Giving Compass' Take:

• Eleanor Chute, writing for The Hechinger Report, notes the onset of virtual reality technology in classrooms as learning tools aimed at increasing student engagement.

• What are the potential challenges with VR in classrooms? How can edtech companies work with teachers to understand tech needs in the classroom? 

• Read about virtual learning field trips in the classroom. 

Virtual reality (VR) is emerging as a way to provide deeper learning in K-12 schools. When students are virtually immersed in material, they experience it in ways that can’t be conveyed by a picture in a book or line of text, VR proponents say.

“Virtual reality allows students to explore places and structures in a way that is as close to real life as possible, without actually leaving our campus,” said Kristopher Hupp, director of technology and instructional innovation in the small Cornell School District, located about 10 miles west of downtown Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

Carnegie Mellon University graduate student Julian Korzeniowsky, who worked with Cornell students, sees virtual reality as “another tool teachers can use to hopefully increase the learning gains of their students through engagement.”

By donning virtual reality headsets, students at Cornell School District in Western Pennsylvania have immersed themselves in three-dimensional scenes of a Syrian refugee camp, the Great Wall of China and ancient Rome. Some watched the presidential inauguration on live 360-degree video, which allowed them to see not only the spectators in front of them, but also around them.

These students are at the vanguard of using VR as a learning tool, experts say. Although virtual reality headsets are common in game arcades and electronics stores, they are still unusual in classrooms.

That is expected to change.

Read the full article about using virtual reality in classrooms by Eleanor Chute at The Hechinger Report