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Goal

In order for students to learn, they need to do more than just listen. They need to see it, they need to touch it, and they need to experience it. Augmented and Virtual reality does just that. Augmented Reality and virtual reality will be used to help students have background knowledge and gain visual, firsthand experiences with different scientific concepts. Augmented Reality can also increase interest and engagement within the classroom. Students can use the augmented reality to research and present information. My goal is to create a portable MERGE cart to be used in 5th grade classrooms. With this cart, team teachers will get the cart with electronics and cubes to use for instruction. This cart will provide teachers with access to merge software which includes many different scientific concepts. Teachers can use the cubes to help provide background knowledge for students before science lessons. They can also help English language learners have access to English concepts with visuals. Merge also provides opportunities for students to build play and understand within the app. For instance, they can see how a seed turns into a plant overtime without waiting for a real plant to grow. IPAD or Tablets are needed to be able to use the Merge Explorer and Merge Object Viewer App. Each device will need a subscription. I would like to have nine cubes and nine devices. I think the cart would work best if teachers used it for small groups and were able to monitor student’s activities.  

 

What will be done with my students

Students will use MERGE cubes to engage in scientific and information vocabulary instruction. This visual representation of words and information will help students who are ESOL, low readers, have little background knowledge about topics. This will also be used in science to help solidify concepts that some students can't grasp or aren't able to quickly manipulate or do an experiment on. 

 

Benefits to my students

Augmented reality is not something that is new on the educational scene. There are many different types of augmented reality on the market today. To successfully implement an augmented reality lessons, practice, or activity, there needs to be reflection during the activity, to ensure Todd it is not just play and has academic purpose (Cuendent, S., et al 2013). It is extremely difficult to implement augmented reality without being able to put devices into multiple students’ hands at once.
Augmented reality is not just in the lab anymore, “user-friendly smartphone apps can provide powerful AR with no programming experience” (Plunkett, K. 2019). As technology continues evolving, the classroom should as well. Augmented reality is a way of the future. Putting MERGE cubes “in classrooms facilitates the visualization of complex or abstract concepts, direct interaction with examples, and experience of situations that are barely reproducible in the real world” (Jong-Chul, Y., HyeongYeop, K. 2021). For instance, students can see the act of cross pollination up close, allowing them to understand how pollen is able to travel.
Augmented Reality increased student motivation and would be useful at every level of education but elementary is extremely important (Prodromou, T. 2019). The elementary science concepts are the base level understanding students need to continue excelling in their science academic career. If students at any level have more motivation to learn these important concepts it will lead to higher engagement and higher test scores (Zilong, P., et al. 2021)
 

 

Describe the Students

Bay Vista Fundamental Elementary School is a school with 624 students in kindergarten – 5th Grade. Socioeconomic status differs as this is a magnet school. Students need to apply to get into the school. Thirty percent of the students are from the neighborhood, however. The exposure of concepts, vocabulary and background knowledge with this diverse population is different. Entering the classroom, a student may already have learned and understood a concept that is going to be taught. A student also could have never heard of it. A teacher needs to be equipped with plenty of resources and hands out activities to allow all students access to content. 

 

Budget Narrative

The essence of this whole grant is to allow a cart to be made for ease of access. Over the course of the year using merge cube coincide with curriculum developed by the county, will allow me to make resources and make it easier for other teachers in my grade level. Many times, what is holding teachers back is the fact that they do not understand how to use the technology within the classroom or a way to integrate it into their science block. When I can create curriculum or resources for teachers to quickly access this in the cart it will make this sustainable for the time that the devices life. 

 

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