VR & AR TOOLS & RESOURCES
Trying to figure out if virtual reality is right for your classroom? It is! The resources below will help you investigate the various apps and virtual reality tools available to help you identify the variety of ways it can be easily integrated into lessons that support your curriculum, extend student understanding and motivate students to learn more! Want to take a trip to space, Rome or see the inside of a cell? Take your students to places they never dreamed of going and to view demonstrations and expanded objects you could never even fit into your classroom!
TYPE COMPARISON
VIRTUAL REALITY DEFINED
AUGMENTED REALITY DEFINED
HOW TO WATCH - SMARTPHONE
VIRTUAL REALITY OPTIONS
The following resources can be used to bring your students on Virtual Field Trips to far-away places using a number of devices. VR goggles allow the students to be immersed in the location & block out all distractions, however all activities can be viewing non-immersively through a tablet or smartphone and should still allow for the 360 degree experience as long as they contain an accelerometer. Furthermore, a YouTube search for 360 VR will yield a variety of content that you can use to share with students the same way; consider inserting them into your next Nearpod lesson for ease of access and increased engagement!
DISCOVERY VR
Let the discovery channel take your students on narrated video tours to places they could never imagine! Content is engaging, interesting and relevant to every digital learner!
EON EXPERIENCE AVR
An AR/VR based personalized learning library to engage students with gamified lessons and to promote creativity across subjects such as anatomy, biology, geography, history, physics, and astronomy.
NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC
Take your students on a 360 degree tour of the many places that NG travels by accessing their many guided videos on this YouTube Channel.
NEARPOD VIRTUAL FIELD TRIPS
This classroom presentation app will help you take your students on a 360 degree experience of hundreds of locations around the world! Simply create your presentation, add your content & add a 360 activity to make your content come to life!
THINGLINK VR EXPERIENCE
Now use 360 degree images in your thinglink project and allow your students to link & learn using VR
SITES IN VR
Virtual tours of landmarks, places and architecture from countries across the globe. Take your students to see inside places you never imagined.
NY TIMES VR
Immerse yourself and travel the world with Award-winning journalists while exploring this library of 360-degree virtual reality experiences.
USA TODAY VR
Put yourself in the center of the story and bring the news to life in these 360° virtual reality videos from USA Today.
BBC TASTER VR
Taster is the home of new experimental & fresh ideas from the BBC. Test them out & rate them today!
LIFE VR
A virtual reality platform offering immersive experiences from some of today’s most beloved Time Inc. brands.
UNIMERSIV
A Virtual Reality Platform made to help students learn about history, space or the human anatomy.
SKETCHFAB
View this online library of a wide range 3D places, architecture, science & educational images or create your own VR with this new interactive app!
LITTLSTAR
VR Video experiences from some of the larger networks like ABC, Nation Geographic, Disney and more!
AUGMENTED REALITY INTERACTIVE APPS
Objects that Interact with Your Own Reality & Turn Content into Magic!
OCTAGON STUDIO 4D FLASHCARDS
Content flashcards for Animals, Space, Letters, Dinosaurs, Careers & More than create an interactive 4D learning experience for students while looking through this app (iOS & Android).
DAQRI 4D ELEMENTS, ANATOMY & MORE
This company is currently creating various tools for educational and commercial use. Check out their free Element Cubes, Design Studio & Human Anatomy printables to see your content come to life with this AR app.
AURASMA
This Augmented Reality App can help you trigger live video, student responses, student reviews, audio, etc to any image around your classroom! Have students explore or create!
GOOGLE EXPEDITIONS
Google has some exciting Virtual Reality Expeditions that can take you and your students on narrated guided tours of places all over the universe OR Augmented reality tours INSIDE an object!
QUIVER VISION
Educational Coloring Pages that create animated images from your student worksheet that further demonstrate or engage the concept in print. See cells, volcanoes and more jump off the page (iOS only).
AR FLASHCARDS
3D Animated Flashcards that come to life when viewed through the app - Tap to hear the letter and object name. Shapes, colors, animals, space, addition.
Plenty more available in Google Play or App Store - Just search for VR and Explore!
OTHER AR/VR APPS FOR EDUCATION
A storehouse of immersive cinematic Virtual Reality video experiences in 360 degrees.
JAUNT
Global VR video community for virtual reality video lovers on a variety of content.
VEER VR
Immersive VR content in the areas of journalism, narrative and educational content for all.
BBC 360 VIDEO
Practice building circuits without an electronics kit! Printable components.
AR CIRCUIT BUILDING
VR/AR RESEARCH
Don’t Take My Word for It
Horizon Report 2016: K-12 Edition. Rep. The New Media Consortium, 2016.
Virtual Technologies Trends in Education. EURASIA: Journal of Mathematics Science and Technology Education, July 2016.
White Paper: A guide to AR/VR in Education. ClassVR, 2017.
VR GOGGLE PRODUCTS
There are dozens of VR goggles and products on the market these days so feel free to buy anything you think may work best for your classroom. From my experience with VR, the things you will need to most consider when choosing a VR goggle product would be durability, cost, & usability. Not all headsets are made alike and you will want to make sure that whatever you buy will last for longer than your first activity and even your first year. The size of gadgets keep changing so make sure whatever you purchase will accommodate many different sizes of handheld devices. They should also be comfortable to wear, not bulky or scratchy for small kids and possibly even adjustable to head size or vision. I have reviewed several models and these are my top three when considering all the factors involved.
VR BOX 2.0
$11 - Easy to use, lightweight and also has a Bluetooth remote for changing apps & gameplay. Not as Durable as Cynoculars but similar in design & focus features.
CYNOCULARS
$16 - This headset is durable, well padded, fits any device up to 7” and has individual lens adjustment for focus. Comes with a Bluetooth remote/joystick for game play and switching apps. (Use 20% Coupon!)
EVR HEADSET
$29 - Has good padding on goggles and headphones, durable housing & hinged access to easily insert device. It has dual focus wheels for adjusting depth & width focal points.
Again, there are many products out there and many teachers like the function of Google Cardboard or Viewmaster, but for the money, the durability and the understanding that someone sometime will either break a pair or walk off with them, these are my favorites for housing your classroom with enough pairs to implement a fully immersive small group rotation VR activity asap. Devices not included.
OTHER IMPORTANT RESOURCES
GLYDE
Buy or Sell used electronics online. Build your digital library at a fraction of the cost!
VIRTUAL REALITY FOR EDUCATION
An online resource for everything VR – Research, Apps, Online Resources, Virtual Field Trips & Suggestions for Using VR in Education.
EDUCAUSE.EDU
An Educational Resource Library for uses, research and support for using Augmented & Virtual Reality in the classroom including Articles, Blogs, Websites & More!
CLASS VR
An Informative guide to using Virtual and Augmented Reality in education as well as lesson ideas, support and curriculum aligned VR content.
CHOOSE YOUR OWN REALITY
A Comparison of Tools, Apps & Uses to Integrate VR Today! GaETC Presentation to help identify ways VR can be easily integrated into lessons that support your curriculum, extend understanding and motivate students to learn more!