#History

Vikings, Zombies and LBVR for education

Things have been a little quiet on the site for the last few weeks as I’ve been back in the UK visiting family over the summer (and avoiding the 50° temperatures in Dubai!) This year I also got the chance to meet with some of the great folk from Immersive VR Education on my travels – the team behind Titanic VR, Apollo 11 VR and of course the Engage platform I use for #CPDinVR. I first met with Chris Long in London and then later my wife and I flew from Edinburgh across to Ire

10 History Experiences from Inspyro

Some of the most successful and engaging mobile AR and VR experiences I’ve facilitated in the last year have been from using the wide range of apps developed by Inspyro. Currently focused on content for the history classroom (though they tell me that geography is next up), Inspyro's VR apps are all free to access. Their AR content is marker-based and works as a part of their ActiveLens programme, wherein educators can buy the relevant information packs for a given time period

ARtifacts - using AR in the history classroom

Civilisations AR is an outstanding new app developed by the BBC and and Nexus Studios, developed as a tie in to the documentary series of the same name. It features more than 30 digital scans of artefacts from museums across the UK which can be placed in the world in AR. The detail on the models is simply stunning and Civilisations is without a doubt one of the most impressive examples of augmented reality I’ve seen yet. Here’s a little clip I recorded of it in action What th

Meaningful, multi-platform VR integration

As many of you will know, I work as Head of Digital Learning and Innovation across JESS Dubai. JESS is a group of three schools – two primary schools and a secondary. In the primary schools we have a bank of Viewmaster headsets and iPod Touch devices to use in them. In the Secondary we have a bank of Bobo VR Z4 headsets and students use their own phones in them. We also have a BYOD iPad scheme in the KS2 years of each primary school and banks of iPads in KS1 and EYFS. In Seco

Animated diagrams in AR using JigSpace

I initially held off on discussing any of the new ARKit developed apps when iOS 11 launched for one main reason - I couldn’t actually use most of them! My iPhone 6 was hanging by a thread as I waited out the X whilst my iPad Air 2 is doing just fine and I have no plans to upgrade it any time soon. Neither of them could run the vast majority of the ARKit apps though as they simply weren’t powerful enough. Now I have the iPhone X, I have finally been able to dig into these new

Virtual time travel using Timelooper

Timelooper is one of the most interesting mobile VR applications I’ve come across lately. A history-themed app, Timelooper offers a bank of virtual experiences set in locations including London, Washington, New York, Berlin, Budapest and more. These are no ordinary 360s in these locations though, nor are they virtual museum tours. Timelooper offers something much more unique – virtual time travel. The app offers a glimpse at iconic locations and moments in history. Experience

10 amazing virtual museum tours

Virtual Museum Tours are steadily becoming more and more common. VR has the power to transport users to places they might never be able to visit in real life so welcoming digital visitors into the museums of the world is a natural fit. It’s also a huge win for students across the globe as they get to explore some amazing pieces of world history with unprecedented access and ease. This really strikes a chord with me as an international educator, working in a British curriculum

How to find the best 360 videos on YouTube

YouTube has a wealth of free educational 360 videos that can enrich and transform learning. Of course it also has a lot of other content to wade through (360 and otherwise.) I've spent some time trawling through YouTube looking for the best channels for educational 360 videos. First though, a few tips and tricks for using 360/VR content from YouTube: - Once the video is playing look for the VR headset icon in the bottom right corner to switch to stereoscopic VR mode and view

Building multi-user AR/VR experiences with Eon Creator AVR

There are lots of platforms available that offer AR and VR experiences for the classroom. There are far fewer though that allow educators to actually design the learning experience by framing the content effectively. Nearpod lets you build presentations around 360s, Expeditions scaffolds their experiences with information and focal points whilst other apps will enrich their virtual content with facts and figures. Eon Creator AVR offers something quite different - the ability

Three ways to explore Ancient Egypt in VR

I've mentioned my love of Ancient Egypt as a school topic before and have shared this in VR form through one of my Nearpod Virtual Field Trip lessons (find it here). Like an archaeologist, I was scouring the App Store today looking for treasures when I cam across a real gem in the form of "Tutankhamen – Journey of Howard Carter" (aka King Tut VR 2) from Eon Reality. I'd actually tried the original King Tut VR experience early last year whilst working with Year 3 at JESS Prima

Getting to grips with HistoryView VR

HistoryView VR is one of my favourite new platforms for grassroots level VR in the classroom. It offers an ever growing set of 360 tours of historical sites and museums, produced using the stunning Matterport camera to map the spaces in 3D. It's one of those tools that ticks the three key boxes educators are often looking for: 1. It's free. ( Donations are welcomed) 2. It works on any device (a VR headset is optional but improves the experience.) 3. It's easy enough for any e

The Titanic VR Experience

When I wandered into the Year 5 area of one of the primary schools I work in, shortly after Spring Break, I was stunned to spot an amazing Titanic display on the wall. It turned out that they had adopted a new topic... and I had just the thing to enrich it: Titanic VR. I coordinated a series of sessions with the teachers where all 66 students came to me (in small groups) to experience this amazing VR app on the HTC Vive. Students stood on a fishing boat as the Titanic passed

Edorble VR offers social learning experiences

I came across Edorble last May and tested a beta desktop build. Edorble offers virtual worlds where educators and students can gather for lessons, discussions or meetings. It has a lot of cool features including voice chat that is activated when you get close to another user and the ability to import URLs for playback on built in screens. The auditorium space offers a particularly huge screen - Here's a short overview of the platform which shows it in action: It was pretty im

Nearpod Virtual Field Trips

In late 2015 Nearpod integrated VR filed trips into their amazing presentation platform. As one of the original Nearpod Pionears, I was invited to contribute content to the launch of this new venture. Here are some details of about the three lessons I published for them: The Burj Khalifa The tallest building in the world and the one that Tom Cruise loves to dangle from. The Burj Khalifa was a perfect subject for my first virtual trip. I did consider several other locations he