We’re big fans of the potential that comes from using virtual or augmented reality in education, so, for this week’s Rising Resources post, we're going to investigate the Google Tour Creator platform! Their Google Expeditions VR systems are among our top sellers and it’s easy to see why both teachers and kids love to use these tools to create incredibly immersive learning experiences. The Tour Creator, however, does not require all the same components. In fact, it's accessible from a smartphone, tablet, laptop, or desktop!
With Tour Creator, students or adults can build completely immersive, 360-degree tours of wherever they’d like to go. And, of course, they can do all this right from their computers or mobile device. Tour Creator is a web app that is easily accessible through the Google VR website. A quick ‘Google Tour Creator’ search will bring you right to where you need to be. It’s compatible with Chrome browsers (the latest version), the past two versions of Firefox, and the past two versions of Safari, giving instructors and students options when it comes to using this tool.
When starting out with Tour Creator, click the purple button on the homepage that says ‘get started.’ From there, you may be prompted to log in or you might already be logged in if you regularly use your Google or Gmail account (keep this in mind if students are using Tour Creator with a personal email account). Once in the program, you could either choose to create new tours or click on ‘Templates,’ which will display a huge list of virtual experiences and lessons students can dive into, including their 7 New Wonders of the World, Viruses, and New York City Skyscrapers, Museums, and Green!
The tours are amazing to experience and we definitely recommend encouraging students to do so, but the real beauty of the Tour Creator (not surprisingly) is the fact that children can create their own tours! Keep in mind that using Tour Creator is typically more in-depth than using simpler classroom VR tools, like Google Cardboard. Children often need to create a title, description, select a category, and upload a relevant photo when creating new tours. In other words, kids cannot search for the photo within the Tour Creator platform. Once they enter that information, students can start creating their 360-degree scenes—similar to exploring with Google Earth—using actual content form Google Street View!
They could use the search feature within Google Tour Creator to search for locations from anywhere in the world, like the Chicago Bean, for example. The software then displays an up-close view of those particular locations that they can use to start building their tours! Once they get the exact scene they want and click ‘Add scene’ in the bottom right corner, they can select the starting view that they’ll see immediately when accessing the scene. Educators could also add narration or other educational tidbits for kids to view later on! There's even the option to add a point of interest, which places a blue information dot on your screen. Teachers can then use to upload an image that will appear when that point of the scene is viewed!
From there, students can also add as many additional scenes of different places as they would like, finding some of the most famous sites from all around the world. They could also include audio and new points of interest for each scene that they add. This even gives them the chance to practice citing their sources they got images from (this is a required field as part of the creation process). Once all the scenes are in, clicking the ‘Publish’ button allows them to publish tours as publicly viewable or unlisted. If students do choose the unlisted option, they will be able to share the link to their presentation with others.
Once published within Google Tour Creator, the link to the tour will then appear. You can copy it to share or place it in your browser to view tours immediately! There's also a button next to the link that takes students to a tour. Not only does Tour Creator offer students an exciting and in-depth way to learn, it'll provide them with fully authentic, hands-on experiences as they create custom tours. Perfect for any geography, history, environmental science, or world cultures class, Tour Creator is a very easy-to-use and valuable tool!
Back in the Templates section, students can access older tours in the same way they'd see the ones they create. I tried the Rio de Janeiro tour, for example, and just had to click Publish and then click View tour. I was immediately transported to an aerial view of an amazing city, taking in their buildings, mountains, and a beach! There are points of interest already plotted in this example, which help make learning experiences more relatable to students, too.
In addition to navigating the scenes in a left-to-right motion, children can also reposition the view vertically as well. This creates a full 360-degree viewing experience students can enjoy right from their devices. And, speaking of devices, if they have a Google Cardboard headset, they can slide a compatible phone into the viewer and access their tours from way up close—right in their headsets!
UPDATE:
The Google VR team announced on Nov. 13, 2020 that Tour Creator will be shutting down as of June 2021. You can still access the platform through June 30, 2021 and any published and unpublished tours students create before that time will stay available until the service ends. In upcoming months, the Google VR team will be providing updates on what to expect and how to export tours.
To learn more about Tour Creator from Google, you can visit their website. Then, after you do that, check out our store to find all of the Google Expeditions kits we offer! We sell 10-packs, 20-packs, and 30-packs of Google Expeditions kits—each of which come with different add-ons or accessories! If you would like to submit an order or quote, click below and follow us on Twitter and Instagram, too!
UPDATE: We've recently selected our new hardware alternative for Google Expeditions kits. The RobotLAB VR Expeditions 2.0 kits are now available on our store. Their Expeditions 2.0 app now includes an updated version of Tour Creator as well. These RobotLAB offerings include VR bundles and materials for 10, 20, or 30 students as well as a similar platform. Educators can bring students on over 700 immersive Expeditions, virtual field trips, and more with the Expeditions 2.0 mobile app. Click to explore a current list of RobotLAB VR Expeditions 2.0 offerings.