A former Newport News Public Schools student
is giving back by introducing a new way to
view education.
France-Lee Griggs, a Program Manager with
Daydream, which is Google’s virtual reality
platform, selected NNPS as one of the school
systems to participate in the Expeditions
Augmented Reality Pioneer Program.
While most of the beta testing for this yet-to-be-released
AR app is taking place in large metropolitan
areas, Ms. Griggs, who attended Dozier and
Warwick, wanted to give back to the school
system that gave her the opportunity to succeed.
STEM Instructional Supervisor, Tami Byron,
coordinated with STEM Leads and Instructional
Technology Coaches as Google visited 13 elementary
and middle schools.
Expeditions AR allows teachers to move beyond
textbooks, slideshows, and expensive fieldtrips,
by making show-and-tell a fully immersive
and engaging experience that comes alive right
in the classroom.
After a quick training session, teachers control
the experience by selecting a topic of interest
that connects with the Virginia Standards
of Learning.
Teams of students point their Android devices
at a printed QR Code, which the app instantaneously
converts into a three-dimensional image, which
appears to float right before their eyes.
Students are able to walk around these high-resolution
images and explore them from various vantage
points.
Exploring far off planets up close, investigating
the structure of a cell, diving deep to see
marine life face to face, experiencing an
erupting volcano, or watching tectonic plates
move are just a few of the topics students
learn about through Augmented Reality.
All the while, the teacher controls the pacing,
and introduces questions and ideas to make
the learning experience fun and relevant.
Through this Pioneer Program, students and
teachers had the opportunity to experience
Expeditions AR firsthand, and offer their
own feedback, creative ideas, and constructive
criticism as Google fine tunes the app for
a summer release.
