Enhancing Classrooms with VR

I'm Brian Myers. I'm Mike Ritalik. I'm Becky Hiread. And this is Al pellets, a podcast featuring tips for ad teachers.

We are your agricultural education resource across the web, sharing research based tips and tackling the tough questions facing agriculture teachers every day. This is Brian here with Becky and Mike and we are here by the Al pellet and we have a great guess with us Jim and Greg. Thank you for being with us here today on Al pellets. You're welcome.

Thanks for having me on your show. Well, we appreciate it. So, Jamie, tell us a little bit about yourself and what you got going on. Yeah.

So, I'm Dr. Jamie Greg. I'm at the University of Tennessee Knoxville in the Herbert College of Agriculture. I'm an assistant professor.

I started here in my faculty position in January in 2020. I'm a assistant professor in agricultural communications in the Department of Agricultural Leadership, Education and Communications. I'm originally from Scotland, but I've been here. This will be a decade of service in the US.

I thought for sure you were a native. That accent is really native to the scene. You had me fooled. Yeah.

Sometimes trying to trick people and letting them actually just from really rural Appalachia. Like family, every loss of the accent. I just appreciate that you have come to the United States to provide service and try to help us out. Yeah.

I thought I took it worse. I sent it to you. He lost a bet. He ended up here.

No. Yeah. It's been great. I hear this here started off.

I've done my whole, I want to keep using this. I've done my whole length of service at the University of Tennessee. So whole sentences being carried out here. Yeah.

Came 2013 to a Masters, Data or PhD in the College of Communication Information and then came to the Herbocaller agriculture. Actually in 2019, I was a lecturer in the fall and then I started as a assistant professor in January 2020. What a time to start to start a new career right there in the COVID and everything else. Wow.

Congratulations for making it through all that sort of thing. Yeah. I had three months of in-person and then the world shut down and I went online. So which is what ultimately made me start thinking about this kind of research because it was around about that time when we transitioned to being online that we're having to think of new ways of delivering information and then start thinking about virtual reality and the potential of that to first do a like distance education online and now in this paper we talk about utilizing it for in-person classrooms.

Well that is a great segue to kind of get us to talk about the topic today. So Jamie, why don't you give us an overview of our overall topic and then we can get into the specifics. Yeah. So the reason this paper came about, so there was a special edition of Journal of Advanced Information and Academic Development and they were looking at methodological based papers.

And one of the things that we were talking about when looking at virtual reality specifically is there was there's been research on specific content. So it might be an app that someone's made or testing out videos and whether or not they work in virtual reality. So there's been a focus on kind of the content of virtual reality but what we were noticing is there wasn't a whole lot of method or instruction training or pedagogy about how to actually implement this in practice. So we wanted to do is kind of look at some literature around education communications and try to identify other ways that we can take what we already know works in the classroom and apply it to this new method because our thinking was even though the innovation is new, it's really experiential learning like experiential learning but we're trying to take those experiences and apply them in a classroom through a different practice.

And so that's really where it came from is can we create a structure that people could look at this as an experiential learning process and then how do you set up in the classroom? How do you think about what to use it for and then also think about in the back end, how do you reflect on that and measure it if it was successful? Just to start with, tell us a little bit about how you conceptualize VR and how is that kind of used to frame this work and as we start thinking about how do we actually apply it in the classroom? Yeah, so I can speak about how I've used it and thought about how others could do it.

So I've used it a couple of times during COVID. So one was I brought people together in a graduate online class. And one of the things I really thought about in terms of distance education that my in-person graduate education had that distance doesn't were seminars was in-person discussion seminars. I thought were really useful that you can kind of do online if you have people that can meet in person as sorry, meet at the same time through Zoom.

But for others, it wasn't really a space for that. And I felt that those were really valuable just to have times where we could meet with instructors or professors or students and talk about things. So I use virtual reality in that instance. We sent headsets to people that were doing our my master's class in leadership communication.

We had nine students sign up and we sent them headsets and we met in a virtual room four times right semester. So that was using it as a virtual meeting space to kind of facilitate what would have normally been a seminar room in person, but we met virtually. And we were these avatars in a room using it when I had headsets. It sounds surreal, but actually it really felt like they really developed a good personal connection with each other facilitated through VR.

So I guess one instance of thinking about it is facilitate in person, but using this VR as a tech to do it. And then the second thing is bringing experiences into the classroom that might be difficult to achieve otherwise. So in example, as in class, we use an app called Wonder, which is essentially Google Street View, but in VR. And so when people on the headset, you can go to any location that has a Google Street View and go into it in 360.

So it's like an immersive experience of going to a location. And so I took it into a class. We said, where do you want to go? I said, well, we really want to see what a vineyard in Italy looks like.

