Page 18 - THE Journal, March/April 2018

FEATURE | AR&VR
18
| MARCH/APRIL 2018
In this application of AR using software form Alive Studios, teachers or students hold cards under a document camera and move them around, which allows the animations come to life on a computer screen, bringing 3D learning to students without the need for special glasses.
around the world, like a yurt, teepee or castle. They designed a house in the style of their choosing, then created it using a 3D printer.
“For the culmination of the project, students recorded themselves talking about their home and its culture, and they used Aurasma to connect the video to their dwelling instead of creating an old-school trifold board,” she said. When someone scanned a student’s home within the
app, the student’s video popped up and delivered information about the structure.
Google Expeditions has launched a program that allows students and teachers to create their own AR experiences. With Ex- peditions AR, students and teachers can use Google’s AR technology to map the physical classroom and place 3D objects within it.
In Arkansas, students in the state’s Environmental and Spatial Technology
(EAST) Initiative classrooms are using VR technology to solve real-world problems of their choosing, thanks in part to a donation of Oculus Rift VR systems from Facebook.
In EAST facilitator Shelly Jones’s classroom at North Little Rock Middle School, students have used a Ricoh Theta 360-degree camera to capture images of their community and game development platforms such as Unreal Engine and Unity to create VR environments from these images.
One group of students created a virtual map of their entire school building that police and fire personnel could use
in trainings and simulations, or when responding to an emergency. Another created a VR environment for special-needs students to practice how they would respond to a fire alarm or other emergency in their classroom. A third group built a VR game to teach people about hunting safety.
Learning how to build virtual 3D environments “gives kids an advantage”
if they want to pursue a career in science or technology, Jones said. And while she doesn’t use AR or VR technology in her teaching of content, many of her students have explored virtual environments for themselves by using Google Expeditions in their social studies classes.
“When they see an image come to life, it stays in their mind for much longer than if they just read about it in a book,” Jones said. “When you see something like that, it never really goes away.”
Dennis Pierce is a freelance writer with 20 years of experience covering education and technology. He can be reached at denniswpierce@gmail.com.