Pupils in Irish schools can now explore iconic landmarks like the Taj Mahal and Buckingham Palace, experience what it is like to dive on the Great Barrier Reef or land on the Moon, and explore the insides of the human body through a new free initiative by Google.
Using a kit comprising Google Cardboard virtual reality viewers and smartphones, a tablet, a wireless router and an app, Google Expeditions enables teachers to take up to 50 students at a time on immersive virtual tours of places on Earth and beyond that they would otherwise be unlikely to be able to visit.
The app is loaded with panoramic images from 220 locations, taken with a 360-degree camera, which means the students can explore their surroundings as if they were actually there.
The students look at the images through the Google Cardboard viewer, which has a smartphone inserted into it, and the teacher controls which images they can see via a tablet that is connected wirelessly to the smartphones.
The teachers are also given editable notes in order to help them guide the pupils effectively.
The programme is currently in a pilot phase and has only been introduced in a number of countries, including the US, Mexico, Canada, Sweden and now Ireland.
This week and next, Google Expeditions programme demonstrators are visiting schools in Dublin and Belfast, complete with a full demonstration kit, to train teachers how to use it and show students what it can do.
In a fortnight, the team will then hand over responsibility for control of the project in Ireland to ambassadors at Google Dublin.
They will continue to visit schools with kits over the coming months to demonstrate the technology and to get feedback from those who have tried it.
At the end of the school year, Google will assess how to proceed, and whether to open the pilot to the public, or keep it as a private project which it would continue to administer through its education programme.
There is no cost to the school to have an Expeditions ambassador visit, although if the programme is opened to the public in the future, then schools may have to make a once-off purchase of the necessary hardware for their school to enable it to be used.
Among the organisations and individuals that have partnered with Google on the project are the American Museum of Natural History, the Planetary Society and David Attenborough.
Other locations that can be visited on the app include Machu Picchu, the North Pole, the Palace of Versailles, Venice, the human auditory system, Robben Island, CERN, Antarctica and the Amazon rain forest.
Schools in Ireland that are interested in signing up for a visit from a Google Expeditions ambassador can do so here.
