Project Description

This grant will enable the techno library teacher as well as classroom teachers at Hopkins and Elmwood to immerse their students in virtual field trips bringing abstract concepts to life as well as offering the students a deeper understanding of the world beyond our classrooms.  It will fund 60 View Masters and applicable devices for running Google Expedition.  They will be stored in the library where teachers can sign them out.

Do you remember taking field trips to such places like the Brooklyn Zoo or the Hoover Dam?  How about to Ancient Greece or even up to the Moon?  Thanks to technology, not only is this possible today, but students don’t even need to leave the comfort of their classroom!

The Hopkinton Education Foundation is first to offer this opportunity in our schools; through two grants funded last year.  One in Hopkins School and the other in the Middle School students are now able to explore, virtually, the world outside of their 4 classroom walls.

Imagine learning about the human body’s systems and then being able to put on a pair of VR goggles and being able to explore the body in 3D, seeing how the system works and interacts within the whole body.  Or in history where, for example, one can recreate something like the Civil War, providing virtual field trips to tour the battlefields and march where the armies travelled in The South, perhaps meeting some of the War leaders.  [1]

According to one of the recipients, who used the Google Cardboard with a small group of third graders as a trial last week- one student turned to another as the teacher left, and was overheard saying, “This was the best library class ever!”   The teacher rated it as 100% and said “My students loved their safari and it tied in beautifully to our Kenya studies! We learned about the strength of the elephant and the how the Kenyan climate and land are different from where we live. ”

It is exciting to consider what could be accomplished if the power of virtual reality was harnessed for education rather than its currently focus of gaming; if developers turned their resources away from creating games that teach children how to steal cars and kill people and toward allowing them to explore history, science, art and other subjects in innovative new ways, just imagine the possibilities!

Resources:

[1] https://www.wired.com/insights/2013/12/virtual-reality-and-learning-the-newest-landscape-for-higher-education/

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