Apollo 11 VR Lets You Experience the Moon Landing

Unless you’ve been living under a rock the past few days, news and media coverage about the 50th anniversary of the moon landing has been on pretty heavy rotation. Mankind’s greatest achievement, which took place between July 16th and July 24th 1969, is an undeniably powerful moment that changed the world forever but sometimes what was achieved can be hard to comprehend. The assist in this, the Apollo 11 VR experience by Immersive VR Education Ltd. gives people a chance to live the key moments of the voyage to the moon in full VR. You get a chance to hear J.F. Kennedy’s amazing speech, ‘‘We choose to do these things not because they are easy, but because they are hard,’’ to walking up to the rocket, flying into space and landing on the moon.

I used the software with my class and they loved it as they brought this historic event to life by being immersed in the world. The experience is pretty cheap and shows the potential of using VR as a learning tool in an educational setting.

The Guardian VR App

I spoken before on several occasions on this website (see links at the bottom) about how VR could change the education system. As teachers and educators we like to immerse our children in topics to interest and excite them. With certain topics this is easy as we have to facilities and resources nearby to engage them, however with certain topics or concepts this can be difficult as the places we are discussing are often not within reach or not easily understandable.

At my school we have purchased a Playstation 4 and a VR headset and have used it in class. The results have extremely positive and many of the teachers have been converted, seeing the excitement and engagement such technology has brought into the classroom. However, at around 450 pounds the Playstation and PSVR may not be affordable for all schools, especially at time when budgets have been cut in education. This is where the FREE Guardian VR App comes in useful. The app is free on the Apple App and Google Play stores and doesn't require a powerful phone to work. Using Google Cardboard or any other VR headset you can immerse yourself in the various apps that are free to download, from exploring Hawaii's extinct birds to the wilds of Patagonia there are numerous apps and more are coming.

I have used the app with my own class, connecting it up to the interactive white board with relative ease. This way the whole class could see what the individual could see within the VR headset and they could also be part of the experience. VR is here to stay I believe and to get on board it needn't be prohibitively expensive.

LINK- Bringing Virtual Reality into the Classroom

LINK- Egypt 360

LINK- Egypt Round Me.

LINK- PSVR as a Writing Stimulus

LINK- Perfect PSVR Writing Stimulus Video

Google ‘Tour Creator’ Lets Anyone Build VR Tours Using Streetview And Their Own 360 Photos

Google launched Tour Creator a few days ago. The web-based tool lets you build a VR ‘tour’ using Google Street View imagery and the bonus is that you can even add your own 360 photos, if you have that available.

The interface is designed with educators and pupil in mind and is all simply drag-and-drop. The flexibility of tour creator is that you can choose any points of interest within the Google Street View maps and add extra texts, or points of interest if you like.

I gave it a try for the area I live near and came up with this in 15 minutes of quick playing around....

With the Virtual Tour you can save any tour you have made and also publish it, for public or private use. The ability to import tours to the Google Expeditions app is not available yet but will be very soon states Google.

Being able to create an Expedition and share it with a classroom of pupils is a great opportunity for technology being able to bring people closer, to understand other people worlds. Not every pupil will need a VR headset as this can be created and used on a laptop attached to an interactive whiteboard, but for those that are lucky enough to have a class set the sense of immersion and engagement would be outstanding I think.

I am a huge proponent on VR as we are lucky enough to have purchased the PlayStation VR last year and have used it in numerous lesson. The level of engagement and excitement is palpable when the technology is bought out to enhance the lesson and many examples can be seen in the links below.

Explore Ancient Egypt in VR

As teachers and educators we like to immerse our children in topics to interest and excite them. With certain topics this is easy as we have to facilities and resources nearby to engage them, however with certain topics like history this can be difficult as the places we are discussing are often not within reach.

How would much more thrilling would it be to stand in the place we are learning about? We can't take our classes on an educational visit to Egypt for example when we are learning about the Pharaohs but what if we could take them there virtually. Well, with the power of Virtual Reality we can. I've already spoken about the potential of VR and it seems to now be building on this potential to change education.

There are many useful resources online which now allow your children to explore the ancient ruins and temples of the ancient Egyptians and most are free.

I will be introducing VR into my school within the next couple of weeks and creating Google VR packs for cheap so they can be ready for the arrival of this technology when it becomes widely available this year. As usual I will post here about any good pracise and share ideas I have come up with. In the meantime explore the links below and engage in the world of ancient Egypt!