During last week’s Practical Ed Tech Live episode (join me this Thursday at 4pm EDT) I was asked about virtual reality, specifically Google Expeditions. The point that I tried to emphasize in my response was that it’s important that we don’t lost the greater physical geographic context when we take students on virtual reality trips.

Before you embark on a virtual reality field trip have your students look at physical maps and have them hypothesize about what they might see on the virtual reality trip. Ask students to use their prior knowledge to form those hypotheses. When they’ve done that, then go on the VR trip. It will have more meaning to your students if they have a greater context and aren’t just touring around a location you sent them to in virtual reality.

For a greater discussion about virtual reality in education, please see the Hangout that I recorded with Greg Kulowiec from EdTechTeacher.org.

The resources that we shared during the Hangout are available at EdTechTeacher.org/VR