T E A C H I N G R E S O U R C E G U I D E VIRTUAL REALITY R E A L I Z I N G T H E P O W E R O F E X P E R I E N C E , E X C U R S I O N A N D I M M E R S I O N I N T H E C L A S S R O O M TABLE OF CONTENTS PART 1: GETTING STARTED Why Virtual Reality ------------------------------------------------------------------2 How to Use This Guide --------------------------------------------------------------3 Learning Strategies for Virtual Reality --------------------------------------------4 Tips for Getting Started -------------------------------------------------------------5 PART 2: LESSON PLANS Lesson 1: A Mission to Pluto -------------------------------------------------------7 Lesson 2: Meet Three Children Displaced by War and Persecution ----------9 Lesson 3: Four Antarctic Expeditions --------------------------------------------12 Lesson 4: Time Travel Through Olympic History -------------------------------14 Lesson 5: Decode the Secret Language of Dolphins and Whales------------16 Lesson 6: Memorials and Justice -------------------------------------------------18 Lesson 7: The World's Biggest Physics Experiment---------------------------20 Lesson 8: Journey to the Hottest Place on Earth ------------------------------22 ABOUT THE AUTHORS Travis Feldler is the founder of TechRow, a social enterprise that explores how to leverage immersive technology inside schools to improve learning outcomes. Natalie Proulx is a staff editor at The New York Times Learning Network. She is a former English Language Arts teacher and has written curriculum for a variety of subjects, including the humanities, STEM and virtual reality. P A R T 1 Getting Started WHY HOW TO USE LEARNING TIPS FOR VIRTUAL THIS GUIDE STRATEGIES GETTING REALITY FOR VIRTUAL STARTED REALITY 1 Why Virtual Reality? In 2015, The New York Times pioneered a new form of storytelling: virtual reality journalism. In an introduction to its first V.R. video, “The Displaced,” a documentary about three children who had been forced from their homes by war and persecution, Jake Silverstein, The New York Times Magazine’s editor, wrote: "We decided to launch The Times’s virtual-reality efforts with these portraits because we recognize that this new filmmaking technology enables an uncanny feeling of connection with people whose lives are far from our own. By creating a 360-degree environment that encircles the viewer, virtual reality creates the experience of being present within distant worlds, making it uniquely suited to projects, like this one, that speak to our senses of empathy and community." Since then, The Times has created a series of 360-degree videos that transport users from their living rooms to far-flung places — from Antarctica to Ethiopia, the depths of the ocean to Pluto, back to the beginning of the universe and through Olympic history. Five years later, V.R. might not have taken off in the way many hoped it would, but it still has the potential to be a powerful tool for the classroom. Virtual reality is engaging, yes — its novelty can be an excellent hook for learning — but it can also be so much more than that. With The Times’s 360 videos, students are no longer mere spectators, reading about an event or watching it unfold, but participants in it. Virtual reality can create a visceral experience, evoke memories, and foster empathy and emotional connection in a way that is rare in other mediums. It can also make abstract concepts concrete — taking students inside a giant microscope that smashes together subatomic particles, transporting them to iconic moments in history, or introducing them to people affected by the global refugee crisis. And V.R. can take students to places they might otherwise never get the chance to go, whether that’s the Mississippi Delta, Antarctica or Pluto. From a practical standpoint, what’s also useful about NYT VR is that the films are typically no longer than 10 minutes, so they are easy to fit into a normal class period without overwhelming students. In this guide, we offer you an array of examples to leverage immersive technology in your classroom using New York Times content and give you the tools to create V.R. lessons of your own. 2 How to Use This Guide This guide comes in two parts: (1) a framework for teaching with virtual reality and (2) a set of eight lesson plans, each based on an NYT VR video. It’s meant to be flexible based on your curricular goals and the needs of your students. Here are a few suggestions for using it in your classroom. Teach Our Lesson Plans. We’ve included eight lesson plans suitable for STEM and humanities classes that can be taught in one to two class periods. Each one is based on an NYT VR video, or series of videos, and includes activities for before, during and after the V.R. experience. Practice Skills. Virtual reality is ripe for practicing a number