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.