In the Hechinger Report, Eleanor Chute visits a school district in western Pennsylvania that is using virtual reality as a learning tool.

Although the high-poverty Cornell School District has only about 630 students, it was able to take the plunge into virtual reality with a $20,000 foundation-funded grant provided through the Allegheny Intermediate Unit, a regional public school service agency.

With the grant, the district bought 15 Google Daydream headsets for older students, 15 Mattel View Master virtual reality viewers for younger students and 15 Google Pixel smartphones. The virtual reality apps are installed on the smartphones, which then fit into the headsets. Teachers, who don’t wear headsets, use already-available iPads to monitor and direct the experience. The district also bought two 360-degree still cameras so teachers can develop their own content.

Michael Horn wrote about the possibilities of virtual reality in the classroom in “Virtual Reality Disruption,” from the Fall 2016 issue of EdNext

— Education Next