360-Degree Stills and Video
The creation and use of 360-degree still images and videos has been gaining traction and the use of them in education has been developing in promising ways. YouTube now hosts 360 videos and at minimum, they can be viewed via computer browsers and mobile devices.
PCC’s Online Learning Department and Video Production Unit have a professional 360-degree camera and we’re always looking for PCC faculty who might be interested in collaborating with us to create these types of images and videos for your courses. We can start with an idea that you bring to us or we can brainstorm ideas based on what you’re teaching and go from there. If you are interested in discussing possibilities, please contact Michael Annus.
Examples
If you’re not familiar with 360 still images or videos, here are some good examples:
- Geology: Columbia River Gorge Virtual Fieldtrip: This is a project that was developed in collaboration with Gretchen Gebhardt, Geology faculty at PCC.
- The New York Times “Daily 360”: The videos here cover a wide range of topics and you’ll notice that many (all?) of them are edited, using a series of 360-degree videos. You’ll also notice that audio can be added (such as interview audio) as well as text.
- Edutopia: 5-Minute Film Festival: Teaching With 360-Degree Videos: Similar to the Times’ videos, these also use added elements such as audio and stills and contain 360 video clips edited together.
- Annotating 360 still images with Thinglink: 360 still images (though not video) can be annotated with additional media (including video, text, web links, and audio) in order to make them more layered and possibly more useful for education, as in the Columbia River Gorge example above. We are currently using Thinglink for this, which is a browser-based application (they also have an app). There are a number of examples on their website and while many of the examples are for K-12 use, you will hopefully get a sense of how it might be useful for your courses. These are some of what appeals to me about Thinglink:
- The images are not time-consuming to create;
- The images and annotations can be created collaboratively with your students;
- Annotations can be added over time;
- Annotations can include video clips that need minimal or no editing.
- Thinglink and accessibility caveat: Thinglink is not itself accessible so accommodations for accessibility will need to be worked out at the local/PCC level if you decide to try it.