Last year, I went to the Illinois Education Technology Conference in Springfield , Il. Here, there were so many cool breakout sessions on different technologies and how to bring them into your classroom. I highly suggest if you are looking for a great conference to go to!

One breakout conference was how to bring virtual reality into your classroom. Google has created an app and device called Cardboard to bring virtual reality into your classroom for as little as $15 (and an iphone...which most students already have). 

When we came back from the conference, all teachers that went presented a few sites and technologies to use in the classroom with our school. We now have 2 cardboards in our tech classroom, but I am currently writing a grant to buy enough for a centerin my own classroom...and looking on ebay for old phones to at least have enough for one learning group of 7 to explore with these.

Below is an article and video about virtual reality in classrooms. Also, a link to buy the Google Cardboards from Amazon:

Watch the video about Google Cardboard in the classroom @ 7:33

Below is a link and portion of an article that reviewed 10 different learning technologies. One, being Virtual Reality.

https://www.litmos.com/blog/hi-tech/10-new-learning-technologies-by-dr-clark-quinn

"VR

Virtual Reality, or VR, is a different take than AR. While AR augments reality, VR creates it’s own. The typical implementation is a set of goggles that presents visuals (stereo, one to each eye) that create a separate reality. You see a completely simulated world. What’s different from regular virtual worlds is rather than just an image on the computer screen is different in two separate ways: first, it’s 3D, owing to the stereo eye images; and it’s also responsive in that as you move, your moves adapt the scene relative to where you were and where you’ve moved to.

The benefits here are several-fold. First, the world doesn’t have to be real, and it can be in any scale. It’s highly immersive too, in that your vision is completely embraced and it reacts to your motion (the original motion sickness problems have largely been eliminated).

Most importantly, you can create a fully envisioned 3D world to be explored. Learners can move around or through any creation of importance, at any scale. You can visit molecules or galaxies. What’s more, you can take action. With suitable (and non-trivial) programming, you can have interactions that create experiences.

There are downsides. While the prices have dropped dramatically, the sets still have additional costs on top of your existing hardware. The costs to develop the worlds can be somewhat steep. And the lack of awareness of the rest of the world has the potential to be dangerous.

Overall, however, in the right place and time the learning outcomes can justify the expense, and things will get more powerful and cheaper over time."

Link to buy Cardboard by Google

https://www.amazon.com/Google-87002822-01-Official-Cardboard/dp/B01L92Z8D6/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1506865714&sr=8-1&keywords=cardboards