AR/VR in Schools & School Libraries

Virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR) technology seems to offer an exciting new option for engaging students in the library and classroom.  

What’s the difference between VR and AR?  Zoladz explains:

Virtual Reality strives to completely simulate an immersive sensory experience indistinguishable from the real … often using technologies like headsets that attempt to completely deprive human sensory organs like the eyes from any stimuli outside of that which is artificially generated by the VR technology. Augmented Reality strives to overlay additional layers of useful (e.g. actionable, descriptive, informative, directional) media onto the real without replacing it (as cited in Massis, 2015, p. 796).

The cost for some AR/VR platforms can be high - the Oculus by Facebook, for example, is $300 for a single headset (Facebook, n.d. - and potentially cost-prohibitive in schools (especially if, like me, your budget for the year is reduced).  There are, however, a number of free options, so I decided to explore what would work in my middle school setting.  I discovered that one challenge is that so much of the technology is developing and changing that as soon as you pick an option (and maybe get comfortable with it), POOF, it’s gone. 

While evaluating various options for this blog, here was my experience:

• Let’s check out Google Expeditions!  Our school ITS is already using this with classes, so it would be cool to see how it could be leveraged in the library.  Ah…  Discontinued as of June 30, 2021 (Maxwell, 2020).  
  
  
• Let’s look at Aurasma – it looks cool, and it’s been around a decade!  Uh oh…  When the link no longer works and Wikipedia uses the word “was” to refer to an app (Aurasma, 2020)…  Apparently, Aurasma was purchased by HP then discontinued… (which you learn primarily from websites that want to sell you on their alternative products like cxocARd and Beaconstac) (Choudhary, 2020; cxocARd, 2020).
  
  
• OK, Metaverse, it is!  Their site bills Metaverse as the number one AR platform and offers the option to create your own AR experiences.  But, create an account and learn, whoops, it no longer has support AS OF YESTERDAY (November 15, 2020...).

What’s a librarian to do??  You know what?  Let’s stick with the tried and true:  Minecraft.  

Yes, Minecraft offers VR/AR options through Minecraft Education!  It just so happens that our school is a Microsoft school (as a well as a Google school), and we have access to the educational version.  Any educator can sign up for an account, though.  In addition, Minecraft offers a way for students to access AR/VR activities even while learning remotely, something that is not generally the case (Young, 2020).

I recently signed up for an account at https://education.minecraft.net/, so I am still exploring but an initial look reveals:

• Minecraft Education offers ready-made lesson plans AND 
  
  
• Minecraft Education has a YouTube channel with a wealth of instructional videos:  https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC2XjBkW16jGLGSEF9vo4PDA

I was excited to find the following trailer (Minecraft Education Edition, 2020):   

John Lewis was the Representative for most families in our school, and we are always looking for ways to incorporate his “good trouble” advice into our social justice and SEL lessons.  This video could spur student discussion during our advisory period as well as provide inspiration to students for their culminating projects for our upcoming school-wide reading of Stamped!  Check it out!

References

Aurasma. (2020, September 30). In Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aurasma

Choudhary, S. R. (2020, November 7). Best HP Reveal alternative in 2020 | Beaconstac. Beaconstac.com. https://blog.beaconstac.com/2020/02/best-hp-reveal-alternative/

cxocARd.com. (2020, February 12). HP Reveal (formerly Aurasma) alternative. https://blog.beaconstac.com/2020/02/best-hp-reveal-alternative/

Facebook. (n.d.). Compare headsets. Oculus.com. https://www.oculus.com/compare/

Massis, B. (2015). Using virtual and augmented reality in the library. New Library World, 116(11/12), 796-799. http://dx.doi.org/10.1108/NLW-08-2015-0054

Maxwell, T. (2020, November 14). Google’s VR field trips app, Expeditions, is headed to the graveyard. Input. https://www.inputmag.com/tech/google-is-killing-its-expeditions-vr-app-for-going-on-virtual-field-trips#:~:text=Google%20is%20discontinuing%20its%20Expeditions,home%20to%20some%20AR%20experiences.

Metaverse. (n.d.). https://studio.gometa.io/landing

Minecraft Education Edition. (2020, November 13). Good trouble: Lessons in social justice [Video].  YouTube. https://youtu.be/IJpPmAgmM8I

Young, L. J. (2020, April 7). Get the most from AR/VR technology without breaking the budget. School Library Journal. https://www.slj.com/?detailStory=get-the-most-from-ar-vr-technology-without-breaking-budget-library