Virtual Reality. Augmented Reality. Data Analytics. Virtual Classrooms. Gamification. Mind Mapping. The list of potential classroom technology implementations is almost endless – each promising to be standards- and research-based, pedagogically transformative, and engaging. Using these digital tools, teachers can create immerse, engaging learning experiences which research, suggests, help learners to retain more, understand more, and best of all apply more (Strawser 2018). Of course, finding and enabling traditional pencil and paper lessons is sometimes much easier than the daunting task of convincing administrators and principals of the merits of replacing these traditional modalities with newer digital technology into the classroom. Step Two just might be the show stopper. How do I find funding to implement these learner-centric plans? Take Google’s Expeditions for example. The costs to outfit three (3) Science classrooms can reach $35,000 – including smartphones, viewers, routers, networks, professional development, and product support – all add up quickly. And with few exceptions, principals cannot make such capital investments without considerable planning and outside resources.
Case Study: Google Expeditions
Introducing Expeditions VR technology into the Science classroom is truly transformational, but it is not without hurdles. The upfront cost of the investment can be difficult to overcome for any school or district in any community let alone schools in low socioeconomic areas. Almost $35,000 is a significant capital investment, not to mention the ongoing support costs that need to be allocated year over year. Convincing administrators and principals to make such an outlay can be daunting and the cost needs to be expressed comprehensively and with great passion. Facing these costs, teachers need to be both creative and resourceful. Even in the U.S.’s ninth largest school district (198 schools, 14,000 teachers, 225,000 learners), rarely can school principals make such a capital investment in a single budget year. Given this limitation, implementations, including funding sources, hardware and software costs, training and support expenses, replacement costs, and obsolescence costs, need to be thoroughly planned and presented.
Executive buy-in is crucial. Step one for the sponsoring teacher(s) is to have a clear and concise learning goal. In other words, how will virtual reality technology benefit the learners? Such goals need to be carefully justified – particularly in the era of competing budgets, not to mention high stakes testing. Is there a clear nexus between VR technology and standards-based instruction? Not surprisingly, administrators and principals may be skeptical. After all, there’s only anecdotal evidence that this VR immerse learning experience is more effective than other, more established digital tools. In pedagogical environments where peer-to-peer learning is emphasized, the relative solitude of today’s VR technology can also create another acceptance barrier to overcome. VR viewers make it more difficult to collaborate while wearing them. Effective teaching and research-based evidence can overcome these objections. Once executive buy-in is secured, the identification of funding sources and implementation timelines are step two. Again, a department-wide or school-wide budget will likely require super-budget contributions.
These outside considerations could take the form of grants, industry partnerships, as well as district resources (e-rate). For example, the Orange Foundation here in Orlando, provides up to $5,000 in grant for technology implementations, ATT provides $2,000 in similar grants. Investigating industry partnership might yield surprising results. For example, in our Expeditions deployment, we received $4,965.00 from the Orange Foundation, $2,000 from ATT, and $10,000 from Lockheed Martin – that’s over fifty percent of our actual implementation cost. Our principal contributed $5,000 in her local monies as well as time during the school year for teacher professional development and substitutes. We also received $400 from donors choose (www.donorschoose.org) . The district’s developed a Canvas-based training modules and an Arc video. The Science Department’s contribution was to identify and write standards-based twelve (12) lesson plans around the almost 900+ third party VR Expeditions.
Lessons Learned
Based upon our own experiences, technology initiatives, such as Google Expeditions, can be funded in a large number of traditional and non-traditional ways. Perhaps the easiest implementation source comes from the schools’ or districts’ general fund. General funds, in the State of Florida, are provided through districts from The Florida Education Finance Program (FEFP). FERP was enacted by the Florida Legislature and allocates funding from
sales tax and local property tax revenue. In our specific case, we are a Title 1 school – which represents yet another funding for schools (federal government). Title I monies are designed to provide schools funding which can be used to provide additional instructional staff, professional development, and technical initiatives such as ours. In addition to Title I funds, federal e-rate capital is yet another strategy for funding these digital implementations.
For teachers, grants are an extraordinary source of technology funds. For example, in 2016-2017, the Orange Foundation (affiliated with Orange County Public Schools) provided funds for 194 projects totaling more than $191 million. Of course, not every grant is designated for technology. Care must be used to identify both the outcomes and eligibility of each grant type. Corporate partners often provide grants to schools and teachers who meet their own benevolent requirements. In Orlando, corporate partners include such notable partners as Walt Disney World, Florida Hospital, Duke Energy, Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, and University of Central Florida, among many, many others.
Once the initial purchase and implementation has been completed, a plan should be in place to sustain the technology (through its lifecycle), support (software and technical infrastructure), and professional development (training). In our case, we were very intentional about on-going sustainability. Our professional development was structured as both face-to-face and self-paced training. Classroom PD and self-paced instruction was developed in conjunction the district’s professional development staff. Self-paced Canvas instruction provides schools and teachers implementing VR (Google Expeditions) a sustainable pathway for knowledge transfer. We also made the training and our experiences available through the district’s ‘technology days’ where hundreds of teachers gather to explore new digital tools. Hardware (e.g. smartphones and cardboards) are sustain through public funding on Donors Choose (www.donorschoose.org) and through most contributions through our local school’s general funds.
Of course, the sources presented here are unique to both our district and locale. But there are facsimile sources which can be used regardless of school board or venue. VR technology is worth the effort. Good luck and have fun!
References
Auld, L. W. S. and Pantelidis, V. S. (1994). Exploring Virtual Reality for classroom use: the virtual reality and education lab at East Carolina University. Techtrends, 39(1), 29-31
Editorial: Catapano, J, (2014) Technology in the Classroom: Google’s Virtual Field Trips, Teaching Hub, Retrieved from http://www.teachhub.com/technology-classroom-googles-virtual-field-trips
Editorial: Florida’s K-12 Funding Sources (n.d.), Retrieved from http://fundeducationnow.org/floridas-funding-formula/
Maya Georgieva, (2017) Adding a Dash of VR to Class Is Possible with a Limited Budget, Retrieved from https://edtechmagazine.com/k12/article/2017/04/adding-dash-vr-class-possible-limited-budget
Grants & Special Projects, n.d. (website), Retrieved from https://www.ocps.net/departments/grants_and_special_projects
Strawser, C. (2018), Benefits of Technology, Southern New Hampshire University.
Place-Based Learning 