The virtual reality experience my students might enjoy is a virtual reality traveling experience. When I was in 5th grade, I remember that our teacher was a total francophile. She had us “plan” a trip to France by looking at a bunch of travel magazines and picking places we’d like to see and estimating how much our budget had to be. I recall that our teacher never explicitly said that we would actually go to France, but when our “planning” was over, I was utterly devastated that we weren’t actually going on our fantasy trip. In my early twenties, I saved up enough money to visit France for real, and though there is nothing like a travel experience, I would have been completely blown away if I could have taken a virtual tour of France!
I will be working with students in an urban environment. I believe that they can be profoundly impacted by seeing for themselves that there is, quite literally, a world of wonder out there for them to experience first hand. As i said earlier, I have been very fortunate to have traveled, and I am all too aware of how life changing it can be to see new places and people. This could also have applications in multiple disciplines, such as history, science, English, and even math. For example, a student learning about ancient Egypt could take a tour of the pyramids, they can see the rain forest if they are learning about ecosystems, and they can see a virtual performance of a Midsummer Night’s Dream. VR can be a powerful tool in the hands of the imaginative educator!
LA Chronicles 