesson plan around the development of the fetus to accompany a VR

field trip on pregnancy. "I thought we'd all focus on the fetus, but my students were looking at everything

else and asking, 'What's that?'" she said. "It's a powerful question that kids don't ask enough. It was

amazing. You just don't get that emotional connection with a two-dimensional picture."

“Whenever you pique students’

curiosity, they're going to learn better.

They ask so many more questions.”

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USING VR TO BRING THE WORLD TO YOUR CLASSROOM

Stevens believes that much of this connection stems from VR's immersive nature. "When students wear

the goggles, they are literally right there on the streets of Mexico City or Paris," she said. "Virtual reality

immerses students in a way that a video screen across the room simply cannot do."

It's a message echoed by Bernasconi, who's had a student literally scream when she turned and came

face to face with a gorilla. "With VR, there are literally no distractions: There's nothing to write down,

you're not looking at what anyone else is doing," she said. "It's just you in this world."

Curriculum IntegrationWhile there's little doubt that VR field trips have the power to excite students, veteran educators also

recognize that cool technology is of limited value unless the experiences translate into actual learning. "VR

definitely has the wow factor, but that doesn't mean it's going to work," said Dockterman. "Kids will get over

the coolness of it, just as we all got over the coolness of movies once. Its real value lies in how you use it, how

you integrate it into a more intentional kind of learning experience. You don't take away the autonomy, but

you need a plan for leveraging those student-driven experiences if they're really going to matter."

“The HMH Teacher Guides take what could be bell ringers

or fun concluding class activities and expand them into

true 45-minute lessons or even two-day lessons.”

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USING VR TO BRING THE WORLD TO YOUR CLASSROOM

Bernasconi couldn't agree more. After some early missteps, she now creates lesson plans to accompany

all the Google Expeditions trips she uses in her classes. In her experience, it's a big mistake to let students

loose with the viewers without any scaffolding. "A teacher can use Expeditions horribly if they put their

kids in these viewfinders for 45 minutes: Kids get dizzy and they won't learn anything," she said. "There

have to be breaks, there have to be other activities, and there has to be conversation that's student-

driven. A teacher guide gives you that: What should students know before you go to this image? What

should you be doing after you look at this image? If your kids aren't asking questions, what are some

questions that you can ask?"

The need for lesson guides to accompany these field trips is well understood by publishers, too. HMH, for

example, provides detailed HMH Teacher Guides to support each of its virtual HMH Field Trips, and the

HMH Teacher Guides are, in turn, tightly integrated with the corresponding HMH programs.

"The HMH Teacher Guides take what could be bell ringers or fun concluding class activities and expand

them into true 45-minute lessons or even two-day lessons," said Stevens. "Now, virtual reality moves from

being an engaging hook to being the central focus of larger inquiry-based activities."

For his part, Dockterman sees the HMH Teacher Guides as the modern equivalent of the way teachers

used to prepare students for field trips back when he was in school. "Field trips were fun partly because of

the social experience—the novelty of getting out of school, getting on a bus, and all that," he said. "But

the educational value of the trip really depended on all the lessons and activities that were designed to

build on that experience. Integrating a field trip into the curriculum is how you get bang for the buck.

That's always been the case."

Addressing Accessibility IssuesBack in the day, students simply scrambled onto a school bus to go on a field trip. Virtual field trips, on the

other hand, require a smartphone for each viewer, which does raise issues of accessibility. While most

students today carry the devices, schools cannot take their presence for granted. Plus, students lose

access to their phones for all kinds of reasons: They forget them, they break them, or their parents

confiscate them as punishment for poor behavior.

The easiest solution is to purchase a Google Expeditions kit from a vendor like Best Buy. Available for

classes of 10, 20, or 30 students, kits come with a teacher control tablet, smartphones preloaded with the

Expeditions app, and a router that allows the Expeditions to operate over its own local Wi-Fi network.

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USING VR TO BRING THE WORLD TO YOUR CLASSROOM

A cheaper option is to build your own kit, which Bernasconi decided to do. While most of her students do

have their own phones, she needed a collection of additional phones to give to kids who, for whatever

reason, come to school without one. "I ask teachers and parents not to trade in their old phones but to give

them to me instead," she said. "I'm trying to make a collection of old cell phones that kids can borrow for the

period." She also lends her own phone to kids to use in a viewfinder. If necessary, kids even share them.

By contrast, the viewfinders themselves are much cheaper and easier to come by. Cardboard viewers cost

$5-$18 each, while plastic ones tend to run $15-$40. In Bernasconi's case, the money to buy the viewers

and the router came from local grants.

For Bernasconi, making the effort to build her own kit was well worthwhile, but she's encouraged to see

that her school district recently purchased two additional kits and hopes that it's the beginning of

something more ambitious. "Our smartest people have been using virtual reality for a long time: Our

doctors use it to perform surgery, our astronauts use it before they go into space, and our pilots use it to

learn how to fly planes," she said. "Isn't it about time it entered the mainstream classroom?"

