Page 21 - spaces4learning, Summer 2022

they don’t have access to.”
One fundamental feature of ClassVR
is the way that its content integrates with teachers’ existing lesson plans and cur- ricula. “Our department...for example, when Stephanie’s working with teachers, the first question is, ‘What are you teach- ing?’ We’re always trying to connect back to the curriculum,” Seneca said.
“The way it works is the teacher on the front end, when they’re doing their lessons, they decide what kind of scenes, what they’re looking for, and they cre- ate sort of this playlist,” Thompson said. “And they have a playlist ready to go to show...they flip the kids through differ- ent scenes. The students don’t really get to see ahead of time what they’re going to see because the teacher’s controlling it. And so, there’s not a lot of classroom disruption because of that, and it flows pretty easily, with the teacher sort of in control of what students are going to ex- perience in their curriculum.”
In addition to the existing VR scenes and environments, teachers can also use 360-degree cameras to create their own. One high-school environmental science teacher from West Baton Rouge created a rendering of nearby Bluebonnet Swamp. Another group used them to capture im- ages of a variety of plants, insects and birds for identification in class. Finally, one middle school in the district recreated the school itself as an introduction to elementa- ry students coming into the middle school.
“They kind of do a walkthrough tour of, ‘This is what the school’s going to look like. This is how you go up the stair- case, this is where you go down this hall for eighth grade, this hallway for seventh grade, this is where the cafeteria is,’” said Thompson. “They’re approaching it more
PHOTOS COURTESY OF WEST BATON ROUGE PARISH SCHOOLS
from a hands-on...creating the video, ed- iting the video, they’re adding addition- al images and text, things like that. So, they’re spending a good amount of time video editing, and then they’re going to load it into ClassVR so they can share it with the elementary kids.”
At West Baton Rouge, all the ClassVR kits are housed in the Technology De- partment, and individual teachers check them out on a lesson-by-lesson basis. Teachers receive training as the district tech staff visits individual schools’ Pro- fessional Learning Communities (PLCs) as well as during summer professional development opportunities and technol- ogy challenges.
The district has 128 ClassVR head- sets, 16 kits of 8 devices each. Each device has its own label (e.g., “Faithful Alpaca”) for tracking purposes. Teachers checking out a kit for the first time receive an invi- tation to join the district’s license in the ClassVR portal. They also receive video instructions on how to search for and cre- ate playlists. The district uses its in-house mail system for delivery and pickup to individual schools. Seneca and Thomp- son both noted that, once teachers reach a certain comfort level with the devices, they’ve been training each other and rec- ommending different uses or experiences.
“What we’re also seeing is that the teacher that comes to training, that likes
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