Storytelling with the Google Tour Creator VR - Bring the World to Your Classroom!

As VR technology and imagery improves so do creation tools for students and teachers. Google Tour Creator provides an opportunity to blend 360° imagery, 2D images, and audio to create an immersive story about pretty much anything!

What does Google Tour Creator do? Essentially, it allows the user to tell a story about places around the world by creating “scenes” with clickable hotspots, adding text, images, and audio. (mp3 only) Viewers can jump from place to place by going from scene to scene and read an engaging story by clicking on the hotspots to read informational text and images. The tool is very intuitive - even elementary-aged students can use this tool. See this 'real-world' Grade 5 student sample. (used with permission) All you need to create a project is a computer and a Chrome browser.

When preparing a project, the emphasis should be on preparation and storytelling. If it is based on academic research, think about how to tell a compelling story. Climate change may be your focus, so how can you draw in your audience by using the 360° imagery from Google Street View? If it is about a personal experience, what details and imagery will hook your readers? Anything can be turned into a story. In practical terms, after you have your research finished, and noted any details you want to include about places in each scene and gather photos you want to use to reinforce the story. Also, prepare any audio narration or background music you want to use. (and remember, cite your sources!)

So how do you put it all together? This video (on my alter ego YouTube channel) shows it all but begins with a note on ‘best practices’ for the classroom. *See the description on YouTube for access to Tour Creator and other teacher resources!

Learn more from Google here.

Storytelling with the Google Earth Projects Tools - Bring the World to Your Classroom!

In November of last year, Google launched the new Projects tool within Google Earth. I was fortunate enough to be in a cohort of teachers from around the globe who were beta testing for almost 2-years as part of a project to grow the community of educators using Google Earth. While I fell in love with the Projects tool I also found myself profoundly inspired but the minds around me.

What does the Google Earth Projects tool do? Essentially, it allows the user to tell a story about places around the world, adding text, video, and images. Viewers can jump from place to place and read an engaging story in the text boxes, look at images, and view related videos. You can even force the viewer to zoom down into a Street View and scroll in 360°. The tool is intuitive. All you need to create Projects is a computer and a Chrome browser.

Check out these sample Projects, many deliberately designed to tell a story.

When preparing a project, the emphasis should be on preparation and storytelling. If it is based on academic research, think about how to tell a compelling story. Climate change may be your focus, so how can you draw in your audience? If it is about a personal experience, what details and imagery will hook your readers? Anything can be turned into a story. In practical terms, after you have your research finished, and noted any details you want to include about places on the tour, gather photos and YouTube videos you want to use to reinforce the story. (and remember, cite your sources!)

So how do you put it all together? This video (on my alter ego YouTube channel) shows it all but begins with a note on ‘best practices’ for the classroom. *See the description in YouTube for access to Google Earth and other teacher resources!

Learn more from Google here.