Workshops: Technology Innovation in Online Reality
Online Reality: How Will It Change How We Learn and Teach?
Workshop Presentation Vickie Krikowa, Vivian Lightfoot
Online Reality (VR) gives us the power to make learning more dynamic and engaging. So why is VR so powerful for education. It can give students the feeling of presence, they can learn by doing, they can develop creativity and it’s a great tool for visual learners. So how do we embrace this technology in a distance education space? VR technology can be used to engage students in topics related to geography, history, or literature by offering a deeply immersive senses of place and time. This presentation will give a hands on experience relevant to an educational setting that can be created with VR. Available technologies will be demonstrated around the VR experience. There are various aspects to this presentation to show how we can start using this technology with our students: from exploring to the Occulus Go to the full blown HTC Vive, fully immersive VR experience. Attendees will also have the opportunity to experience Occulus Go during the presentation. The HTC vive demonstration will show how VR can bridge the gap between educators and learners where educators and students can be together in the same room with digital representations of themselves — teachers can teleport into the VR world and guide students through their experiences. An example will be given from a creative arts teacher and how she has used the app Tilt Brush to create art examples for students.
Online Reality and Language Learning: Transporting Students around the World
Workshop Presentation Simone Genovese
Technology plays an increasingly important role in the teaching of languages. In a Distance Education context, it is imperative to ensure that the content students receive is engaging and current. Virtual tours, images, and reality can aid the learning of languages as it allows students to view the culture virtually rather than simply with pictures on a PowerPoint. As Lamb and Johnson (2010) argue, technologies such as Google Earth or Street View allow students to enrich their cultural and linguistic knowledge of a particular topic. Similarly, Godwin-Jones (2016) considers the different ways in which augmented reality can be used for language learning and acquisition. This presentation will focus on the use of Google Expeditions and Google Tours to create online tours for students to undertake in a Distance Education context. It will also address the usefulness of Virtual Reality tours in inquiry-based language learning. Peltekova and Stefanova (2016) discuss the effectiveness of Virtual Reality in inquiry-based learning, for example, by describing landscapes. Giving students the opportunity to complete tasks like this is particularly important in a Distance Education context as not all students will have travelled to and visited these areas.
