MONROE — They may look a bit lost, wandering around with their eyes covered by headsets.
But the three students recently gathered to demonstrate a new educational technology at Northside Elementary School are very much where they want to be — on this day, they are wandering around a colonial American town using the power of virtual reality (VR).
For those unfamiliar with virtual reality, the technology uses digital images and specialized masks that simulate the 3D world.
In this particular virtual world, there is even a Thanksgiving-themed excursion that takes kids from the first colonies in North America all the way to a modern turkey celebration of the beloved holiday complete with football on “television.”
Another day they might be exploring an ancient Mayan, Incan, or Aztec civilization; or a historical site, complete with actual pictures for an “augmented reality.”
Some days they even see familiar books come alive with animation, such as Little Red Riding hood.
“(The big, bad wolf) looks a lot scarier than I thought,” said Camden Wolff, 10, a fifth-grader at the school who was recently demonstrating the technology, along with classmates Laney Bawinkel and Thalia Gerdes.
That technology started this year at Northside after winning a more than $14,000 Excellence in Education (EIE) Fund grant from the Community Foundation to purchase 24 virtual reality headsets and the software that goes with them.
“This fits so well with our new curriculum,” said Principal Amy Timmerman, who, along with first-grade teacher Lisa DeMuth, spearheaded an effort to secure grant funding from EIE for the VR project through a company called ‘Class VR.’
The system is a boon to learning retention, she said, as studies show students only retain about 10% of what they read compared to retaining 75% of what they experience in the real world; or perhaps in a virtual one.
“The district is taking a different approach to literacy,” said DeMuth. “Kids need phonics of course but also background knowledge” to put concepts into focus and remember them.
Some students rarely get to travel very far and see new things, especially those of low-income families, educators say. Thus, in a small way, the VR sets help level the playing field for the 39% of students who are underprivileged at Northside.
“Most of the kids have seen the square downtown and maybe the Wisconsin Dells,” said DeMuth. “But how many have gotten to see Big Ben in London? This gives all the children the same experiences.”
Just bringing the big, white headsets out of their orange storage gear gets the students excited. Indeed, they are a big hit with all ages and can be used from elementary through high school using downloaded programming from Class VR.
Teachers can constantly monitor on a main screen what the students are seeing and experiencing while wearing the headsets and using the hand controllers.
“It’s super realistic,” said Gerdes. “It was really an upgrade for us from just using books.”
Securing the grant was a major accomplishment for the school, according to Timmerman.
“The VR (programs) are all connected to our units of study,” she said. “We are very thankful we live in a community that supports this kind of thing.”
