How Glass Could Change The Education Process During School
The best thing about Google Glass is that it can transmit better than anything else so far, a person’s point of view. You probably remember about Tammy Lou Van Sant, who is paralyzed from the neck down and is using Glass in order to communicate with people, record videos of her daily life and most of all for sharing her experience.
Pursuing this idea, a pre-K second grade school teacher and technologic coordinator managed to capture unique moments of the children’s learning process. Margaret Powers realized instantly the effect Glass could have over the education, so she shyly replied to Google’s competition for entering the Explorer program by tweeting saying that she would use it to show people how the world looks like in the eyes of a child. Google chose her as part of the program and it certainly was a good choice. Her blog, 365 days of Glass is now documenting the Glass experience within the classroom.
After a month of documentation regarding the device and receiving necessary information from Google, such as recommendations, do’s, don’ts and so on, she began taking Google Glass in the classroom for observing the students. The result was unexpected, probably for her as well. The children seemed to be more immersed in the lesson and eager to perform its best. This is just a small motivational benefit, wait till you hear the rest.
When she asked the children how it would be for them with Glass in the classroom, their reply was that they would be able to see almost the entire classroom with just one Glass shot, she wrote in the above mentioned blog.
By using this device, Powers is able to get an overall picture over what happens during classroom and to better distribute her attention, dedication and perfect her teaching skills so that every child leaves the classroom with a higher understanding over what he learns.
Not to mention about the moments with the children handling for the first time such a powerful technology and recording their moments in class, which are priceless.
Power also presents on her blog a few reasons why integrating Google Glass in the educational system would bring benefits and how it can help both the children and the teacher, probably reform at some point big parts of it.
Teachers could record their lessons for educational purposes and students could record school projects, documentaries or simply present their school experiences. Glass’s role in education could simply be about bringing easier information access, instruction and environmental observation and would still mean a lot for the educational system.
Supporting the shared experience idea, Powers encouraged her students to exchange experiences via Glass with other students from Singapore.
Using Google Hangouts, a cyber-school teacher took one of the classes on a so called field trip to Switzerland, to see to The European Organization for Nuclear Research. This is the story of the video Google released to support the educational purposes of Glass.
Powers’ plans don’t stop here. She designed an entire lesson plan for when she will be able to have more than one Glass for her class. And her projects are pretty interesting as well. We recommend taking a look at her blog, to better understand this concept and see some of her ideas materialized.
And for some more ideas on the matter, you can have a glimpse at the info graphic designed by the tech-training website, informED.
An Infographic by www.OpenColleges.edu.au