Hello, welcome to our podcast. Today, we're going to be talking about using 360 images to enhance virtual field experiences in geology and environmental science. The Oregon Community College Distance Learning Association has research and development funds available for faculty interested in exploring instructional technologies that support distance learning. Chemeketa faculty, Autumn Christensen and Jennifer Johns are here with me today. Recently, they received funding to explore the use of 360 images to enhance virtual field experiences in geology and environmental science. By allowing students to wander around the landscape and explore on their own, images taken with the 360 camera set students up for inquiry based learning in which their curiosity and observations drive the experience. Autumn Christensen is a geology instructor teaching both in person and online classes and uses 360 photos and videos to enhance classroom based geology field trips. Jennifer Johns is a biology instructor, working on a research project in a severely burned area in the Opal Creek Scenic Recreation and wilderness areas and brings the forest to students through the use of 360 images and video. So welcome, Autumn. Welcome, Jennifer glad you're here today. Just have a few questions for you if that's okay. I want to ask you about your project. So I'll start with Autumn. The first question is, what led you to become interested in this project? 

>> So I have been doing virtual field trips for many of my classes in the online classes, but I just there isn't the opportunity to get students to gather. They're scattered everywhere, and their schedules are all different. So there's not really an opportunity to organize a field trip. And then in several of my entry level face to face classes, there's just not the time to organize a trip, especially multiple trips if we wanted to go to different places. The schedule of the quarter, we're going week to week, and we're changing topics very quickly. So organizing a trip, going, coming back, and then by that point, we've already moved on topics potentially. So I have various virtual trips to sort of supplement that so that we can spend time in the classroom and not sort of organizing a class trip every quarter or multiple trips, every quarter. They are primarily using Google Earth and photos and videos that I've taken. However, there's always a lack of, I guess, immersion when it comes to those. And I want students to have the opportunity to sort of see things the way they would when they're actually there. And a still photo or just a video of me in front of the feature isn't usually enough. And Jennifer had been inquiring at various times about if people were interested in getting a 360 camera for the department. And I was definitely interested in that as a possibility and could see the potential for it in those field trips. 

>> That's great. And I didn't mention that this was somewhat collaborative. I mean, you both teach different disciplines, but you worked together on applying for the grant funding, and you have worked together quite in collaboration, I know during your work on this project. So, Jennifer, I'm going to ask you a question next. Were there any specific skills or concepts or techniques that you learned during this project? 

>> Indeed, there were many. I would say, I'm not quite a luddite, but I do have limited use of technology in my regular life. And so this ability to make leaps and bounds in advancement in the type of opportunities I was able to provide my students was really wonderful. Among the skills, I guess, first and foremost, would just be using the camera itself, the 360 camera. That as a skill wasn't too difficult to master, I was just a little bit different than using any other regular camera. But all of the back end stuff was much more out of my wheel house, and I relied on a really fantastic employee from the Center for Academic Innovation named Sage, who helped quite a bit in teaching me how to download those images, edit them in the proper way, and get them in a place where my students could access them. And so the videos that I took were from a remote location in the Opal Creek ancient forest wilderness and scenic recreation areas that are currently closed to the public. And so being able to work through all of that technology in order to make this spot that is truly remarkable present for my students was a fantastic experience. 

>> Thanks for that. And it's also really interesting to read through your written report, too, to learn much more about the details of that. Thank you for that. Response. So another question for you, Autumn, What successes or challenges did you encounter during this project? Were there any? 

>> So the photos and videos we have themselves found to be quite helpful, quite useful, and have great potential. One addition that we're hoping to sort of work with this is bringing them to the planetarium that we have at Chemeketa. We run astronomy shows there currently, but there's a desire by the u I guess, administrator of the planetarium, Christopher Claysmith, who would want the department to use that space to greater effect. So One hope for classes would be instead of running a field trip to some locality, which does take a lot of time, just bringing them down during a lecture, during a lab, to work through those videos together and see them thrown up on not just a large screen, but providing that 360 degree view in time, essentially. And or possibly doing similar to what they do with astronomy, public shows in geology or even environmental science to have that sort of community outreach. There have been some issues with getting the videos and images onto the dome. We do have a projector, but image quality is having an issue and distortion in terms of how it's being presented. So we've had a lot of back and forth on what programs do we need to run it? Do we need a better projector? So it's a lot of work, and I still have hope that it will be something we can continue to do in the future, but it definitely needs a lot of working through to get the proper setup. 

