Virtual Reality is so exciting for education. This format allows students to be transported anywhere they can imagine from the comfort of the classroom. Interactive locations, virtual field trips, and up-close learning about things that would otherwise be inaccessible, VR is something that can be incorporated into any subject across the board.
Some benefits of Virtual Reality in education are: Improving Retention Enriching Literacy Placing Learning in Context Supporting Specific Needs Increasing Engagement (Class VR 2020)
Not only can online collaborative learning be done from class to class in a communicative way, but it can also be done through VR and the multitude of educational apps becoming available. I chose to highlight two particular apps for Gear VR that I thought were interesting and useful in a classroom.
The first is Hold the World with David Attenborough. An interactive app where students walk through London’s Natural History Museum. Users are able to interact with artifacts in the museum with the legendary David Attenborough by their side to provide more detailed information on the selected object.
This app is amazing not only because it allows students to take a virtual field trip to a place they may never be able to go, but what sets this VR museum experience apart from even an in-person face to face one is the level of interaction. When you visit the London Natural History Museum in person, you get to see the artifacts in person, but everything is behind a rope or glass. With Hold The World, those artifacts that are behind the glass become tangible and interactive.
Students using this app also may be more likely to remain engaged in the activity not only because of the interaction, but the freedom a VR experience can give as well. Students are free to explore their digital worlds at their leisure and can explore their own interests in as much detail as the app allows.
A video highlighting some of Hold the World’s features
With Tour Creator, students can use this tool to take virtual field trips to one of the many already existing tours or create one of their own. Students can shoot and supply their own 360 videos or use the already existing Google Maps imagery. From there, more icons can be created through the tour highlighting various things that the user encounters along the tour.
I really like the idea of using Tour Creator in a classroom setting and for possible assignments. Not only does it create a way to make learning visual by connecting the information being taught through text and lectures with real-world images, but it can also be used as a project to increase the absorption of information of a topic.
An example of a virtual connection being: learning about the French Revolution and taking a virtual tour of Paris to find historically significant streets or buildings. An example of use as a project: Students have been reading autobiographies and will create a tour of someplace significant to their subject and their life as they read about it.
Images of some tours available on Tour Creator
Video Explaining the uses of Tour Creator
I am excited to be starting to be an educator as the world and tech around VR and AR starts to take off. There are so many ways VR can be used for education, and as we improve technologically, those will only increase.
If you are interested in more awesome VR apps for education, check out this Top 10 List!
Hello everyone and welcome back! This week, I got to explore Animoto and created a super cute and fun video about my lovely horse Belle.
I chose to tell my story with Animoto because I really enjoy visual presentations and learn well from them. I like Animoto, it is a very easy to use and professional site that can help users create videos for anything they can think of! It is used for businesses, education, as well as recreational fun videos!
Animoto is a useful tool, but unfortunately, it’s not free after a 14-day free trial. There are options to purchase memberships annually that include different packages for different requirements. They have 3 packages: Personal, Professional, & Business. The 14-day trial is great for one time users, however, there will be an Animoto watermark on the videos until a package is purchased.
To begin creating a project in Animoto, you have to select a project template. The templates include different styles, colors, and transitions to make sure you get the kind of video you are looking for.
From there, users upload photos and videos they may want to include in their Animoto and get started!
After you have selected the photos and videos you would like to include, you can begin to drag and drop them into your template and arrange the slides in their correct order. Users can edit the photos, add filters, rearrange layouts, crop, zoom or rotate photos. The user-friendly format and tutorial options of Animoto are some of my favorite features. No one wants to have to do independent research on how to use a tool, and Animoto definitely sets up its users for as little confusion as possible.
Once all of the videos and photos are arranged and edited correctly, you can begin to add text captions or record your own voice over for the selected clips. The voice-over option would be beneficial for educators, as they could upload instructional photos and videos and explain to students audibly as well as visually.
After all the photos, videos, and captions have been arranged, edited, and checked over, its time to add music! Animoto has a library of thousands of songs for users to pick from as well as the ability to upload your own. The songs range in genre and tempo and are not just instrumentals. Animoto also allows you to edit down to the section of the song you would like to include in your video.
