Sunday, October 22, 2017

Virtual Reality Math




Wouldn't it be amazing if a student who has difficulty understanding 3-D trig questions use a virtual reality app to go to the great pyramids of Giza and find the angle of elevation of one of the pyramids? I learned about CoSpaces from the EdTech session ‘VR & STEAM education’ where I was able to create a pyramid in a virtual reality world and go inside it. Although the equipment I tried there was quite expensive and we are not likely to have it in our classroom (at least anytime soon), but I also learned that we could make a VR headset from scratch and create VR worlds using CoSpaceshttps://cospaces.io/.

This afternoon I worked on a VR headset with my daughter (I had promised her to make one together). After lunch we collected materials like cardboard, glues, lenses (you can use toy binocular lenses) and spent a couple of hours to build one. We used the following steps:



1.       Download the template 

2.       Cut the images out

3.       Trace them on cardboard
(I printed some on cardstock paper but cardboard is a lot stronger)

4.       Cut the traced lines 

5.       Assemble the pieces by glue/tape 

6.       Go to CoSpaces (download required) and choose a space or create one 

7.       Place your phone in the headset

8.       Explore the VR world

I thought about how this kind of experience could help students understand math (e.g. 3-D geometry) or science lessons.




2 comments:

  1. This is a great idea! Virtual reality is becoming a big thing in this day and age. Being able to incorporate the new it technology into a lesson is a great way to keep students attention. Students will be excited to use the equipment and test out a virtual reality system that they won't even realize they are doing math. Also hands on learning for students is a great way to solidify knowledge. Students always seem to understand better when they can relate the information to real life things.

    Wonderful idea to better student learning!

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  2. What a great way to engage students into learning math without them realizing they are studying, they are just enjoying the virtual reality world. This technology would target a huge population of our students since many of them are visual learners - 65% of learners are visual learners (http://www.phschool.com/eteach/social_studies/2003_05/essay.html).

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