360º Cameras & VR in the Classroom

     I have always been a fan of technology.  I believe that technology can and must be integrated into the classroom for our students.  During my 2014-2015 winter break I was preparing for IMPACT! a project that would look at Mount St. Helens and its impact on people and society in Washington state.  As I was playing around on Google Maps, I saw that it was possible to put 360º images up onto Google.  I was EXCITED!  I had taken one from the summit when I climbed it the previous year and wanted to put that out for the world to see.  I had used the iOS app 360 Panorama, and was not able to load it.  I needed to see how I can load 360º images to Google.

      That is when I came across the Google Photosphere program, which has since been updated to the Street View program.  I saw that you could take a 360º image using the Street View app, for either iOS or Android, and then upload to Google Views and Google Maps.  Then I came across a section that showed a new camera that allowed a user to take a 360º image with the click of a button.  I showed the Ricoh Theta camera to my principal and she was blown away.  I purchased one and began to think about the possibilities of using the camera in my social studies classrooms.  

      As I played with the camera and took pictures and videos on my travels.  I began to load images (Mount St. Helens, Vancouver Art Museum, Evergreen Air and Space Museum, and New Orleans) to Google Maps and was thinking of ways to link them together.  I began to think about how I could have my students take these pictures and create a tour for other students and people to experience.   

      I immediately thought of taking my studnets to the Fort Vancouver National Historic Site.  I began scouting the site on my own, and then made contact with the the park historian and museum curator.  We met and began our collaboration.  We tried to make the project fit into the the end of last school year, but that was unreasonable.  We decided to push the project back to this school year (2015-2016).  Pushing back the project allowed for other applications to be developed that will help us create our final product.  During the time, the web application Holobuilder came out and now we have our way to connect the different images and create our tour.  The fantastic thing about Holobuilder is that not only is it easy to use, but the tours can be embedded on a website and be viewed using VR devices like Google Cardboard and the View-Master.  

A sample tour I made using footage from the climb of Mount St. Helens some colleagues and I did over the summer.  

I am getting excited about this upcoming project and the possibilities that these cameras and viewers will allow us to do in our classrooms.  With the Google Expeditions program traveling across the country, and the world, we are starting to see the power that this type of experience can have for our students. No longer to they have to just look at a still image in a book or a print out.  They can see first hand the places that they are investigating.  They can analyze and compare the architecture of Canterbury Cathedral versus the Golden Pavilion-Kinkaku. No longer does the classroom have to be static. This technology allows our classrooms to become engaging, energetic, and dynamic. I encourage everyone to take their students on a virtual field trip, whether it is through a computer, a mobile device, or a Cardboard viewer. I encourage you to visit the Google Street View Gallery, or app, and take your students to places you never thought possible.

Bringing History Class to Life

Augmented reality is a fantastic new technology that can be used in many different types of classrooms. There are a couple different types of AR apps out there, but the one I use the most is the app Aurasma. What Is like about this app is that it is FREE and it is duel-platform so it will work with Apple or Android devices.

You can download it here on iTunes or on the Google Play store.

Augmented reality allows you, and your students to make almost any object into a scannable interactive code. This is fantastic for history, art, english, science, and pretty much any other class out there. My classes and I have used this app to explore different cities, and create interactive museum exhibits that allow the students to analyze, evaluate, and explore different primary sources and their meaning. The app is very easy to use and allows teachers to create separate private channels for the information to be stored so that student privacy remains intact. Here is a tutorial video that I made for one of my classes to help them with the Aurasma creation process.

After the videos have been uploaded, and the auras created, the really fun part begins. Since my classes use private channels with Aurasma the students need to subscribe to the channel in order to see the auras and have the images come to life. I do this by sharing the channel URL with my students via email or our Canvas LMS. Once, the students are subscribed to the channel they are then free to explore and venture around the room to see the different videos linked to the images/objects. This is a different way to showcase and share the students' work and learning. It allows to student choice in exploration and is visual, auditory, and kinesthetic in nature.


The first time that I used this was in a 7th grade World Cultures classroom. We were doing a Trip Planing project where the students had to plan an entire month long trip to a country in the Eastern hemisphere. This included creating a day by day itinerary, cost analysis sheet, Google map and KML file with locations visited, "booking" airfare, and a digital story taking us through their country's capital city in a day. The final product resulted in the students making digital stories using the app Puppet Pals HD, with themselves as the tour guide. The students then linked there videos to a postcard from that country using Aurasma. Finally, the students used iPads to scan the different postcards around the classroom and traveled the world through their classmates' eyes. Here is a short video showing how it looked.

Augmented reality can also be used to create interactive museum exhibits. My U.S. History classes used Aurasma and the app Tellagami to bring our museum exhibits to life. Tellagami is another free and duel-platform app that allows students to dive in deeply to the analysis and evaluation of primary sources.

You can download it here on iTunes or on the Google Play store.

