A shark darts through the water straight toward you. A school of bright orange and white clownfish parade through the crystal-clear water.
A dolphin glides along just in front of you. Your head turns and follows it, and an unknown voice reads more information on dolphins.
Taking off the viewer, you leave the virtual reality and find yourself back in Scott Riebel’s 4th grade classroom in Lincoln Elementary School.
Riebel is an innovator of the use of virtual reality technology as an educational tool in Iola classrooms. This fall, Riebel, who teaches science and social studies, will use virtual reality photos and videos to make his lessons come to life for the students.
“It’s going to take education to a new world,” Riebel said.
While this will be the first year of using virtual reality in the classroom, Riebel has already received some positive feedback from students.
“I did one by one let them (try using virtual reality) just at the end of the last school year,” Riebel said. “I let them look at a few things through it, and the kids are really excited to see all the cool things … Anything that’s out of the classroom, anything that’s going to make them feel like they’re not reading out of a book, is exciting to students.”
VIRTUAL REALITY allows students to experience new places and things instead of reading about them in a textbook.
“You learn better by experience,” Riebel said. “So I’m getting these kids the experience of going to places and learning about things from specialists.”
Students can go on a virtual tour of the Grand Canyon where the tour guide points out erosion as well as the rock stratification.
They can find themselves in the middle of a historical reenactment. Or they can watch food drops from a Syrian refugee camp
Or students can be in the midst of animals, observing them in their natural habitat. Or they can be underwater with marine life, and whatever they watch, they will be told more about.
The Eiffel Tower can rise above students, where they can then measure the angle from them to the top of the structure.
They can even go on a tour of a school building in India, then sit in on a traditional Indian celebration before trying to cook a dish from that celebration back in the classroom.
“It’s limitless,” Riebel said. “The opportunities are just limitless on what you can learn (and) where you go to learn it.”
Finding ways to get students excited about learning is important, Riebel said, because, “If you’re not having fun, you’re probably not learning anything.”
