Wow. How times change. I was reminded of this on Christmas morning this year. After my kids opened their presents I was putting some things away downstairs in the basement and I happened across an old viewmaster Model-G and several projection reels – all from 1960. I believe this was given to us at some point down the line by my parents or my in-laws, but I don’t remember it. Like many things stored away in our basement – I have no idea how it ended up in our possession. However, I was thrilled with this find. I love history so going through the old reels was fantastic. The discovery was also extremely timely in that both of my children had just finished opening their presents and both of them received a new View-Master VR (Virtual Reality) Viewer.

As I played with the new VR Viewmaster and the 1960 Sawyer Model-G Viewmaster with my kids I thought about how far this technology has come. The original view master came with reels that were inserted and each held 14 still photos. The new VR Viewmaster uses a smartphone or Ipod and all of the content is digital.

The newer model allows you to engage in an immeasurable amount of content that is available on the web or through Viewmaster. You can take a trip under the sea, or visit New York City and London. My daughter got the Destinations pack with her Viewmaster and spent some of the morning exploring London, New York, and Athens. She had a 360 degree view of various sites and historical places. Her favorite was Ellis Island – she was able to explore the island and read about its history-all with the Viewmaster. This in turn led to us having a larger discussion over lunch about immigration and what it would have been like to come to the United States through Ellis Island.

Finding the old View Master the very same morning that my kiddos opened the latest version of it had me thinking about this technology and its place in education, both then and now.

Here are 3 thoughts:

1) Schools should be utilizing not only this technology, but all technologies that allow us to create innovative learning experiences for students. Technology is certainly allowing us to do more and more. The endless amount of content and the integrated nature of it all is impressive. We are not going to turn back the hand of time and disinvent this technology. The same way that social media is not going anywhere. This is the world we live in. And although there are new challenges and responsibilities with ever increasing technology and connectedness, we are so lucky to have the opportunities it provides.

2) That said, the effective use of the technology all begins with the teacher and how it can be used to support learning. Just like in 1960, the teacher is still the most important variable in this equation. Although I know that the Viewmaster throughout history was marketed as an educational tool, I do not know how much it has been used in schools. I never used one in school and I can’t imagine schools in the 1960’s or before were using them. That was not the fault of the technology then, any more than it is now. It is the fault of education.

When I was going through the old view master reels of the White House in the 1960’s I was thinking of all the ways I could have used that as a teacher. For instance, students could choose three rooms (pictures) of the White House they wanted to learn more about then research them and/or compare and contrast them. What is the significance of the Green Room, Blue Room, and Red Room? How did they come to be? Why are they important? You could even use it as a starting point for creative writing – Tell a story that takes place in one of the rooms and use the features of the room as details in your story. In less than 10 minutes I came up with a dozen or so lessons I could have done just on the White House reels. The other reels led to even more ideas, even the Lassie one. If I was a teacher in 1960 I would have been asking the kids to bring their viewmasters from home or scrambling to come up with a few for the class.

The bottom line of this thought though is – technology for learning is only as good as the teacher orchestrating its use. A few years ago I was talking to a teacher and they said in an exasperated tone, “well, with the way things are going with technology I guess they won’t even need me in a couple of years.” I couldn’t disagree more. With the way things are going with technology we need excellent skilled teachers more than ever. Teachers that know how to leverage the technology to enhance learning. Yes, learning! – not just doing cool stuff with technology because it is technology.

It is interesting with the amount of changes that the one factor that remains the same and probably always will is that of a great teacher. And if you don’t believe there have been changes in our world consider the funniest exchange of the morning between my daughter and I. It was when she asked me what the things were on the table in the Cabinet Room picture on the White House reel from 1960 – they were ashtrays.

3) Virtual field trips won’t replace real ones but they can make them better. We are taking my daughter to New York City for her birthday in February (shh.. It’s a surprise – I hope she doesn’t decide to start reading the blog). It will be her first trip there and I have full faith that her reading and learning about major places and sites on her VR Viewmaster will help make our visits and discussions deeper. I also do not know that a historical place like Ellis Island would have been on her list of places to visit had she not been exposed to it through the Viewmaster. But now I am sure it will be on the top of her list.

In Closing
I was inspired to get these new VR View Masters for my own children as we were researching a grant opportunity for Kipling a few weeks ago. Although, there are many more expensive and better VR options out there, we thought these would be a great cost efficient way to try out some Virtual Reality learning at Kipling so we included them in our grant proposal. I thought they were promising so I got my own kids each one for Christmas.

I am happy and proud to say that due to a generous $3,400 grant we received from the Deerfield Education Foundation just before winter break we will be purchasing a class set of these viewers, in addition to several other items, for Kipling School. We are very thankful to them for their generosity and their commitment to innovative educational experiences for our students.

We are also getting a 360 degree camera so that instead of students being only consumers of these virtual reality field trips they can also be the creators of the content. So in the future if you are not able to make one of your kids field trips as a parent volunteer, don’t worry – you just may still be able to go on the virtual field trip – created by your child.