Google’s VR Tour Creator offers an excellent way to create virtual tours that can be viewed in your web browser and or in the Google Expeditions app.
Google’s Street View imagery is the backbone of the VR Tour Creator. To start creating a tour you have to identify a location using the built-in connection to Google Maps. Once you’ve identified a location you then add a scene to your tour. At a minimum each scene will include a Street View image and the text description that you add to it. You can add images within the Street View image of the scene. Those images are called “points of interest.” Each point of interest can have its own description.
Google’s VR Tour Creator lets you add audio to each scene and point of interest. The audio has to be recorded outside of the Tour Creator and then uploaded to the scenes or points of interest. Any MP3 file will work in your tour. Vocaroo.com and TwistedWave.com are a couple of simple tools for creating an audio recording.
Completed tours can be shared publicly or privately. Your tours can be viewed in your Google Expeditions account provided that you created the tour with the same Google account that you use for Google Expeditions. With your tour in Google Expeditions you can guide students just like you can with any other tour that is available in the Google Expeditions app.
5 VR Creation Projects for Students
- Virtual reality tours based upon students’ favorite books. (On a similar note, VR to illustrate stories that students have written.)
- VR tours about places students study in geography / history lessons.
- VR tours to illustrate examples of math and science used in the design and construction of landmarks.
- VR tours to illustrate examples of types of landforms, rocks, waterways, and bodies of water.
- VR tours to illustrate examples of an animal’s natural habitat and range.
Adding points of interest to tours.
How to Share Your Tours With Students
How to Use Your Tours in Google Expeditions