"Our smartest people have been

using virtual reality for a long time…

Isn't it about time it entered the

mainstream classroom?"

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USING VR TO BRING THE WORLD TO YOUR CLASSROOM

How VR Field Trips Work

Google Expeditions offers more than 500 virtual field trips in

partnership with a wide range of developers and publishers. The trips

themselves are free—as is the app used to access them—but users do

need a smartphone and a viewfinder (usually cardboard or plastic).

The smartphone fits inside the viewfinder, which together give users a

detailed 360-degree view of an image in the expedition. Users see

different aspects of the image simply by turning their heads, turning

around, or looking up and down.

The majority of expeditions consist of five or six 360-degree images.

Teachers use a tablet to control which image students see within an

expedition. While kids can look in any direction within a particular

image, they cannot move on to another image without teacher

permission. Teachers can also use the tablet controls to pause a trip,

which turns the student viewfinders black.

Each student appears on the tablet as a smiley face, allowing the

teacher to know where the entire class is within the virtual world. If a

teacher wants to direct students' attention to a particular feature, she

can pin that spot so students know where to look. During a tour of Fort

Mandon with Lewis and Clark, for example, a teacher might gather

students around the fireplace to discuss how the explorers kept warm,

how they cooked their food, and how technology has changed the way

we now live in winter.

If a teacher wants to direct students' attention

to a particular feature, she can pin that spot so

students know where to look.

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USING VR TO BRING THE WORLD TO YOUR CLASSROOM

Just as likely, though, students are the ones who will want to share what

they have discovered. "Kids often ask, 'What is this over here?'" said

Bernasconi. "At that point, I bring them my tablet and they find it for

me. We'll then pin that spot and it becomes a teachable moment."

In the case of the Google Expeditions trips developed by Houghton

Mifflin Harcourt, each HMH Field Trip also comes with its own HMH

Teacher Guide, which offers ideas on how to lead the trip as well as

ways teachers can incorporate what students see into a broader lesson

plan. The free guides are part of the online teacher resources available

upon adoption of HMH Kids Discover Social Studies, HMH Social

Studies, Science Dimensions, Science Fusion, Bien dit! (French), or

¡Avancemos! (Spanish) programs.

• HMH Field Trips

• HMH Science Dimensions

• HMH Science Fusion

• HMH Kids Discover Social Studies (K-6)

• HMH Social Studies (6-12)

• HMH World Languages: Avancemos! (Spanish)

• HMH World Languages: Bien dit! (French)

For overviews and testimonials about some of theHoughton Mifflin Harcourt programs that integrateVR Field Trips, click on the following links:

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USING VR TO BRING THE WORLD TO YOUR CLASSROOM

Tips for Using VR Field Trips

Bernasconi has been using VR field trips in her classes ever since Google Expeditions launched. In fact,

she helped pilot the program. Here, Bernasconi gives teachers her top tips for incorporating VR field trips

into their classes.

Build in Extra Time. "I find that lessons with Expeditions take twice as long," said Bernasconi. "In a

regular class, I could go over the phases of fetal development, for example, in one period or show

students a 15-minute YouTube video and call it a day. With the addition of a VR field trip, though, it

becomes a two-period lesson where we pause, we talk about it, and students ask me questions. The

questions from Monday get researched on

Tuesday. It becomes a student-centered

lesson that takes longer but is more valuable.

Students get more out of it." Bernasconi also

advises teachers to build in enough time to

distribute the viewers and phones and then

inventory them at the end of class.

Involve the IT Department. Even teachers

who are technically proficient should solicit

help from IT to configure the Wi-Fi connections

needed to ensure that Expeditions operates

smoothly. Purchased kits come with their own

routers, but DIYers would be well advised to

obtain one as well, according to Bernasconi. "Before I bought my router, we were all connecting to one

particular network, but my kids kept getting kicked off because the network would occasionally run slowly,"

she noted. "Even if you bring in your own router, you still need to let your IT team know. Some districts have

really strict network policies that will simply shut down a rogue router. Talk to your IT guys and tell them what

you need to accomplish."

Have Patience. "The first time you use Expeditions, you will have to do some troubleshooting," said

Bernasconi. "Plus, you have to give your students time just to explore. You can't give a kid a new toy and

say, 'Ok, this is how I want you to play with it.' They need to look up, look down, look all around. They

really need to learn how they're able to explore. At the same time, don't let students spend too long

looking through the viewers without taking a break. You don't want them getting dizzy or throwing up!"

“It becomes a student-centered lesson

that takes longer but is more valuable.

Students get more out of it.”

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About HMH

Houghton Mifflin Harcourt is a global learning company dedicated to changing people’s

lives by fostering passionate, curious learners. As a leading provider of pre-K–12

education content, services, and cutting-edge technology solutions across a variety of

media, HMH enables learning in a changing landscape. HMH serves more than 50 million

students in over 150 countries worldwide, while its award-winning children's books,

novels, non-fiction, and reference titles are enjoyed by readers throughout the world.

Learn more at www.hmhco.com

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