On Friday we took a slightly different take on the creating theme of the day and in our lunchtime session we had a look at google cardboard. There was a bit of creating involved in building the headset!
We actually have quite a bit of activity here in GCU within virtual worlds, notably in our School of Health and Life Science. Google cardboard isn’t quite a virtual world but at £12 the headset is a pretty affordable way to get a look at some more immersive apps. We even managed to get it working with an iPhone. We were quite excited by the potential for students to build some apps for use with it. Personally I felt a bit sick after about 20 seconds on a virtual roller coaster, so still not convinced some of this VR stuff is really for me.
Over the week we had some really good discussions with the staff who were able to join us in our daily drop in sessions. In terms of creating padlet and twitter did seem to come top of the list both in terms of actual and potential use. Padlet is such a useful and simple tool to use. The fact that you don’t need to register for an account, it can be embedded into many other places (including our VLE) is very attractive. The daily tweet chats were a really great way for people to “get” twitter and see how a #hashtag can work and engage a lot of activity and sharing of practice. We had a few more twitter converts by Friday with some really good ideas for using twitter in their learning activities.
In terms of timing it wasn’t the best week for us, as there were exams on and so a lot of staff were marking, and that really limited any student participation. We’re also preparing for the start of our ELIR this week (Enhancement Led Institutional Review) so a lot of our staff were involved in preparation work last week. However, we were pleased that some staff were able to take the time and come and talk with us. Hopefully a few of them will apply for some badges too. Based on the experience I think we definitely be involved again. Thanks to Sue and Chrissi and all the team for creating, supporting and extending a really vibrant community and useful week of activities.
Reblogged this on GCU Blended Learning Team Blog.
Hi Sheila,
Lovely to read your final reflections on the week. Pleased that it was a positive experience and a useful one too for you and colleagues. This Google cardboard projects looks like a fun idea. I think I would feel dizzy too… 😉
You raise an important issue towards the end of your post about timing and this is something we need to take into account for the next iteration. As you have seen we are very much interested in exploring the institutional perspective, opportunities and challenges associated with such open offers, to increase local engagement. We look forward to working on this together.
Thanks again for all the things you have shared with us. I need to follow up on evernote.
Chrissi
Thanks Chrissi – yes very keen to work on integrating more into our calendar. Thanks again for such a great event