So we went into the app and then went into find a vineyard and kind of walked around to NVR. And so that's really the two areas right now that we have seen for experiences is facilitating a meeting or doing an experience that could be a virtual tour or a video. And I guess the third instance that we talk about in the paper is a 3D simulation. And within AgEd, probably the most used one of these would be like a skill development app.

So there's some out there that might train you on how to safely use a tractor or how to use wiring or how to do welding. And so those are where it created like a game in virtual reality that is 3D model and people can learn a skill. So those are kind of like three areas that I have seen it being utilized. I feel like Brian's waiting to make a joke about an avatar.

No, no, no, no, no, no. I'm just over here creating my avatar right now. Oh, my name. Those are some cool ideas.

And I think that's where the creativity comes in is just giving some people some thoughts and ideas about how we can use this in some real practical and useful settings. Well, I think we've heard otherwise on the season, you know, some of the skill development and content development piece. And so I appreciate what this is bringing into kind of that planning piece and asking yourself what can VR do? And Jamie, you gave us some great examples.

What can it do that other tech can do? What can it do that would otherwise be really hard to facilitate? And what can it do that? And it's like that would otherwise be dangerous or difficult to give?

Well, I really appreciate you. You're talking about I think it's really easy for us to fall into the same. This is a really cool toy. Let's look at the neat features of it and play with it.

But you really kind of focus on how do we use this to meet educational objectives? How do we really go in there and use this the virtual tours and this kind of thing are simple, but not simple in trying to provide those kind of experiences to individuals? So what would be your kind of things that teachers need to be thinking about as they try to engage in using this tool in their classroom? Yeah.

So let's break questions. So I think this paper focus on is kind of a guide for where you start the process. So I guess so we took a big three P model that was actually quite called Clusterer who suggested that he's now at QUT of Pressish process and product. So what is the learning environment or the student factors or the teacher context?

That's the first thing to look at. So in our paper, we kind of adapted that and called that like facilitation. So before you start doing this, thinking about your learner characteristics. So who is it you're teaching?

What are their like technical abilities? What do you want to ultimately be the learning objective that you're going to kind of start off with? I guess what you said before is great. People can see this as a toy or a tool, but with anything like that, when you think about implementing it, you can just say, we're going to use this and see how it goes or you can say we have a learning objective and does this fit that.

So that's really the starting point is what do you want to achieve at the end of this? VR might work for you in some context, but it might not. So think about that upfront. Your learning environment.

So are you going to teach in a formal or a non-forming setting? What are the characteristics of the environment? So things like, are you going to have internet access where you go? How many headsets are you going to have to be able to use in the classroom?

Because that's going to think about how you actually set the classroom up. And then also the teacher themselves. So do they have technical efficacy? Are they willing to learn this technology and put the time in upfront to learn how to implement it, those kind of things?

And then when you go into how to use it, then it's deciding, okay, what kind of content am I going to try and use on the headset? Am I going to just do a 360 video in YouTube? Or maybe we'll find the archers? So there's a really good website that I visit project, which you're probably familiar with.

The iVisitProject.com. So they have a bunch of agricultural tours that have already been created that you can go and interact with. Those work on a desktop, but they also work in the VR headset. And then you have applications like VR Traktor App.

So thinking of what to implement in terms of the content you're going to use. And on the backside of that, we have reflection and measurement. And so we used COB's experiential learning model as kind of the framework for this. So in COB, it says, people will do an experience and then come out with that experience and reflect on it.

It can be journaling, can be talking to each other about it. And people will point out things that you may have missed. And then they talk about going in and doing the experience again. And that's kind of creates a new experience because they're examples is you talk to somebody and they say, oh, did you look at this?

And I know I was looking at a completely different thing. And then you're going to do it again. And you know, just new things. So that's kind of always focused on is like maybe you just think of this as a regular experience, experience you're learning.

If you're going to take people on a field trip and do a thing, like a virtual tour, then how would you reflect on that field trip once you were back in the classroom? And would you have them do an assessment? Would you have them talk to each other? Would you maybe do an initial field trip as a basic?

And then we'll go back and do something more depth and more specific. So I guess thinking about like that is how do you take what you already know? If you're already learning a whole new skillset in most cases, learning technology, so how do you then take what you already know in terms of an educator? But why that with this specific tool?

As you're talking, you asked a really important question. I don't want to gloss over. You asked about what are their technical abilities? And you talked about a little bit from the position of the teacher as far as, you know, what's they're going to take to implement and learn.

But the thing that that question really conjured for me is what are my students' technical, like tech abilities? Because I think kind of to Brian's initial question about how do you make sure it doesn't just become a toy, it's also this like my students, our students will pretty much always have more technical ability than we like regardless of current age of teacher. That just is the nature of evolving technology. But I think that question really sets us up to ask, how do I make sure the technology aligns with their content and skill?

