Watch the video below and learn how to use Google Expeditions with your students.  You can find the transcript of this video within the article. 

Hey, guys, it's Bryan Buffington from  Pioneer Resa and well I've been talking a lot about virtual reality here lately and this is a piece of cardboard called Google cardboard and they've been doing these things called expeditions but only for Android devices. So I know a lot of our schools at least here in Northeast Georgia have tons of Apple devices but the good news is that Google just made the iOS app available just yesterday, which today is the 21st that would have been yesterday the 20th of September. So I want to show you how it works it's pretty awesome. 

So cardboard helps but did you know that even if you don't have small enough devices for kids to do this we can we can still just use an iPad and they can still get a lot of value out of the app and out of this app called expeditions but this is the coolest way alright so if we can get enough of these for a class set and get the small devices like iPad Touches or Android devices that's the best. 

So let's get to it. So on the left, you can see my, see that the little ear thing I did there, like you know it's like I'm bidding for something, but on the left, you can see my iPad and I've got it pulled up, so that's the teacher device. I'm the teacher and I'm going to lead an expedition but on the left is the student device which is really just my phone but that can be an iPad as well. I just want you to know that. I'm going to go and open it up on the teacher iPad expeditions and it says you are connected to the recent Wi-Fi that's where I work and it's looking for explorers. I need people to go on an expedition with me but let's find some stuff first.

So let's find something to go on, I think I found one earlier. Now there's a search button at the top. You can scroll through here and look at all the thumbnails and there's lots of cool stuff and I hope that the next update will have a better-curated list of an organization of these different things I want to go, different places I want to go but right now there's a search. To the top right there's a magnifying glass if I touch that I'm going to type in mountain. Type in Everest because I've always wanted to go to Everest, I heard it's dangerous. There it is and you can see I've already downloaded it. There's a little check mark on this and it says there are six scenes and then I guess there's a town there. It says the Khumbu society. I probably pronounced that wrong so please forgive me but I can get on that as well if I wanted but I'm just going to do Mount Everest. 

I'm going to open it up but I don't have any students yet alright. So on the student device, alright kids y'all get on your devices. I'm going to open up on expeditions on the bottom right and this app is free and they have to accept the user guidelines. It says this one is for users older than seven and they should not use it without adult supervision. So I hit accept and it automatically recognizes a teacher on the same network. So it automatically recognized that Bryan Buffington was about to do an expedition or is doing an expedition because I'm live, they'll see it up here live and I can join. So the student can join so Mr. Buffington has the greatest expedition so I'm going to join so here I go join and it wants me to put it in the cardboard, which I have some but just for the sake of showing how this works I'm not going to put it in the cardboard because that's a pretty simple step so I have the phone I'm going to flip it around and it says it's waiting for the teacher just magically like that and it has the two eyeballs ready for Google cardboard but you know what not all of you have Google cardboard, you don't all have small enough devices like iPad Touches or Android phones to use for this. 

 So there's a little button at the top right that I can just make this full screen so I'm going make it full screen. Now I can just see it like a standard iPad or iPod Touch. There's no I's in there so this is for people who do not have cardboard. So they're waiting for the teacher you know the teacher now that's my time to shine. I'm going to hit the play sign on base camp.

Let's go check out base camp place on and now look now the student can look around and the teacher can actually read and has questions about Mount Everest and I don't know if you'll see this, this is crazy I don't even know how they do this but there is a smiley face right here floating around. It lets the teacher know that the student is looking that direction or there are students looking all over the place but you know what this can get kind of crazy so the teacher needs to bring attention to certain things. So look at this, I'm going to put this down for a second, put it down there we go, don't want to make anybody sick.

On the iPad app for teachers look, I can actually bring attention to certain things like the wind horses. You can't miss the colourful cloth flags called wind horses and they meant to promote peace and compassion. If the teacher touches this it actually puts an arrow on the student's devices and makes them want to go that direction and it guides them to something they need to look at, almost like a tour guide.

So here we go, I'm going to touch wind horses on the teacher iPad. Now look at the student device, I don't know if you'll see that there's an arrow now on the student device right here on the right and it's saying, Brian, you need to go to the right. So I'm a kid and let's pretend I have it in the cardboard and I'm like look at this, now look around, keep looking there it is those are the wind horses alright and then the teacher is talking about this and they're given this guide, this tour and when you look at disasters, so now the teacher can go down on her iPad disaster and now the student looks up, it follows the arrow, don't forget we have the arrows to help guide students and there it is, there was a disaster there between 600 and 700 people attempt to climb it most years and we can keep going through this and this is just the beginning, this is a great way to really visualize real places instead of just looking at a picture in a book.

I'm going to put that down before I make anybody sick but I can't wait until I can actually curate my own material from 360 cameras, that's the future, we're going to be able to make our own like we do in Google Street view and I really hope you guys have a blast with this. We can get started now even if you don't have a bunch of cardboard we can just go, if you have a bunch of iPads get the app and play. I'm not sure what year iPads the minimum requirement is but I was just on an iPhone 5s which is about two to three years old. So I think the iPad twos they may work and lots of schools have iPad twos.

So there it is, there is Google expeditions I hope you have a blast, go have some fun and go show children wonderful things. Last thing, picture this we need virtual reality rooms those computer labs that you have virtual reality rooms because all the computers going to be gone. Kids walk in we have awesome sound systems like if I'm on Mount Everest you know what I want to hear? I want to hear wind in this room and if it's Mount Everest you know what I want the AC kicked on, I want it cold. The kids are going to bring in jackets I mean like those big ones alright whatever they got, you know we're going to make that room freezing and the kids will be uncomfortable but they're going to look around and they're going to feel like they're in Mount Everest and we're capturing all the senses and we're doing big-time, big-time learning like big big time all the senses are being treated and you think about that it's coming, are you ready?

Enjoy, try something new today bye.

Are you interested in start using Google Expeditions with your students in class? check our VR classroom pack and ask for a price quote.