>> That's great. I actually really enjoyed just being part of that process. I think I learned a lot about dome projection. That wasn't something that I really knew a lot about before this project. I'm really hopeful that that we'll be able to materialize in the future to a higher level of quality. It seems like bringing students into a planetarium to show 360 content is a really interesting concept for creating an immersive experience and then tying that into your curriculum. So 

>> Indeed, if I could interject the experience my students had in the planetarium really felt to them like they were in those woods. And so even though the images weren't quite as sharp as we would have liked, it was still a really good experience, and I'm really happy that you all have encouraged me to bring that experience to my students as well. 

>> Thank you. And so, so another question, then, this one goes to you, Jennifer. So did you achieve your desired project goals and outcomes and tell us about that? 

>> Yes, so that the combination of the unit, I would say that my students were exploring, was that trip to the planetarium, having that 360 immersive experience, and then going back to the classroom to further look at other videos, additional videos from which they conducted some research. The whole project began with an in person field trip to a local forest where the students used methods similar to what would be used in this burned area. But again, I can't take them to the burned area. They had that field experience first. Then we came back to the lab the next week and had our virtual experience in the burned forest where they could then apply what they had done in the field to what it would be like in the burned area and then use a question that they began in the local forest to continue that question of the burned area and make a comparison between these two forests. And so I think that combination of experience in the field and a virtual experience led to a really great synthesis of information from my students that they were able to present in poster format, in a scientific format that allowed them to explore the virtual part very well. 

>> I think it's really interesting how you're tying it to the research aspect of this. I know that the Beachy Creek fire was really devastating for the Opal Creek wilderness area. And even before that, before the area was closed. It was really difficult to get to. If you've ever been out to Opal Creek or other locations in Oregon, oftentimes, if you don't have a proper vehicle or even if you do, it can be pretty difficult to reach some of these places. So it seems like there's a lot of opportunity to use this technology to bring it to students. Yeah, So another question. This one's for you, Autumn. Did you receive any feedback from others, maybe students or peers as you were working on this or after your project was finished? 

>> Well, working in the planetarium with Sage and Chris, we definitely got a lot of feedback on how the videos worked. I have used some in a online class that I have and had the opportunity to ask students how 360 videos compared to essentially the same video just done on a standard sort of iPhone type camera. And the students that have gotten back to me seem to find that the 360 is nice. The quality is no different. It was a video on the coast. So there is a wind issue which learning how to sort of mask the microphone a little bit would be probably something I would need to do considering some of the areas I would have to go to. But I think the view is that the 360 would be the better option, I guess, in the equivalent sense to being able to kind of look around while someone's talking to you. In that sense. So they do seem to like it. I had one student that was actually very interested in the 360 and actually what we were doing as part of this project. So he had a lot of questions, which was kind of nice. And I think they do seem to like it more than just here's a couple of pictures to look at. 

>> Well, I know you applied this to I think mostly your spring spring term courses, and so there's probably you're going to have lots of opportunity for feedback in the future. Jennifer, this is our last question. So tell us, are there any plans for next steps? Where are you headed next? 

>> Thanks for that. Yeah, you're right. This projects that we've been working on have been mainly here in the spring term. And so there's a lot more classes that I teach that I can apply the same sort of technology to. Most of my classes are field based, and so there are places I can't take my students, but I can get the 360 images from and be able to apply that. Additionally, for me, another group that I'm involved with is called the virtual field. It's basically a website where videos are posted from all over the country. And so one of my projects this summer is to get these videos up at that site so that people could be accessing them across the country and a little bit across the world. There are some international partners on that website, too. And so I am excited to take this forest, not just here home to my students, but out into the world. I think it's going to be a great experience for lots of people. 

>> This has been great. I really appreciate your time and sharing some of your experiences about your project. Very excited to see where you're headed next. So thank you, Autumn. Thank you, Jennifer. 

>> Thank you. >> Thank you.