The students were tasked with creating a museum exhibit that revolved around the concept of equality and how it has evolved throughout our country's history. The students were allowed to choose a specific era, or movement, to focus on and then they had to create an exhibit that incorporated analysis and evaluation primary source documents and information about some of the individuals involved during the era or movement. During this project we also took a field trip to the Oregon Historical Society, where the students got to see how exhibits are made, learned about the different elements that make exhibits successful, and got to conduct research in the museum's library. The students then brought this new knowledge back to school and incorporated it into their own exhibits. We then had the students set up their exhibits in and allowed them to explore their classmates' interpretations with their own devices.

Here is the Tellagami tutorial that I made for the students, and an example video that they made and linked to an exhibit.

The Dream of the 1890's is Alive @ iTech

     I am not sure who is having more fun during our current class project, my students or me.  Right now my U.S. History students are in a project called Westward Bound!  In this project, the students are studying the era of westward expansion and life on the frontier.  The students are creating fact sheets as they research and become experts in two of the areas of study from our G.R.A.P.E.S. categories (Geography, Religion, Achievements, Politics, Economics, and Social Structure) on either the Oregon, California, or Santa Fe trails.  After they research, and become experts in their areas of study, they will begin working on some others parts to the project.  

     The other pieces to the project include creating a board or video game about life on the trails / frontier, a final large group presentation with visual aids, and writing an essay called The Dream of the 1890's is Alive @ iTech (I'm a Portlandia nut).  I got the idea for the essay from Twitter when a link to Mr. Fladd's blog TeacherToys and his post More Christmas Shopping, Still Without a Flux Capacitor crossed my feed.  As I read through his post, I kept thinking about how cool it would be to do something similar in my own classroom.  

     As I began developing my Westward Bound! unit I thought that an adaptation of this assignment would fit in perfectly.  The students get to analyze primary source documents, create a story about life on the frontier, and justify their analysis.  Here are the requirements of the essay: 

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The Dream of the 1890's is Alive @ iTech

     In this assignment you will be traveling back in time to the year 1897.  Imagine that your entire current family has traveled with you on your trail (Santa Fe, Oregon, or California) and you have established a new life and become rooted in your new home out west.  You are now living in your new frontier city of Santa Fe, Oregon City, or Sacramento.  It is getting close to the holiday season, and you are in charge of buying gifts for your entire family.  You will have $20.00 total to spend, and be buying your gifts from the Sears catalog from 1897.  As you write your essay, you will have to answer the following questions/facts:

•    Describe your family.  

                        How many people are in your family?

                        How old are they?

                        What do they do for a living?

•    What do you buy as gifts for your family?  

                        How much do they cost?  

                        Why are you picking that gift for that person?

•    What would the cost of the items be adjusted to current day prices?

•    If you had the same amount of money from 1897, adjust to today's prices, what could/would you buy your family from the Sears website?

You can use this website to help you do the cost conversions. http://www.westegg.com/inflation/

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     I am excited and anxious to see the results of this as we progress though Westward Bound!  It is a great feeling to see the students so engaged and excited everyday.  And, the conversations that are being had between students are informative, educational, and fun!  

Augmented Reality in the Classroom

     Over the course of the last 4 weeks my students have been working on a unit called Trip Planning.  In this unit the students are learning many different skills and concepts.  To begin the unit each student was assigned a country in the eastern hemisphere.  They then go through many different steps and assignments that will them to create their own one month long trip to that country.  When the students are finished with all of the main assignments;  a fact outline about their country, a digital story that takes us through 24 hours in their capital, their travel map with placemarks, and a complete daily trip itinerary they hyperlink all of the assignments to their home placemark on their travel map.  Then they download the finished map as a viewable KML file and share it as their final project.

     Each student begins with creating and sharing a Google map and calendar for their trip, which is then shared with my cooperating teacher and myself.  Both of which, will be used to create a complete trip map with placemarks and a daily itinerary that explains what and where they are for each day of the trip.  The next step is creating a fact outline for the country they are traveling to.  This piece helps students conduct research about their country, so they can learn different types of information about it.  To quote one student, "The fact outline is kinda fun.  You just find new facts and get smarter."

     After the fact outline is completed the students move onto the next assignment, which is creating a digital story, using an iPad and the Puppet Pals app, to take us through a day in their country's capital city.  Once the students have created their digital story they upload their video to the school YouTube channel, and the link the video to their home place mark on their travel map.  Since each student in the class is researching and learning about one individual country, I wanted to find a new and exciting way to share all of their videos with one another so that they can explore and learn about what other countries have to offer and what their classmates created.

      This is where augmented reality and the Aurasma app come into play.  Instead of just having the students watch each others' videos on YouTube they can now link there video to different images in the classroom.  Right now for the trip planning unit, our classroom is covered in postcards and other souvenirs from all around the world.  Using the Aurasma app the students are now able to link their own video to an image or object in the classroom.  Once all of the videos are linked up to different images, the students will then explore the room with the app and view each others' videos.

Here is a walk-through of how I used the Aurasma app in the classroom.

