Google Expeditions. Chrome Music. Student EdCamps

My top three strategies, ideas, or tools of the week! ​

• Looking for a tangible application for leveraging VR in the classroom? After our school acquired a classroom set of Google Cardboard VR goggles, I began exploring Google Expeditions, an immersive platform for visiting historical landmarks, moving to the atomic scale, examining cells, and exploring environments that are otherwise inaccessible. The worthwhile question is not whether VR is engaging. It is whether the impossible vantage point helps learners notice something they could not otherwise see.

• ***Interested in a SWEET chrome experiment designed to help students interact and invent with music?***Check out Chrome Music Lab. This  chrome experiment even features its own Song Maker, allowing to create and share your own music. My mind is spinning with all the invention possibilities, especially when interfacing this chrome experiment with the MakeyMakey when facilitating summer science camp.

• [warning...repeat bullet!] Curious about training students to facilitate Professional Development for other students AND EVEN teachers?Student-Driven EdCamps might be an easy way in the door. To be honest, I am not sure when, or if, I would begin to implement something like this at my school site, but it does represent a solid protocol for empowering student-student and student-teacher collaboration via an informal model that has proven successful at empowering teachers. I keep coming back to this article and musing over its potential and possible variants.