What am I asking them to learn? Am I going to have to do some really intense onboarding with how do I do this? Or am I talking about a headset that a bunch of my kids have at home already? But we really can focus in on the content or the technical skill I'm asking them to develop through engaging with this technology.

Yeah, I think that's really important. I think the assumption we often have is that young learners or can be kicked through 12 or at college age are automatically going to be able to pick this up quite quickly. And that really can vary based on the experiences that they have had. Some people that you give a headset to will have used one before and you can say, are you familiar with the controls?

When you get in there, can you navigate around and they will have done it before? Or others, they may have never done it and that's going to be a different learning experience. And one of the difficulties with VR that we find that teachers or anyone using it and trying to use it in an instruction environment has to get over is you can't see what they are seeing. So if you sometimes someone is using a computer and they're like, oh, I can't find this button or I can't do what you're telling me to do in VR, you can't see inside their headset.

So you have to kind of just ask them, what are you seeing? And then you're kind of, if you're familiar with the layout, then you can guide them. But that can get tricky. So one of the things that I've noticed is having to really like simplify it down, get the headset prepared, you probably have to do at least some form of introductory class with people first just on how to use and navigate the headset and then say, we're going to use one specific thing, open up the browser, go to this website, click on this link and do this tour or go into YouTube, search for this and do this video.

The one thing we've done this a couple of times with professional development workshops now with both teachers and extension educators, one thing they bring up is how do I know if our students or whoever we're doing this are not just doing something completely random that they find in the next week. And Tyler Grammarie's on his paper, he made a good point. It's just like being in a regular classroom. There is a tendency with this thing to think it's like babysitting.

I'll just give them a headset for 15 minutes. I don't have to do anything that is doing it. But just like if you have a classroom activity and you think that people are maybe browsing on Facebook or doing something else on their phone or not really in what they're supposed to do, you have to like, you have to actually check in. So it might be going around and tapping someone in the shoulder and saying, what do you see right now?

Oh, then you're going to know that they're not doing anything that you think they're doing. Well, I think that's a good transition because I think one of the questions we have is really around reflection and measurement and if we're going to use this as a learning tool, what role and what's that look like? Yeah, so we looked at a couple of things here. So within our measurement, we started off what if someone just had a fairly standard outcome of increasing proficiency within a certain agronautial literacy outcome?

So it might be so we looked at accuracy outcomes, the national accuracy outcomes are broken into biocatigrees, ag environment, plants, animals, food and fiber, food, health, lifestyle, stem, culture, site, economy, and those, they're kind of broken down into various areas. So it might be if say you have a specific outcome, like I want to increase someone's awareness of the dairy production process and then we give them a virtual tour of a dairy facility, then a measurement of that as just a basic knowledge increase, could knowledge and awareness might be as simple as just a evaluation or assessment afterward at pre and post evaluation to see if this experience increased the knowledge and awareness of a certain outcome. So that could be a basic measurement. But then in terms of reflection, then we kind of talk about more qualitative understanding.

So having them reflect either individually or in person, sorry, as a group on the experience and then try to kind of qualitatively assess what it was that they gathered from that experience. So it's like you would have to do someone in person do trip, what would you do afterwards in terms of your evaluation of that. And then there's also just the evaluation of the process itself. So from a teacher's perspective, do the teachers feel like as an assessment that it was beneficial, that it accomplished their goals and objectives?

Was there anything that was a challenge to them? Were there anything that they would do differently the next time? So we try to leave this a bit open that it could be applied as either a teacher doing it themselves or an evaluator coming in and saying we're going to evaluate educators using this tool. So it's kind of different angles that people can take it from.

Well, and the thing that I really appreciate, I think we can kind of get bogged down in the newness or the coolness of the technology. And I really like how you bring this back to this is experiential learning. This is something that is kind of our bread and butter. This is something that we in agriculture, education know and really reminding us to use those principles that we know well and use this VR as a tool to provide greater experiences and greater opportunities for our students.

So thank you so much for sharing this for number one. Thank you for doing this work. We're doing thank you for sharing this work with us. I hope our folks have gained a lot from our conversation.

We'll continue to engage online and share their experiences with you in virtual reality in their own classrooms and utilize some of the various resources that you have shared in your work. So Jamie, thank you for being with us today here on Out pellets tips for ag teachers podcast. You hope you've enjoyed this episode of Out pellets check out our website for more information on this topic and to learn more about our guests. Follow us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram to stay connected and be sure to subscribe to our podcast so you'll never miss an episode.

For Mike and Becky, this is Brian here by the out pellets saying thank you and we look forward to seeing you again on another episode of out pellets tips for ag teachers.