of academic skills related to STEM and the humanities. You can use the lessons in this guide or the videos on their own to teach students skills like: Making predictions and observations and drawing conclusions. Asking media literacy questions. Having discussions and making claims grounded in text evidence. Practicing descriptive writing and communicating complex concepts. Using multiple literacies like reading, viewing and listening. Building empathy and taking the perspectives of others. Build Your Own Curriculum. Are you teaching about animal intelligence in biology? Reading a novel about refugees in language arts? Learning about the civil rights movement in social studies? You can use any of the lesson plans in this guide to supplement a unit you’re already teaching. Here are a few ideas: Use a video as an engaging hook at the beginning of a unit. Take a “virtual field trip” to build background knowledge on a culture, place, people, historical event or scientific concept you are studying. Make what you’re learning relevant to the real world by inviting students to connect what they’re studying in class to a VR video. You can also draw on the themes and learning strategies in this guide to create your own lesson plans or units around an NYT VR film of your choice. Find many more 360 videos to use in your classroom in the 360 Video stream or the New York Times YouTube channel. 3 Learning Strategies for V.R. We suggest a few teaching ideas to get the most out of virtual reality with your students. Roles and Goals Virtual reality is experiential; it asks viewers not just to watch the film, but also to participate in it. By giving students roles to play (astronauts, anthropologists, museum curators, deep-sea divers) and having focused objectives (collecting data, sharing insights, making recommendations), teachers provide students with a mission to decode their experiences. Partners This medium is all about exploration, inquiry and play, so while students will have a learning objective, they should also have plenty of time to follow their curiosities and investigate the new worlds they find themselves in. We suggest students watch the video at least twice: once to explore and again to make specific observations related to their roles and goals. Exploration and Inquiry This medium is all about exploration, inquiry and play so while students will have a learning objective, they should also have plenty of time to follow their curiosities and investigate the new worlds they find themselves in. We suggest students watch the video at least twice: once to explore and again to make specific observations related to their roles and goals. Journaling After students view the V.R. video, they should have an opportunity to record their observations, synthesize their ideas and reflect on their overall experience. Each of our lessons includes a journaling opportunity, such as the “If I Were There” and “Notice and Wonder” protocols. Then, students can discuss what they wrote. 4 Tips for Getting Started With V.R. A Tool, Not a Curriculum Virtual reality is not a technology that should replace other teaching resources; instead, it should serve as a complementary tool that can enhance learning across disciplines. As with any new technology being introduced into the classroom, success depends on expectations, an effective strategy and the practical details of how it is being used. Safety! Safety! Safety! We always recommend sitting when participating in V.R. experiences. Partners create an additional safety measure because the partner who is observing can ensure that his or her partner is safely experiencing the VR content. Before starting, go over a list of dos and don’ts. Some of our personal favorites include: No standing up. If you are starting to feel dizzy or getting a headache, take the headset off. Do not flail hands or legs around to avoid causing potential accidents. Virtual reality can sometimes be an intensely emotional experience. Remind students that if they are feeling overwhelmed, it’s OK to stop. Technology To get started, you’ll also need some basic technology. Here are some general requirements: Internet: V.R. experiences can be downloaded or streamed. We recommend downloading the experience to the device so that streaming issues are avoided. Mobile Device: Smartphones are essential to powering these experiences. Headset: Choose a headset that makes the most sense for the mobile devices that you are using. There are mobile device-agnostic headsets that could work with a variety of phones. Prices start under $10 for a simple cardboard viewer and go up from there. Most headsets also come with compatibility specs, so that you can be better informed on how to pair accurately. Without Headset: 360 videos can also be viewed without a headset, but the experience isn’t as immersive.