| Summary: | This study is an explorative investigation into Google’s ‘Google Expedition’s’ virtual reality technology and its potential to support collaboration in the classroom. The study is concerned with the technology’s potential to support socially constructed pedagogy in both its two-dimensional (2D) ‘magic window’ (MW) and three-dimensional (3D) ‘head mounted display’ (HMD) modes. The study builds upon an earlier study by Minocha, Tudor and Tilling (2017) that explored the affordances of Google Expeditions in a classroom context. A grounded theory methodology is used with interviews, observations and analysis of student work as a basis for drawing its conclusions.
The study was conducted in an independent school in the North of England with a class of 18 students aged eight to nine years old. The study used observations of pupils using Google Expeditions in both its ‘2D magic window’ mode and 3D ‘head mounted display’ modes. With the former mode students would be able to interact freely, observing body language, gesture and use the tablets as a mediating object whereas in the latter mode these channels would, potentially, be diminished but the technology would offer a more immersive experience. By contrasting observations of these two groups, analysing pupil work and conducting interviews with both teachers and students it was hoped the effect on social collaboration could be explored and insights gained into best practice to be employed around the technology’s use in this context.
Core concepts emerged as; control, initiation of ideas and opinions between groups, mediation and the immersive, imaginative and emotive character of dialogue and written work. The ‘2D magic window’ (MW) mode was shown to support more initiations of dialogue via invitations for opinions or ideas grounded in subject matter whereas the ‘3D head mounted display’ (HMD) mode produced initiations based on an immersive and spatially aware position. The ‘2D magic window’ mode was perceived as allowing the delivery of more complex material, teacher control and group interaction. Dialogue between peers, when
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using the iPads, exhibited a richer nature during the use of the technology, whereas, in the ‘3D head mounted display’ mode, richer dialogue tended to be produced after the use of the technology when discussing and negotiating written work. Together these themes would suggest that the ‘2D magic window’ mode is better suited to collaboration, teacher control and in the teaching of complex concepts. The ‘3D head mounted display’ mode being more applicable as an initial seed material (ISM), evoking immersion and emotive dialogue and for the exploration of spatial concepts.
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