Giving Students the Steering Wheel in their XR Education, with ARVRinEDU’s Jaime Donally

Published: March 26, 2020, 9 a.m.

For any learning to take place in the next few weeks, parents and educators are going to have to get creative in their teaching methods. Jaime Donally founded ARVRinEDU to help them find ways to introduce XR into their curriculum, and she tells Julie how right now is the perfect time to experiment.

Julie: Hello, my name is Julie Smithson and I am your XR for Learning podcast host. Every podcast session is meant to provide you with a value in micro-learning, about the way technologies will change the way that we learn and we teach. So today on my podcast, I have Jaime Donally, who is a passionate technology enthusiast, and she began her career as a math teacher, later moved into instructional technology. And her desire to build relationships has brought about opportunities to collaborate with students and educators around the world. She provides staff development and training on immersive technologies as an ed-tech consultant. And her latest adventures include the launch of Global Maker Day and the ARVRinEDU community events and presentations. She works as an author and speaker to provide practical use of augmented and virtual reality in the classroom. Thanks for joining me today, Jaime.

Jaime: Thank you so much. I'm excited.

I'm excited to have this conversation, too. And I think the discussion about education and learning, obviously with the situation that we have going on in the world today, everybody is pivoting their eyes to how do we learn online, and the virtual collaboration that we can begin to have. But why don't we start with what you're working on? Maybe do a little bit of a presentation on your mission and your goals in the education space. And let's teach somebody about XR for learning.

Julie: There is so much happening. I feel like I've been sharing immersive technology for several years now, really before people quite understood or knew what it was. As time has transitioned and moved on, course it's become more popular and people are more aware. And it certainly finally got a stand in education, which has been an exciting journey. But really, my goal in all of what I do is sharing from a practical lens, though I don't get caught up into just the hype, but really looking at what is this practically look like, what are the tools we should have in our classrooms? Where is the money that should be spent? Where is the time and value for our students? Where are those opportunities? A lot of that discussion is coming from administrators, it could come from teachers. And oftentimes people are making decisions based upon what they see at a conference or an event. And then what's being marketed -- of course -- are the things that are quite expensive. And so they're taking a leap without actually thinking about what that means for our classroom. So that is kind of where-- more of what I stand and what I share on today is what does this mean for our classroom, and what how should this really be used so that we can maximize the usage, maximize the opportunity for our students, and maximize our our money, our budgets to use it effectively.

Julie: So with the changing times advising teachers on how to implement these strategies -- and the XR strategy, shall we say -- into the classrooms. Maybe you can-- we'll give a little bit of instruction on how to implement into your classrooms, but maybe we'll pivot that afterwards into what can teachers do today in these situations, where kids are at home. So I know that those are two very different conversations. So why don't you present a little bit about the practical use? And if I was a teacher, where would I start to begin to implement these technologies into the classroom?

Jaime: Yeah, absolutely. So from the beginning, I always get the question of what one tool do I need to downlo