Virtual Reality in Education

Emporia State students engaging with Google Earth VR on an Oculus Rift

VR and AR is gaining popularity in education. Kelly Walsh from Emerging EdTech provides a sample of sites that educators can use with their students.

Virtual Fields Trips

• The Arlington Science Focus School in Arlington, VA is using the Oculus Rift to take their students on virtual field trips to places like the the Smithsonian Museum (the Smithsonian actually has a bunch of different virtual tours, using a variety of technologies)
• Titans of Space offers a tour of the solar system, great for some science classes
• Google Expeditions is getting a lot of attention with their growing library of field trips
• Go back to the time to the Jurassic Age (search “Jurassic Age Virtual Reality” to find a variety of apps)
• Another interesting example was college students identifying hazards on a job site using VR, avoiding having to be in a dangerous situation in order to learn

Content Creation

• Gaelscoil Eoghain Ui Thuairisc school in Carlow, Ireland is recreating historic sites with Mission V 3D modeling software
• Drury University in Springfield, MO has been teaching architecture design using virtual reality tools

Special Education

• The Jackson School in Victoria, Australia has been using the Oculus Rift to help students with special needs
• Silesian University of Technology in Silesia Poland is doing therapeutic exercises with autistic students using virtual reality technology

Medical Uses

• UCLA is training neurosurgeons using their “Surgical Theatre” (learn more in this video)
• Chu Angers University Hospital in Europe is stimulating patients brain during a medical procedure
• Case Western Reserve is using VR to teach virtual anatomy (you can do a lot of things with VR that you can’t do with cadavers)

Recruiting
 
Virtual campus tours available on the web are being evolved to work on Augmented Reality platforms. A couple popular platforms for this are You Visit and Georama.
The University of Michigan is using VR to let potential football playing students experience what it's like to experience being on the field in a full stadium.
 
New Pedagogies

• Mendel Grammar School in Opava City, Czech Republic is teaching students about the anatomy of the eye in biology classes with the Oculus Rift
• St. John’s School Boston, Massachusetts is using Minecraft and VR to create immersive experiences
• Penn State University in Pennsylvania is training students to do things in the virtual world as a precursor to doing it in the real world, increasing the efficacy of learning
• University of British Columbia in Vancouver is experimenting with virtual lecture halls

Collaborative Websites

Looking for an engaging way to improve your class discussions?  Then check out these products:

Google Docs

Google Docs can be used to create an assignment in Canvas where students can edit and annotate a single document with multiple users at the same time.  Users can see who adds which comments and it automatically saves the progress.

Google Docs can also be used to supply a template by the instructor in Canvas.  The students then create their own document in their Google Drive, edit and revise it; then submit the new document back to Canvas which can be graded with SpeedGrader.

FlipGrid

FlipGrid is best used as an external tool in Canvas.  Students can create short video clips of themselves with their smartphones or laptop and watch their classmates videos.  They can add feedback to videos and have a more personal collaborative experience.

VoiceThread

VoiceThread allows for multiple ways to collaborate on a slide (photo or video).  Students can upload selfie videos or screencasts, or just add an audio comment or text annotation.  VoiceThread’s free version does not work with a Canvas external tool but can be embedded into an assignment or content page.

Check out our Zoom Professional Development on this topic on our website, www.emporia.edu/learningtechnologies, click the Events button.

Student Access and Support Services at ESU

 

Have you wondered how books are made into accessible documents? The process is pretty time consuming. First, the book cover and spine needs to be removed. Then, each page must be scanned and converted into an accessible PDF format. This is one important reason using electronic versions of course materials can greatly assist disabled students.

Here, Student Access and Support Services Director Stephanie Adams demonstrates a Swell Machine - used for thermo-heat image transfer. This allows an image to become tactile for visually impaired students.

Professional Development Recordings

Are you looking for some professional development opportunities? We have a great lineup of sessions we think you'll find helpful!. All of our sessions are recorded and you can find the recordings on our website or locate them on Kaltura under our newly created Instructional Design channel.

Kaltura offers a great captioning tool for videos, have you seen the Kaltura guide that Instructional Designer, Kristy Duggan, created? Download the guide to get started with Kaltura!

Let's get together and discuss new ideas to help you with your instruction!

~Anna
Instructional Designer

 

Dr. Catterson leads a tour of Learning Technologies for Dr. Dabae Lee's class of undergraduate technology students. Students are exposed to a variety of technologies, including 3D printing, coding, makerspaces, Augmented Reality, Virtual Reality, lightboards, and a One Button Studio.

Future Economy Demands Workers Who Can Learn Online

"Why should we care if learners learn to learn online? Because the future will demand self-directed lifelong learning from a significant portion of the workforce. Current data suggests workers could have have 12 jobs in their lifetimes. The idea that they will have access to in-person, on-campus education to prepare for even one out of every five of these job changes is absurd. There will be more demand for post-baccalaureate training and education, and it will have to be delivered online."