     This is a new and exciting way for the students to experience a history classroom, and embodies what I call iHistory.  Other possibilities include linking student explanations to primary source documents so they can show their understanding about the document, you can link videos to pictures or text from the textbook, or even attach the videos that you would show in class to different images so that the students can explore them at their own pace.  This tool is extremely adaptable and can be worked in any type of classroom.  I am currently helping set up student book reviews to a student recommended literature board in the library, explanations of student artwork which are tied directly to their piece for an art show, and videoing math problems being worked out so students can explore the process of different math problems.

Here is the tutorial I made to show students how to link their video to an image.

Digital Storytelling with Puppet Pals in the Classroom

This is a copy of the review that I did for The Teacher's Digital Toolkit.  A site run by Sol Joye where teachers share their digital experiences with programs and apps in the classroom.

9	Cost
8.5	Difficulty
9	Longevity
9	Versatility
10	Classroom Readiness

91.8%

Average Score (based on a weighted scale – SEE HERE)

Site Link:

iTUNES PREVIEW & BLOGSPOT SITE

	X
Website	iOS Apps	Android Apps	Standalone Software

Summary:	SUMMARY: Puppet Pals HD is an app for iOS devices such as the iPad, iPod Touch, and iPhone.  It is a digital storytelling tool that allows students to tell a story using pre-created characters, or their own with the Director’s Pass.  Students move their characters across different backgrounds and record their voices and movements.  Digital storytelling with Puppet Pals can be used in many different classrooms from History or Science, to Language Arts and Foreign Language.  It can incorporate many different topics and allows the students to create their own story and learning experience.  Here is a summary on how to use Puppet Pals. COST: There are two different apps that you can download from iTunes.  There is the Puppet Pals HD app, which is free, and the Puppet Pals HD Director’s Pass app that costs $2.99.  I recommend downloading the free app first, and then you can purchase the Director’s Pass inside it for $2.99 if you like it.  This is a one-time fee that allows you to download all of the character packs in the app, and also allows you to use any picture you want (from your camera roll or camera) in your story. DIFFICULTY: This app is designed to be used for many different ages from toddlers to adults.  The students (7th graders) found the app to be rather easy to use, which is what it is designed to be.  They were able to incorporate all of their images and record their stories with ease.  The first two lessons were spent with the students learning how to use the app.  Many thought that that was too much time, because they picked it up rather quickly. LONGEVITY: Students really enjoyed using Puppet Pals in class.  When they came to class students were always asking if it was going to be a Puppet Pals day.  Throughout the project they all seemed to be engaged.  After the project on world revolutions, the students used the app again during a trip planning unit as they took us through a day their capital city.  The students were engaged the second time through the process as well.  I wouldn’t do the project more than the two times that we did in our World Cultures class, but I could be incorporated into other curriculum and still retain its’ excitement. VERSATILITY: There were three issues that students found the most annoying were that once you started recording, you couldn’t go back and just re-do a section.  If you hit the back button, then you lose the entire recording that you were working on.  The second issue was when the students were cutting out their characters.  While the process was simple, some of the students wanted more accuracy in the tool.  The third was when they were recording.  The microphone can pick up background noise easily, so if they were trying to record in a room with other students there was sometimes “extra noise” included in their recording.  All of these items were easily worked around, as the students found solutions to the problems and shared their best practices with one another. CLASSROOM READINESS: Since the app is so straight forward, it is ready to go right out of the box for classroom use.  There is a short learning curve and the students gravitate towards using it.  During the unit I taught on world revolutions, I provided the necessary scaffolding for the students to understand the process of digital storytelling.  We went through the basic use of the app, picking and researching the topic, how and why to use historical images, how and why to storyboard, recording, editing, and how to upload / post their stories to their blogs.  The project was more about the process of creating a digital story, rather than just using the app.  For more information on digital storytelling and downloadable lesson plans please visit my site. by John Zingale @ihistorywmrjz ihistorywithmrjz.com
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Student Summary:	Letter Grade: Average student rating: 8.4/10: B
	Ease of use (1 easy – 10 difficult): 4.2 / 10
	Time needed / wanted to use: (1 less – 10 more): 5.8 / 10
	Level of “fun” involved (1 less – 10 more): 6.6 / 10
	Level of versatility (1 less – 10 more): 6.2 / 10
	STUDENT SPECIFIC THOUGHTS: “Puppet Pals is super easy and convenient to use! But like any other tool it takes an explanation and practice work.” “I think Puppet Pals is really fun! When I need to use it for a project it is fun and convenient. However I wouldn’t spend my free time on it when it is not for a project. But it is always exciting to hear I have a project on it!” “Puppet pals is very versatile. I could use it for a documentary with real pictures or I could make a cartoon about a bunny on it.” “I really like how you can make your own backgrounds and characters from photos with the directors pass. I really wish there were a part of it that let you put multiple clips together so you didn’t have to transfer it to iMovie or something like that.”