The authors of this blog-post are Professor Shailey Minocha and Dr Ana-Despina Tudor of The Open University, UK and Dr Steve Tilling, Field Studies Council, UK.
Taking the example of Virtual Reality-based Google Expeditions, in a presentation in the 3D virtual world, Second Life on 3 September 2016, we (Dr Ana-Despina Tudor and Professor Shailey Minocha, The Open University, UK and Dr. Steve Tilling, Field Studies Council) discussed how virtual field trips can prepare students for physical fieldwork and enhance the fieldwork experience during and after a physical field trip. Our project's details are summarised in a previous blog-post.
In this Second Life talk, we presented the results from our preliminary investigations with Geography and Science educators, fieldworkers and curriculum leaders. The presentation slides are available here.
These are some of the themes that came up in the discussion:
- significance of outdoor fieldwork in Geography and Science (the two subjects of study in our project);
- constraints on how physical field trips may not always be feasible because of some of these challenges: cost constraints, safety concerns, time limitations (in the school timetables);
- cost of the VR technology - smartphones, tablets, virtual reality (VR) viewers and availability of network for smartphone and mobile-app based VR such as in the case of Google Expeditions; concerns about the affordability for schools and parents;
Discussion quotes:
"biggest challenges would be money, not allowing smartphones in schools (we have 1:1 laptops instead) and admin buy-in"
"If schools in the UK can find a way of providing tablets that can be used in class that would be great so we can avoid the issue of affordability of some families."
- need of guidance or resources or lesson-plans for teachers for using such technologies in the classrooms;
- teachers would like to create their own content but is it really feasible given the time-constraints?
- concern about teachers having to keep pace with the ever-changing VR-landscape;
- need for sufficient evidence on the role of VR in education and in schools for adoption.
Dr Steve Tilling, UK's Field Studies Council, said: "I'd just say that I think VR will follow a similar path to Google Earth. Slow at first, but accelerated rapidly as teachers developed their own resources. “Now, 10 years later, many geographers, and some scientists, would struggle to survive without it."
Our thanks to Chantal Snoek, Founder of Science Circle, for hosting our presentation in the Science Circle island in Second Life.
We will keep you posted on our future events and research results.