Cobb teachers use virtual reality to enhance classroom lessons

Cobb County teachers will soon begin using virtual reality to help their students better grasp science and math lessons.

Why it matters: Educators are increasingly exploring ways to meet students where they are, and that means incorporating into the classroom technology they may already have at home.

Driving the news: The Cobb County School District on Monday held a professional learning session where teachers were introduced to virtual reality headsets featuring the Prisms of Reality platform.

• The platform, designed to get students interested in the STEM fields, features modules that present real-world problems for students to solve.
• Subjects on the platform include seventh- and eighth-grade math and science and high school algebra and biology.

What they're saying: John Floresta, the district's chief strategy and accountability officer, said Monday that there's a big focus on literacy, "as there should be, but at the same time, we don't want to lose the focus on math and science."

• "This is a curriculum more than it is a headset," he said. "We really believe in the way it's going to change the classroom for math and science instruction, and it does it in a really engaging way."

How it works: Users put on the headset and the virtual reality program begins by asking them to create a boundary on the floor where they will stand.

• Once the boundary is created, users can pick which school subjects they want to dive into. A virtual instructor then pops up and begins the lesson.

Catch up quick: Floresta said the district initially piloted the program with 300 units in 2021 for Cobb Virtual Academy students before deciding earlier this year to expand it to 20 middle and high schools.

• Cobb Board of Education members in April approved $2 million to purchase 400 headsets to expand the program.

Zoom out: Anurupa Ganguly, founder and CEO of Prisms, said the company's platforms are in "hundreds of districts" across 36 states.

Zoom in: In Georgia, they have partnerships with Paulding and Douglas county school systems, and are exploring rolling it out in Atlanta Public Schools, Ganguly said.

What's next: Floresta said the educators who were trained on the devices will have another week or two to digest the new information, and the district hopes they will begin using them the first week of September.

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