Virtual reality headsets bring history to life
Seventh-grader Amara Rubino assists Pleasant Valley school board Director Delbert Zacharias and Superintendent David Piperato with the virtual reality headsets used to teach history at the middle school. The two are being transported to the historic site of the Jamestown settlement on the shores of the James River in Virginia. JUDY DOLGOS-KRAMER/TIMES NEWS
The enthusiasm is infectious in a seventh-grade history class at Pleasant Valley Middle School.
Mark Fleming teaches seventh-grade history with the help of 30 virtual reality headsets that he uses to transport his students to historic sites located throughout the U.S.
Purchased last year with a Ready to Learn grant, the set consists of the headsets, smartphones an area-specific router and a teacher’s tablet.
“We can travel without leaving the classroom,” Fleming said. “Virtual reality builds enthusiasm for learning. The students are excited and motivated to learn.”
Fleming spent part of last summer learning about the system and admits that there is still more to learn.
“The students can share their world by creating their own VR using pictures to create a program,” Fleming says. “But I am just not there yet myself.”
Fleming, with the assistance of a few of his students and Middle School Principal Rocco Seiler, demonstrated the headsets for the school directors and Superintendent David Piperato at Thursday evening’s school board meeting.
“Virtual reality can be used for many things in the classroom,” Fleming said, “including travel without leaving the classroom, career simulation and time travel to historic places. They can go into the ocean or into outer space or into the human body.”
The VR lesson requires the teacher to download a preselected program from a Google application. The program then posts a script for the teacher to follow, if they choose. The students see the setting chosen by the teacher. The teacher can then post an arrow on the screen, which directs the student to the object being discussed.
As each student powers up their phone, Fleming sees them enter the program as a smiley face on the screen. The teacher can also see if a student is not following along, since the smiley face will drift off to another part of the screen.
Fleming said that students are encouraged to form their own questions and discussions based on what they see during the lesson.
