Google's Expeditions Pioneer may have just kicked off last September, but more than a hundred thousand students are already using the Expeditions in their classes to travel around the world without leaving the classroom. The search engine giant doesn't want to stop there, however, as the company now plans to bring its program to 12 cities in the United States, as well as three new countries in the fold to further the company's push in virtual reality education.
The search engine giant through its official Google for Education blog have announced that they are now bringing the Expeditions Pioneer Program to 12 new cities, including Lat Vegas, Alexandria, Portland, Orlando, Phoenix, Indianapolis, Washington DC, Baltimore, New Orleans, Cincinnati and Detroit. Furthermore, Google will also be adding three new countries. The company will be in Toronto, Canada, as well as Denmark and Singapore.
Google and Subaru also made a partnership to bring its program to schools that they visit per region. These schools received an Expeditions Kit that has everything they would need to get that immersive Virtual Reality experience. The kit comes with ASUS smartphones, a tablet for the teacher, a router, as well as viewers that would turn phones into VR headsets. There are also kits that include Mattel's new View-Master, while others include Google's very own Cardboard. Teachers can select the tours that they want from more than 120 places such as Antarctica, Acropolis or the Borneo Rainforest. Google says that it will continue to expand the list as they work with their content partners.
According to Google, Expeditions was designed to enhance the learning experience of students in classrooms. "Teachers were amazed at the things they could do and the places they could see with their students," said Michelle Guzman, a special education teacher at Dartmouth Middle School in San Jose, California. Furthermore, Google's Expeditions program doesn't only aim to increase a student's engagement in learning, but it also helps them to gain a much deeper understanding about the world beyond their classroom.
