PA School Librarian: October 2016

In the summer of 2016, I was very fortunate to attend the Google Geo Teachers Institute in Mountain View California. I actually took a brief break from driving down the CA coast for my honeymoon (shout out to my new hubby for hanging out in Palo Alto while I was at Google!) in order to attend. And the side trip to Google headquarters was well worth it. I was especially excited to meet British educator, explorer and photographer, Jamie Buchanan-Dunlo of Digital Explorer. Among other impressive pursuits, his work is used by Google Expeditions to create meaningful virtual field trips for students. A long-time tech hero of mine, Jerome Berg, also spoke and presented a session on his project Google Lit. Trips. As a former English teacher, Berg's ideas influenced the way that I approached literature then, and continue to inspire my approach to literature now.

When I came back to school at the end of August, I was excited to share the things that I learned while at the Google headquarters. Through a series of fortunate events, a number of teachers and administrators came to visit the library early on in the year and had the opportunity to test out the Google Cardboard that I received while at Google. It probably helped that I lured them in with chocolate, caffeine, and the promise of a virtual beach vacation (if only for a few moments!). I was fortunate to receive 35 VR viewers through funds received as part of a STEM grant (thank you, Mr. Kotch!), and I was able to put them right to good use.

Through collaboration with several Spanish teachers, I have been taking our students on virtual field trips for a few years; however, our students had never been on a trip like this one before! In an informal poll, I discovered that none of our approximately 120 Spanish III students had ever used a VR viewer before, so this was a pretty unique and exciting experience for them.

We started our trip with what was formerly called the Google Cultural Institute, now labeled Google Arts and Culture. I like students to explore locations curated for their cultural significance. Then, students learned how to use the VR viewers with Google Street View and Google Cardboard apps. They were asked to download these free apps to their smartphones ahead of time, if permitted. Not every student could download the apps, which we had anticipated, so students were able to share or use the few iPhone/iPod devices that we brought with us. And this was the result:

Both the Spanish teacher and I received overwhelmingly positive feedback from students on their experiences with their virtual field trip. In the past, students seemed to learn something from the VFT activity, but we had never received such enthusiasm before use of the VR viewers.

One of my biggest goals as a school librarian is to provide cultural experiences whenever possible. Part of our district's mission statement requires that we grow students into "productive and responsible citizens of an ever-changing global society." I hope that the tiny taste of the world that I can provide for our students might inspire them to explore further in real life.

If you would like to modify my lesson materials for your classes, they are accessible here.