VIrtual Reality

Illinois District Tries Google Cardboard-Viewed Reality

• By Dian Schaffhauser
• 06/06/16

An Illinois district is pondering the addition of virtual reality to its curriculum after testing out the use of Google Cardboard with elementary students. Recently, Arnett C. Lines Elementary School, part of Barrington 220 School District, tried out Google Expeditions, a virtual reality platform built for the classroom.

A Google team visited the school hauling along an Expeditions kit that allowed teachers to learn how the program works and to let students visit the bottom of the sea and the surface of Mars.

With a bit of training teachers pull up a virtual reality panorama on a tablet and can guide up to 50 students at a time wearing the viewers through the environment and point out highlights, which are cued by notes provided by Google and displayed on the tablet next to the view itself.

Currently, the company offers 150 different virtual "journeys," 3D explorations of national parks, cultural sites and museums and natural wonders on earth and in space.