Page 165 - Resources and Support for the Online Educator

Open Collaboration and Exploration

VR features will spread to other platforms in the
future as more browsers adopt virtual reality. The students in Tracy Mercier’s class-
room at CREC International Magnet
VOYAGER The most recent release of Google School of Connecticut enjoyed using
Earth has the Voyager feature. These interactive immersive technology to learn. The
stories bring current and past events to life as kindergarteners explained they love
to travel to different places through
they share 3D views, videos, and information Google Maps. The students were
cards. One of the highlights of Voyager is the able to visit a recycling center and
hurricane Harvey experience that gives a full were absolutely amazed with the
picture of the devastation that hit the southern experience. “The fifth-grade group
portions of Texas with massive flooding in 2017. were able to relive the revolutionary
Describing the facts of the hurricane, Google war and were able to travel back to
Earth walks the viewer through numerous loca- colonial America to see where general
tions that had significant damage. Washington stayed during the war.”
(Mercier, 2017).
Through Voyager, the students can become
explorers with Lewis and Clark, Marco Polo, and
Eric the Red. Students can follow the journeys of Charles Dickens and Ernest Hem-
ingway. In addition to these historical explorations, the locations you can visit are
almost endless, offering travel to national parks, global beaches, stadiums, craters,
and much more.

FEEL LUCKY? Another feature included in Google Earth is the “I’m Feeling Lucky”
tab. What an exhilarating experience to jump to an unknown location in the world
that takes your breath away. Google selects a surprise location and shares new facts
through a visual journey to that location. Imagine the places your students can
explore every day while building global knowledge.

USA Today VR Stories
The USA Today VR Stories app has developed a powerful way to communicate
using virtual reality. Bringing together relevant news stories and expanding them
into a virtual, 360° setting is a brilliant to share experiences along with informa-
tion. Students can engage in the latest news while being brought to those locations.
The virtual reality experience is found in the USA Today app in the Google Play or
App Store. The 360° stories can be found on the USA Today YouTube channel. One

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Learning Transported: Augmented, Virtual and Mixed Reality for All Classrooms 165