We had an in situ for my literacy class at Gordan Terrace Elementary. Our cohort was split into groups of 2 and we each had about 5-6 Grade 5 students. In our groups we read the story “The Wolves in the Wall” by Neil Gailman, then we had the students participate in a virtual reality simulaltion of the story, they also had the option to go through the story through a video on youtube. My colleague and I each read a portion of the story to the students and they seemed to enjoy it. Once we finished the story we had a short discussion about the events in the story, themes, and characters. Next we got our supplies for the VR (virtual reality) including the headset, and grabbed Ipads for the students who wanted to experience the story via interactive video. We asked the students who wanted to try the VR and told them that everyone will get the opportunity to try it. I set up the headsets for the students, including the boundary (the space that the students must stay in to participate in VR), talked about safety stating that once you are in the VR you cannot see the outside world so its important that people do not come into the boundary of the person in the VR, ensuring the students were going to be in a safe area during the experience, and told them that once they reach the end of the first chapter to let us know so we can let others experience the story through the VR. While I set up the VR headsets my partner got the other three students set up on the Ipads, making it efficient for everyone to be participating with story in a different way. Overall this experience was positive but at one point the Ipad used to go through the story would not load the video. The students told me after waiting for 2 minutes, I tried refreshing the page, opening and closing the app again, restarting the Ipad, and then finally it started to work again after 10 minutes. While I was trying to get the video to load again I told the students to look at their sheets they were given to fill out after experiencing the story being told by the tachers, VR, and via Ipad simulation. The sheet contained spaces for likes and dislikes about each, and then places to draw images of their favourite moment or event in the story.
The Big Idea, “Using language in creative and playful ways helps us understand how language works”, was evident as the students experience the story through diverse mediums, fostering engagement and deeper comprehension. The Curricular Competencies addressed included “Engage actively as listeners, viewers, and readers, to develop understanding of self, identity, and community,” and “Apply a variety of thinking skills to gain meaning from texts”. The students listened to the story read aloud, watched the interactive video, and engaged with the VR experience. Throughout they actively discussed the story events, characters, and themes demonstrating their ability to connect with the texts across different modes. The use of worksheets allowed students to reflect on their experience by comparing the three storytelling formats, encouraging critical thinking about how different mediums impact comprehension and engagement. The Content covered in this period was oral language strategies, metacognitive strategies, and features of oral language. The students engaged in listening, critical thinking and asking questions while listening to the story unfold when we read it from the book and while listening to the story on the IPads and VR. While completing the worksheet after the story the students explored the story further by reflecting on their favourite scenes of the story and the different ways they got to explore the story.
