Ten Ideas for Building Virtual Tours With Google's Tour Creator

Google's VR Tour Creator makes it possible for anyone who has a Google account and a computer to create their own virtual reality tours to view and share in Google Expeditions. Depending upon how in-depth you want to make your tours you can include many points of interest, narration, and ambient audio. It's a tool that I've been using for a couple of years and recommend to anyone who wants to try their hand at building a virtual tour. Here are ten ideas for tours that you and or your students can build using Google's VR Tour Creator.

1. Tours based on books students have read.
This is a great alternative to a traditional book report or book trailer project.

2. Tours based on stories students write.
Students could even write their entire stories in VR Tour Creator.

3. Tours of historic sites students have researched.
This is one that I particularly enjoy because it gives students the opportunity to get a better understanding of where in the world an event took place.

4. Tours of places students want to visit someday.
Inspire some wanderlust in your students.

5. Tours of examples of math in the real world.
Have students record narration to explain examples of math that can be seen in famous landmarks like the Eiffel Tour or the Leaning Tower of Pisa.

6. Tours of examples of geological features.
Jump from place-to-place in Yellowstone explaining geysers and hot springs.

7. Tours of examples of ecological features, floral & fauna diversity.
There is more "off road" Street View imagery appearing all the time. Use that imagery in a tour of a forest.

8. Tours of the range of a species of animal.
This one might be a little tricky,  but you could create a tour of the southernmost and northernmost ranges of a species. Use narration and imagery in the tour to explain why the range ends where it does.

9. Tours of ocean features.
Yes, there is even Street View imagery under water.

10. Tours of things students just find interesting. 
After all, one of the great things about Google Maps and Google Expeditions is just sparking curiosity about new-to-you places.


This one of the topics that we'll explore in more depth during the Practical Ed Tech Virtual Summer Camp. Registration is open now!

A Webinar for Parents of Elementary School Students

Rushton Hurley runs a fantastic non-profit called Next Vista for Learning. Some of you have seen me write about it and talk about it for years. One of the reasons that I like so much is that it offers something for every student, teacher, and parent. To that end, you'll find that the videos on Next Vista address more than just academic topics. You'll find lots of things about caring for the needs of students. That pattern continues today at 1pm ET/ 10am PT with a free webinar for parents of elementary school students.

Today at 1pm ET/ 10am PT Rushton Hurley and Tatiana LaGarde will be hosting a free webinar titled The Home-Learning Journey: Advice for Parents & Grandparents. The webinar that will address the questions that parents of elementary school students often have about online home learning/ remote learning. It will give parents confidence that they can be active and helpful in the online learning experiences of their children.

The Week in Review - It's Snowing!

Good morning from Paris Hill, Maine where it is snowing! Yes, on May 9th I woke up to snow covering everything. And the best part is that when the snow ends it's supposed to be followed by a day of winter-like temperatures and winds. My three-year-old summarized how most of us feel this morning when she looked out the window and said, "what the heck is going on?"

Today is going to be a day for blanket forts, baking, and a whole lot of coloring with my kids. I hope that wherever you are this weekend, you get to do something fun too.

These were the week's most popular posts:
1. Use Whiteboards in Google Meet Without Screensharing
2.Quickly Create Online Whiteboards for Your Students
3. How to Create Complete Sentence Requirements in Google Forms
4. Three Tools for Collecting Stories from Students and Parents
5. How to Blur Faces and Objects in Your Videos
6. Loom - Create Screencasts on Your iPad
7. Exploring and Visualizing Data Sets

Practical Ed Tech Virtual Summer Camp!
Registration for the Practical Ed Tech Virtual Summer Camp opened last week. One third of the early-bird tickets have already been claimed. This online PD event will feature ten live, interactive webinars on a wide array of topics applicable to every classroom. It will be held three times this summer. There is a June session and two July sessions. Register for the session of your choice here.

On-demand PD
I've been hosting professional development webinars for a decade.

• Some of my most popular webinars are available on-demand right here. 
• I'm always available to schedule custom, online PD for your school.

Thank You for Your Support!

• More than 150 of you have participated in a Practical Ed Tech webinar this year. Thank you!
• University of Maryland, Baltimore County has been supporting this blog for many years.
• TPAI offers online graduate courses for teachers.
• Pixton EDU offers a great way to create comics in your classroom. 
• Find cool mugs and other swag in my YouTube store. 

Other Places to Follow My Work

Besides FreeTech4Teachers.com and the daily email digest, there are other ways to keep up with what I'm publishing. 

• Practical Ed Tech Newsletter - This comes out once per week (Sunday night/ Monday morning) and it includes my tip of the week and a summary of the week's most popular posts from FreeTech4Teachers.com.
• My YouTube Channel - More than 22,000 people subscribe to my YouTube channel for my regular series of tutorial videos including more than 350 Google tools tutorials. 
• The Practical Ed Tech Podcast is where I answer questions from readers, share news and notes, and occasionally talk to interesting people in education. 
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