Once you have finished editing and are ready to process the Animoto, there are a bunch of options for uploading and sharing. Animoto immediately provides embed links and sharing options to multiple social media outlets. The options for sharing your video increase as you upgrade packages.
https://animoto.com/play/ynhuVv7XSyLc633SrJG7ig
Please enjoy the Animoto I made about my horse Colorado Belle! I hope you enjoy, it was fun to make!
For this week’s blog post we explored National Geographic’s Out of Eden Walk. A journey cataloged by Paul Salopek as he takes a 21,000-mile walk along the path of the earliest humans as they migrated out of Africa and across the world.
Chapter 1:
The first stop for Paul, and for me, was Africa. I have been very lucky in my life to have been able to travel to Africa and see for myself the beauty that this continent has to offer. I was very interested and excited to explore this stop on Paul’s journey.
To begin, Paul and the NG team provided a great map explaining the timeline of human migration in the world starting 200,000 years ago. Starting in Ethiopia, Paul and his guide Ahmed begin their journey, heading north. I have always loved National Geographic and have been a subscribing member for many years now. The visuals and connections that these artists and photographers can bring to their viewers have always been astounding. They can capture a moment that is still able to be felt many thousands of miles and many weeks later.
I really enjoyed the Glances videos for the Ethiopia section of the Eden walk. The unclose visuals bring a reality to the world that is so far away. The photos and panorama viewfinder was very cool as well.
The Encounters section of the Eden walk is interesting because it gives us a chance to see people in the region and gain a small insight into the daily mind of someone in this area. While in Ethiopia, Paul interviews a man named Idoli, who is a pastoralist, or a sheep/cattle farmer. He speaks to the trouble with his career due to the bush and lack of water, and how he wishes for his children to be educated so they do not have to be a farmer like him. It was really interesting to see the belief system as well a little in the interview, Idoli speaks about humans beginning with Adam and Eve and that’s the creation story he believes.
It is unimaginable to put myself in Paul’s shoes. A seven-year journey on foot, the journey alone seems exhausting but I cannot imagine planning it. Far in advance picking out guides and pack animals, booking things for estimated dates, hoping for no delays, it definitely could not have been easy. In one section of this chapter, Paul speaks about how they ordered camels and men to help them take their belongings across a desert with minimal water and temperatures reaching 120 degrees. The camels and men never showed up, Paul and Ahmed were then forced to purchase animals off the cuff with no prep or planning. It is an amazing skill to be able to take the world in stride and not panic so far from home when things start to come undone a little.
Chapter 3: Autumn Wars
Paul gives a brief history of Anatolia, and how it has been a center point for conflict and power control for hundreds of years and from hundreds of invaders and conquerors. Only in the last 90 years have things started to become more modernized in this area of the world.
Paul is on a boat crossing the Mediterranean Sea on a cargo carrier called the MV ALIOS and heading towards Turkey. It was interesting to see the small boat quarters he had all to himself, I was shocked at how spacious it was. Paul stopped in Cyprus along the way and began his journey with Kilic and his wife Elif, who were to be his guides through Asia Minor. They pick up a 22-year-old mule to be their pack animal and walk through Turkey. I really enjoyed the section of the chapter where Paul explains a little more about Turkish/Anatolian culture. The people often seek the refuge of their rooftops after a long day. Eating, relaxing and sleeping on the rooftops is a way of life for the Anatolian people, and pays homage to their camping origins in the early Stone Age. It is amazing how tradition is born out of history in these ways.
It was interesting exploring this chapter because so much of this area is mixed between new and old. As Paul walks through Asia Minor on his way to China, he speaks to how interesting it was watching people playing cards on 1900-year-old plinths, churches, and synagogues that have been standing for half a millennium and the history that is behind some of these places.
Paul then begins to enter the area of Turkey that has been receiving many Syrian refugees as they flee the war going on in their own country. Women talk about men’s arms being cut off and women being sold into slavery at markets in Syria where the Islamic State has gained power. Paul talks a bit about the people from Syria he had met along his journey, boatmen with no home to return to, families picking vegetables for 11$ a day. It must be hard on the road to witness all of this suffering and not be able to help much. Paul speaks how some of the refugees he met along the way had absolutely nothing but still offered to let him share their tent for the night so he had a safe place to sleep. People are amazing creatures.
