Courtney Morano (Flyover Zone and Virginia Museum of Fine Arts (VMFA))
The project centers around a small focus group of 6-12th grade educators and their feedback on the usage potential of the Yorescape app in their classrooms. Yorescape, a Flyover Zone application (www.yorescape.com), allows users to stream virtual tours of ancient archaeological sites led by experts that include reconstructions of the site’s ancient appearance.
Realizing the app's potential for use in secondary classrooms studying ancient history, small focus groups were held with 6 - 12th grade teachers of World History and Latin. The pedagogical goals of the study were threefold: increase awareness of the Yorescape app amongst secondary teachers, understand ways in which teachers and students could use the app in their curriculum, and consider ways to encourage teacher and student engagement with the app.
Teachers were walked through the basics of the app and given 5-10 stops on the Rome Reborn: Roman Forum virtual tour and Athens Reborn: Acropolis. After the teachers completed the tasks, a group discussion was held to gain feedback on general user experience as well as ideas on classroom usage. The resulting information was used to better understand what barriers and opportunities exist for Yorescape’s use in classrooms and how this information can be leveraged to make improvements and better support educators.
The presentation will present the results of teacher feedback, including lessons learned and concrete ideas for classroom incorporation as well as a closer look at the application.