MACUL 2015 and the magic of Google Cardboard

For this, my final blogpost under the auspices of EDUC 504, I would like to discuss not a session at MACUL, per se, but a unique opportunity I had to play around with one of the weirdest, most under-appreciated Google products of the last couple of years, Google Cardboard. Announced during Google I/O 2014, Google Cardboard is a low-cost DIY virtual reality headset, which uses your existing smartphone as the display, effectively updating the old-fashioned stereoscope for the 21st Century. Cool, but not something I was really willing to invest 30 or so dollars in to assemble and test out.

During a lull in between sessions, I had the good fortune to wander down to the Maker space, fully expecting to breeze through, take a gander and move on, not having an enormous interest in the more robotics-focused side of the technology sphere (until we as a society can make my own personal C-3PO a reality, I'm not interested. Get on it science!) Amongst the various robotics booths, and 3-D printing examples, I happened to notice that several demo "units" (let's be honest, we're talking about a piece of cardboard here) of Google Cardboard were available to be played with. Figuring now was my chance, I slotted my phone in and gave it a whirl. My thoughts? This thing is awesome (and not just because it turns watching YouTube videos into a swirling Minority-Report-style sphere). This has very real classroom applications, especially of the Social Studies. All the way back in the summer, I can remember sketching out my "ideal" technology classroom, and plopping an Oculus Rift off in one corner of the drawing, reasoning that the ability to take virtual, three-dimensional tours of historical sites could prove invaluable in the classroom. When I initially wrote up that description, I knew that such a device was really more of a pipe-dream than anything else, based on the price of such devices, and the specialized apps and software requirements. In short, even if you managed to get one, the apps and services available for it were not going to be targeting education, unless by education, you meant Call of Duty. Cardboard makes my pipe dream a reality.

In fact, Google is already suggesting this kind of use-case, through their demo software, which includes a short, 3-D tour of the Palais de Versailles, complete with audio-guide, that can easily be piped through a set of headphones. Imagine, as a social studies teacher being able to download other people's photosphere pictures¹ of the Coliseum (believe me, there are plenty of those,) or even to take one yourself, and guide your students through a tour of some of the world's most remote sites without ever having to leave the classroom. In the interests of proving merit in a variety of contexts,I would be remiss in failing to mention the benefits inherent in fields such as science or world languages, where three dimensional explorations of the human vascular system, or guided foreign language tours of important monuments and countries become a reality. The possibilities are truly endless.

The sessions I attended were useful in their own ways as well, but for me, this conference provided me with an invaluable opportunity to test out a piece of equipment which I had written ff as something of a bizarre side-show, and which I now feel has real pedagogical benefit in my classroom.
^{1. Photospheres are essentially self-made Google Streetview photos; the functionality is available on any Android phone running Android OS version 4.4 and above, or any iOS device running iOS 7.0 or higher.↩}

Tech Teach-In with Google Forms

Brief lesson outline:

As part of the opening salvo for my unit on Ancient Egypt, I decided to follow the lead of my mentor teacher and administer a vocabulary pre-test which would give me a better idea of what kinds of terms my students were familiar with, and what kinds of terms they were going to need me to explain for them in more depth.

The crux of the lesson was this:

I trooped the students over to the computer lab across the hall, sat them down in front of their computers, and told them all to login and go to their school provided Gmail accounts.

(I had printed out all of their logins ahead of time, as well as a paper copy of the pre-test just in case my 7th graders started to have some "issues." Some of my sixth graders have previously had issues with stuff like saving documents or using their email, so I really didn't know quite what to expect here.)

Much to my admiration and surprise, my students were on and logged in in about 2-3 minutes.  These computers are something of a pain to work with, and seem to require updating more often than an Xbox One on launch day, so having "only" a 2-3 minute launch time seemed fabulous.  I then used a pre-created group in my teacher Gmail account to mass email the link to the Google Form to everyone all at once.  They clicked it, and started typing.  Faces were happy.  I felt like a boss.  This is when things start to go south.

So, quick pro-tip:  When Google Forms asks if you want to use data validation on a pre-test.  Tell it no. Tell it no HARD. Why, you might ask?  Because data validation, used in the way I used it (for specific term-matching) does not do what I thought it did, (activate the ability to collate results) No, what it does is check to see if the information entered matches what should go in the form, and then both a) refuses to accept any answer other than the correct one, "Mr. Morrow, it won't let us submit, it shows all of these red boxes around things" and b) will helpfully tell you the answer so that you can put the right term into the slot.  Yeah.  That last one was all kinds of fun.

Realizing my mistake thanks to some very helpful (and understanding) students, I quickly went through each and every question, removing data validation, hoping it would live update the form.  It did not.

New pro-tip:  If you have to change stuff like this, be prepared to re-send the form.  And hope you have a very willing,  (or very captive) group of students.  In this case, I had very willing ones.  With nary a groan to be hear, I re-sent the form and had them copy their answers from one into the other, informing them that Mr. Morrow made a mistake, and apologizing for the inconvenience.  The irony in all of this?  The very reason I had chosen to do it this way was I had just finished grading the pst-tests from the 6th grade classes and realized that a) I was really bad at following a list of words with my eyes and b) I hated grading these things, and a computer could be more accurate and provide faster feedback than I ever could.   So, this entire exercise, which ended up increasing the amount of time it took me to administer the test, was intended to save me time, and increase the speed of feedback.


So what did I learn from this experience? Well, the feedback part turned out to work just as wonderfully as I intended, and I now have a beautifully broken out record of their pre-test vocabulary recognition which I have referenced several times over the course of the unit.  I also learned a lot more about the syntax Google Forms uses for things, (which really, I should have been familiar with already) and am confident that the next time I do this (I will be doing it again for the post-test), things will go much more smoothly.  I may even, crazy idea, be able to save actual time all around!  I also, last but not least, learned that my students are some of the most charitable, wonderful people on the planet.  They filled out a pre-test twice for me.  They are the best.