Skip to main content
Add as a preferred source on Google


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.

About the Author

Dian Schaffhauser is a former senior contributing editor for 1105 Media's education publications THE Journal, Campus Technology and Spaces4Learning.

Featured

  • Blurred silhouettes of business people in a modern office with a glowing blue network overlay

    Open Secure AI Alliance Moving Under Linux Foundation

    Governance of the Open Secure AI Alliance has moved to the Linux Foundation, giving the initiative what the organizations describe as a neutral home for developing open source tools, shared standards and defensive practices. The Alliance was launched by NVIDIA in July to develop open security technologies for AI systems and agents.

  • circuit patterns

    Anthropic Intros Lower-Cost Claude Sonnet 5

    Anthropic has launched Claude Sonnet 5, positioning the model as its most autonomous mid-tier offering to date and a lower-cost alternative to its flagship Opus 4.8 system. The company said the model can plan multi-step tasks, operate tools such as browsers and terminals, and complete agentic work at a level that previously required larger and more expensive models.

  • Businessman using laptop analyzing data and growth graph chart

    Report: AI Budgets in Education Show No Sign of Decline

    The vast majority of education organizations (98%) expect their AI infrastructure budgets to either increase or hold steady over the next year, according to a report from cloud storage provider Wasabi.

  • Man types on laptop in data center

    Microsoft Announces General Availability of Point-in-Time Restore for Windows 11

    Microsoft has made point-in-time restore generally available for Windows 11, giving users and IT administrators a built-in way to roll back PCs after bad updates, driver problems, app corruption, or other problems.