Researching E-Learning and Virtual Reality as a Teaching Aid, Part 2

https://www.khanacademy.org/

         Initially, I didn’t have as much luck finding websites for complete online courses grade schoolers could take, but once blogger D.McNee reminded me of the keyword MOOC (massive online open courses), which I had previously encountered in my readings, I had better luck with search engine results, finding more articles analyzing the topic and one more website, called edX, with many high school courses included, though, no elementary school ones (yet). There were three reasons (that I can recall) I was interested in finding online courses for grade school students:

1. As a teacher-librarian, online courses are a learning resource, and we collect and share learning resources!
2. Some students have difficulty learning at school or can’t always consistently attend school, so online courses could potentially help them.
3. Are there online courses available to help teachers setup flipped classrooms where students learn online and the teacher becomes more of a facilitator and learning aid?

     I found answers to reason 3’s question with Cargile’s article on pairing instruction with the online courses from Khan Academy: “With the proper use of KA, the teacher’s role changes from a deliverer of knowledge to a facilitator or an organizer of learning experiences” (p35). The article then lists four components to effectively set this pairing up when teaching math: 

1. Formative assessment data: use students’ progress reports to individualize their learning needs, including mini-lessons as needed. Knowledgeable students could help as tutors, or group work could be incorporated with the mini-lessons (p36).
2. Goal setting: Students “set weekly, biweekly, or monthly goals and plan checkups to routinely review their individual progress” (p36). Teachers and parents can also view their progress reports.
3. Playlists: Specific weekly tasks and homework (p37).
4. Active and collaborative learning: Teachers are urged to blend Khan Academy with related projects (links to projects KA recommends to pair with lessons are included in the references below).

     Cargile writes that “KA should be used for about 20 percent of total class time […] about once or twice a week for about forty-five minutes each session”, and that “teachers who use KA more than once a week typically serve students with higher remediation needs.” Naturally, as a teacher-librarian, having these MOOC resources amongst a teacher-librarian's documents and in their Flyer for New Teachers and having an idea as to how teachers could implement them in the classroom could be quite helpful.     

https://www.amazon.ca/Google-87002823-01-Official-Cardboard-Brown/dp/B01MQ5J5J4/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1548618253&sr=8-3&keywords=google+cardboard

          A year ago, a teacher co-worker friend of mine introduced me to Google Cardboard, and we briefly discussed the feasibility of introducing it into our classrooms at some point. He suggested that, as people update their phones for newer models, that their older models could be donated to classrooms. In my previous post, I wrote about my personal journey to find a VR capable phone, landing on the cheapest I could find in my area: a $168 phone; fortunately, I recently, and accidentally, came across a website that lists all VR capable phones, and the list is much larger than I ever imagined (the link’s in the references heading below). One of my trepidations about having VR as a learning tool for a whole classroom was the cost. Even with my friend’s suggestion of people donating their phones, I thought that idea might not work as I believed that only a small number of phones, and expensive ones at that, could do VR. Finding that exhaustive list of VR capable phones (affordable ones included) proved me wrong – his idea is viable. By pairing donated phones with Google Cardboard VR glasses ($17-20 each - less if one follows Google's 'build it yourself' guide) or cheaper alternatives ($6-10), the technology becomes affordable for a class-set (which a school-librarian could loan out). Ananda Bibek Ray et al. (in an article about smartphone-based VR in classrooms) also suggests, if they have one, that students could bring their own VR capable cellphone to pair with VR glasses.

     My next wondering about VR was whether it was even worth it. Ray suggests that VR can be used to better engage Bloom’s Taxonomy of Educational Objectives – that students can interact and experience things in VR they can’t in a classroom. For instance, with Google Earth, they can virtually visit any place in the world and they can zoom out and see the planet from ‘space’. In other apps, they can zoom in on objects more than our eyes are even capable of (without a telescope). They can go on museum and site tours, travel underwater, and experience rollercoasters, to name but a fraction of the potential virtual experiences. Also, I noticed a fair number of articles on integrating VR into math lessons. Those are just a small amount of uses VR can provide. I wanted to be sold on the idea of including VR as a library resource, and I was. I'll be wanting a class-set available to loan out for my library. At a minimum, school librarians could at least have some cheap VR glasses to be paired with students' own devices (or, preferably, donated devices). An expense of $60 for 9 pairs, or $168 for a class-set, is an expense all libraries should be able to afford.

References:

Ananda B. Ray et al. (2016). Smartphone Based Virtual Reality Systems in Classroom Teaching — A Study on the Effects of Learning Outcome. Eighth International Conference on Technology for Education, (T4E), 68-71. 

edX. (2016, June 13). Get College Ready. Get Ahead. Get Learning! Retrieved from https://www.edx.org/high-school

Conti, Jessica. List of VR Supported Phones. Retrieved from https://www.vrinsite.com/gear-vr/list-vr-supported-phones/

Lori A. Cargile. (2015). Blending Instruction with Khan Academy. The Mathematics Teacher, 109(1), 34-39.