On his journey, Paul also documented his experiences with the police in the various areas of the globe he was walking. He recorded all of these stops as they happened, and the grand total was about 1 stop per 100 miles by some kind of Police Stop. He makes an interesting point, that today may people distrust those who walk in a world so powered by cars. Even in the small corner of America where I live, sometimes you do feel a certain skepticism of someone walking instead of driving. One of Paul’s most memorable stops was in Turkey, where he was stopped by a small Kurdish militia that nearly shot him.
One encounter in Chapter 3 I enjoyed was of two boys ages 14 and 15, it was a small interaction between them and Paul. He asks them what they want to do, one boy replies to all the questions and the other responds to none. When Paul asks why the talkative boy responds ‘He’s a thinker”.
Chapter 5: Riverlands
Now in Pakistan, Paul is continuing his journey. He encounters a Police Officer named Waqar Shah, who escorts Paul to a town where he will have to get a taxi in order to pass through a violent area of Pakistan, known to have local villages pillage travelers and steal from them.
From there Paul is walking again and find’s himself on the Grand Trunk Road, a road that has been in use for over 2,300 years. One of the oldest trade routes in Asia, it connects the Bay of Bengal on the coast, continues upward and into Afghanistan. The interesting thing about the Grand Trunk Road is that despite the government building a higher, faster, more efferent road, the Grand Trunk Road is still used constantly. Every kind of person uses the GTR. Walking the GTR however has its disadvantages, Paul speaks to the pollution and inescapable exhaust from cars as they make their way along the road.
In India, at one-stop he is in the Punjab region and is stopped by a man on the side of the road who calls to him to wait, to come inside and rest while he waits for ‘miscreants” to leave the part of the road they were blocking. Unfortunately, most of India’s drug use comes from rural areas, and Paul said he has walked past countless needles and drug vials on the road in his travels. Despite this, however, a lot of Indian people want the best for themselves and their children. Most have goals of education outside of India, and look to countries like New Zealand, Canada, Australia, but not Trump’s angry America (LOL). Many people had stopped Paul on his journey to test their English speaking skills with him, many have to pass English language tests before being accepted into any study program. It is an interesting time in the Punjab region, where many people view migration as having status, if you can get out, you are successful.
An encounter I enjoyed was in Allahabad, India – Mahindra Yadav, a 27-year-old farmer whose family had been there for multiple generations. He enjoys farming and does not wish to leave his home if he can help it. Monsoons and inclement weather sometimes require families to search for work outside of their farms for a while if the crops suffer.
As Paul and his guide continue their way through India, he speaks to the water crisis and how desperate people are for the magic resource that is water. About half of the country of India suffers from a lack of water and how resources available are estimated to be depleted in less than 2 years. Some Indian farmers told paul that their water tables have dropped between 40-100 feet in a single generation. Water is a resource, I personally believe mankind is extremely slow to realize that is depleting. It is interesting to see how different areas of the world value and view water. We can take for granted so easily here.
Paul takes a section of this chapter to talk about the human violence he witnessed along his journey. Paul has walked the edges of competing herders in Africa, been shot at by the Israeli Army, held up by Kurdish militia, and even has had run-ins with the Taliban as he crossed into Afghanistan.
Despite this, however, Paul argues that the scary/violent moments in his journey were heavily outweighed by the good ones. That even in war-torn areas of the middle east were met with kind and good people. The good actions taking up 95% of his interaction with other people on his journey. It is amazing to me that despite multiple experiences that would have most people running for home, Paul is in good spirits and insists that those were not the most interesting parts of his journey.
This brings us to the most current of Paul’s entries. He is currently in Myanmar during the COVID19 crisis. Myanmar is one of the poorer countries in the world, and although confirmed cases of the virus are low, they do not believe that is an honest representation of the effects due to lack of testing and a population of over 50 million.
So far, the worst of the virus has been concentrated in areas with higher development and air travel and has not been as bad in more rural or countries with poor socioeconomics. It is hard to shut down a system where many people live week to week, or even meal to meal.
This project is so interesting and inspiring for me. I was happy to be able to take the time and really explore all of the places Paul has been able to visit. I think this project brings these beautiful places to light, and Paul does a great job of highlighting not just the bad, but the true good nature of most people. If it can inspire even just one person to travel outside their comfort zone that is amazing.