Check out the story at: http://thehill.com/opinion/education/373644-future-economy-demands-workers-who-can-learn-online 

USD 253 Exploring the ESU Lightboard and One Button Studio

 

USD 253 Superintendent Kevin Case stopped in this morning to check out the One Button Studio and Lightboard inside Learning Technologies. USD 253 is considering a similar setup for the district. This technology will allow teachers to quickly record flipped lessons with little or no technical assistance.

Canvas Update

PRODUCT RELEASE NOTES and SCREENCAST

·         The February 17 Canvas update includes enhancements to Assignments, Conversations, the New Gradebook, People, and more.

ACCESSIBILITY

·         Automatic Transcriptions. Zoom now supports an automatic transcription feature. We’ve enabled this great new tool administratively, so you can start using it immediately.

·         Making Accessible Hyperlinks: This is a very easy change you can make in your courses immediately. Rather than copy > pasting a long URL, highlight the text you want to hyperlink and use the Insert > Hyperlink command. This is because screen readers will attempt to read back each and every character in a long URL string, rather than reading back the linked words. This document explains the process, or you can note what I’m doing within this email.

·         Making Bullet Points Accessible. Always use Word or PowerPoint built-in bullets and list formatting features, rather than creating them manually using tabs, indents, asterisks, dashes, and other workarounds. Screen readers are fine with bullets provided they are added using Office’s built-in features.

·         Making Text Bold and Oblique. Some screen readers do not recognize Bold and Oblique.  To make something bold and/or oblique, use the Strong style command or Emphasis style command instead.

·         UDOIT. This might be a great time to mention again that within every Canvas course is a sidebar feature called UDOIT. This utility, which stands for Universal Design Online content Inspection Tool, will scan your course for compliancy concerns, and provide suggestions for corrections where it can.

·         Accessible Syllabus. Making your course syllabus accessible is easy. Watch this short video developed by Dr. Catterson on how to make your course syllabus accessible for screen readers.

ESU STUDENTS AND TECHNOLOGY

·         We recently completed our annual survey of students and technology at ESU. Some surprises and some expected findings. A few highlights:

o   Students want more use of Canvas and more consistency in where content is located across courses and departments.

o   74% Students requested more use of Open Educational Resources (OER).

o   98% of students have a Smartphone and the majority of them use it to check Canvas content daily.

o   58% of students requested more use of lecture capture.

o   80% of students are satisfied with Canvas and its features.

CANVAS TIPS & TRICKS

·         Use Modules! Without a doubt, Canvas Modules are absolutely the best course design tool you can employ. Modules organize content into discrete, identifiable units, such as chapters, weeks, subjects, etc. Within the Modules you can add your assignments, quizzes, discussions, files, etc. relative to that topic and in the sequence you want students to progress. Then, you can defeat assignments, discussions, quizzes, etc. from the sidebar as they are essentially redundant and create visual clutter. Turning them off on the sidebar does not affect their availability inside the module. As the course progresses, float the most current Module to the top of the list and migrate the retired Module to the bottom.

BLOG AND TWITTER FEED

If you want more information about anything you read here, check out our blog at Blogspot or follow us on Twitter @esulearningtech.

We do what...again?

What is an Instructional Designer? 

Over the past three years of working at Emporia State University, and really my entire career, I have been asked..."You do what, again?". The job title "Instructional Designer" leaves some to question what it is we exactly do. In general, an instructional designer is someone who has been trained, often certified, to design curriculum based training. This includes corporate training, educational training and non-profit training - ALL training. There are instructional methodologies that we use to help us identify how to design a course to fit the learners needs. We consider everything including retention, alignment of assessments to outcomes, course sequencing, accessibility, universal design and much, much more. We specialize in working with Subject Matter Experts (SMEs) to develop a course framework. A few of us on the Learning Technology team are Quality Matters certified. Quality Matters is a company that created a standard rubric for course; you can think of it as a quality assurance rubric, an evaluation of your course to ensure it was designed to meet specific design standards.

Is that all you do?

Short answer? Nope. We have a wide range of other skills as well! We offer a wide range of initiatives ranging from Virtual Reality to Digital Badging. We specialize in finding new and emerging technologies that will improve or enhance the learning experience for your students. Do you have a concept in your course that students struggle with learning? We can help. We spend a good majority of our time researching new and emerging technologies and researching their effectiveness with all disciplines on campus. We can create unique solutions to help you with your instructional concerns to elevate retention.

We are also very active with grant writing and contract work. We have been selected by other universities and colleges for our design services. We recently ended a 50k contract with the community college system in the state of Maine and most recently, were selected as the winning bid from Grantham University. The funds received from these contracts and others allows us to provide additional technologies to you for your instructional needs.

So now what? 

Reach out to us. We're here to help on all levels of instruction. The Instructional Designers are out and about at every department once a week. You can reach us during Embedded Instructional Designers hours (where we come to your department) or, contact us on our website: http://www.emporia.edu/learningtechnologies. We also would love to host your class and give them a tour of the Virtual Reality studio, MakerLab and our One Button Studio. All of these are resources for you and your students to use. Let us know how we can help you!

~Anna

acatters@emporia.edu
620.341.5107