App at a Glance
A Virtual Reality Google Expedition
What is Virtual Reality?
Google Expedition
Google Cardboard
Tour Creator
Virtual Reality Research
Game-based instructional technology tools designed for language learning can provide language learners the opportunity to socialize and interact with the game interface. This interaction with the virtual environment is an experimental learning atmosphere that can help foster language acquisition through actions while developing techniques that allow language to be transferable to other settings (Karageorgakis & Nisiforou, 2018). Students learning language through interaction with the virtual world allows for the target language to be socially constructed (Kruk, 2014) while providing a stress-free learning environment that contributes to successful language development and peer collaboration (Schwienhorst, 2002). This immersive virtual reality interaction also contributes to language development by increasing the students’ cognitive load due to the affective filter being reduced (Craddock, 2018). The reduced affective filter contributes to lowering foreign language anxiety levels thus strengthening self-confidence, motivation, and mood for learning languages (Melchor-Couto, 2017).
How to use Google Expeditions and Tour Creator
Virtual Reality and the SAMR Model
Substitution: Students can visit the assigned location.
Augmentation: Students can gather information and make connections to gain a personal understanding through the guided tour.
Modification: Students can interpret the meaning of their experience looking to find patterns in their findings. Students can also couple Google Expeditions with Google Earth and Google Maps to research and understand more about the locations visited.
Redefinition: Students can share their learning and reflect on the process with the class and even the world. Student can also create their own Google Expedition through Tour Creator.
Communication and Collaboration
There are many benefits to using a game-based virtual reality expedition to foster language learning. This approach will allow students to immerse themselves in the language learning process while having fun. In addition students will “foster the 21st Century skills of creativity, collaboration, critical thinking, and communication, and ultimately develop a better sense of the global society in which they live” (Trude, 2018, para. 26).
Teachers as Tour Guides!
- Teachers can take students on virtual field trips. These field trips can be to other countries of the target language being studied. Students can answer questions and gain knowledge of their new virtual surroundings.
- Teachers can use Tour Creator to create a Google Expedition in which the focus is on language learning.
- Google Expedition will allow the teacher to have a classroom environment in which students can apply their skills in a safe environment. This reduces their affective filter and boost self-confidence so that they can reproduce the language with more ease in the real world.
- Virtual Reality will motivate, engage, inspire student to learn in new ways.
- Teachers can foster 21st century skills such as communication, collaboration, creativity, and critical thinking.
Additional Materials
Google Expeditions & HyperDocs
Google Expeditions HyperDoc Template
Google's New AR Expeditons
Other Virtual Reality Apps for Language Learning
Mondly
ImmerseMe
VirtualSpeech
The Impact of Virtual Reality on Education
Pilot Study
- I received $2500.
- Purchase class set of Google Cardboard viewers. (I also want to test out other viewers.)
- Would also potentially have money to purchase mobile devices to use for viewers. (Based of previous research either a previously released iPhone or an android device)
- Complete the pilot study at my high school in a Spanish II or III classroom setting. (IBR approval needed)
- Will use Google Expedition and Tour Creator to go on virtual field trips with students.
- Pilot study will be a qualitative study to look at active participation. (I will define active participation as engagement, motivation, and attitude)
- Pilot study could also quantitatively measure content mastery. (Content mastery in this case will be a comparison t-test study between classes who use VR and those who don't. The content to be measured will be culture test about the countries visited)
- Future study would hopefully use Tour Creator to create a Google Expedition in which a game-based approach would be utilized to measure language growth. I would put an emphasis on communication (vocabulary and grammar acquisition as well as interpersonal communication)
Bio
Email: walto1ad@gmail.com
Twitter: @WaltonsWorld15
References
Bell, K. (2017, October 10). How to Use Virtual Reality and Google Expeditions in the Classroom. Retrieved from https://shakeuplearning.com/blog/use-virtual-reality-google-expeditions-classroom/
Catapano, J. (n.d.). Technology in the Classroom: Google’s Virtual Field Trips. Retrieved June 16, 2019, from TeachHUB website: https://www.teachhub.com/technology-classroom-googles-virtual-field-trips
Craddock, I. M. (2018). Immersive Virtual Reality, Google Expeditions, and English Language Learning. In Accessibility, Technology, and Librarianship (Vol. 54, pp. 7–9). Retrieved from https://journals.ala.org/index.php/ltr/article/view/6669
Google Expeditions. (2017, August 30). Retrieved from https://www.smore.com/saj7f-google-expeditions
Google Expeditions! (2018, June 07). Retrieved from https://www.smore.com/ysn3p-google-expeditions
Karageorgakis, T., & Nisiforou, E. (2018). Virtual Reality in the EFL Classroom: Educational Affordances and Students’ Perceptions in Cyprus. The Cyprus Review, 30(1), 381–396.
Kruk, M. (2014). The Use of Internet Resources and Browser-Based Virtual Worlds in Teaching Grammar. Teaching English with Technology, 14(2), 52–67. (IATEFL Poland Computer Special Interest Group / University of Nicosia / Maria Curie-Sklodowska University. Ul. J. Sowinskiego 17, 20-041 Lublin, Poland. Web site: http://tewtjournal.org).
Ma, C. (2018). Teaching Application of Computer Virtual Reality Technology in International Education of Chinese Language. Educational Sciences: Theory & Practice, 18(6). https://doi.org/10.12738/estp.2018.6.297
Melchor-Couto, S. (2017). Foreign language anxiety levels in Second Life oral interaction. ReCALL, 29(1), 99–119. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0958344016000185
Reitz, L., Sohny, A., & Lochmann, G. (2016). VR-Based Gamification of Communication Training and Oral Examination in a Second Language. International Journal of Game-Based Learning (IJGBL), 6(2), 46–61. https://doi.org/10.4018/IJGBL.2016040104
Schwienhorst, K. (2002). Why Virtual, Why Environments? Implementing Virtual Reality Concepts in Computer-Assisted Language Learning. Simulation & Gaming, 33(2), 196–209.
Trude, H. (2018, July 3). Google Geo Tools : Virtual Reality in the Language Classroom. The FLTMAG. Retrieved from https://fltmag.com/google-geo-tools-virtual-reality-in-the-language-classroom/
Walker, A., & White, G. (2013). Technology enhanced language learning: Connecting theory and practice. Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press.