Day Two!  Today was my third and final pre-conference session before the opening keynote tonight.  It’s hard to believe that the main conference hasn’t even started yet, because my mind is already about to explode it’s so full of ideas!

Today’s session was all about virtual reality in the classroom.  I got a lot of great information from our presenter, Leslie Fisher, who is an ISTE veteran presenter.  I think she has done over 15 ISTE presentations.

We learned what virtual reality is:

and how virtual reality works:

We examined ways to get started and explored so many apps my brain is about to pop.  But I have them all written down, so please come find me if you want to chat about virtual reality in the classroom.  We also got recommendations on VR headsets and 360 degree cameras.

Lastly, we had a special guest, Thomas Glaeser, from cospaces, a VR company in Munich.  Their edu site was launched today during our session and will officially be announced TOMORROW: http://cospaces.io/edu.  I have already created my free educator account so I can experiment with the tool when I get back to Park.

Important Take-aways:

  • Did you know you can project your iPhone through your Mac Laptop using the lightning cord and QuickTime???  SO COOL!
  • I really want to buy a giroptic or Ricoh theta 360 degree camera for the Park community.  It would be amazing to be able to capture classroom events like PSITE week building time or the 5th grade immigration simulation or school wide events like Yulefest and May Pole to share with those who can’t be there.
  • Apps to explore:
    • Google Arts and Culture app
    • Google expedition: https://edu.google.com/expeditions/
    •  Google street view
    • NYTimes VR stories (NYTvr)
    • Discovery VR
    • LifeVR
    • Jaunt VR- they post cameras at concerts and games and national parks
    • Youtube has a VR channel 
    • There is so much out there that is can feel overwhelming.  Use twitter to help guide you.  Do a search in twitter for #virtualreality and #edtech.  Or search for #virtualreality and education
    • EON Experience AVR (AR/VR lessons)
    • EON Experience
    • DinoTrek VR
    • Cardio VR
    • inCell/inMind
    • Vtime
    • Relax VR
    • Blipper (AR)
  • Apps for our students to create VR:
    • Google street view
    • 360 panorama
    • Panorama 360 camera
  • Places to upload 360 degree photos:
    • Storyspheres.com
    • Roundme.com
    • Kuula.com

 

You can see my storify (a compilation of my tweets) from the session below: