Teachers, are you planning a summer vacation trip to the Grand Canyon, Washington D.C., or New York City? Now you can bring those experiences back to the classroom and to your students in the fall. Using an iPad app called Panorama 360, you can take 360 degree pictures of the sites you visit and upload them to the Panorama 360 site. You will then be given a URL to your pictures. That URL can be placed in an iBooks Author Book or a Nearpod Presentation to create a virtual field trip for your students! Virtual field trips are becoming more and more popular with the use of tools such as Google Cardboard, Nearpod, and more. Now you can use Panorama 360 to create your own customized field trips. To get started:
1. On your MacBook, go to https://bookry.com and set up a free account if you don’t already have one.
2. At the top of the screen, go to Author Tools, and choose to start a new book or simply open a book you have already created.
3. Name the book (if you have created a new one) and click create. You are only creating a book to have somewhere to store the widget you are going to create. So, don’t stress about the name!
4. On the right hand side, click on Add Widget.
5. Choose the 360 PanoramaWidget.
6. Now, go to your iPad and download the 360 Panorama app from the app store ($1.99).
7. Use the app to take your 360 degree photo.
8. Once you've finished taking your photo, you will need to touch the 'Upload' button and upload your photo. (You will need to create an account the first time you do this).
9. When your upload has finished you can now touch 'View my panorama'. This will open your panorama in Safari. Write down the URL of the photo listed at the top of the screen.
10. Go back to your MacBook to the Bookry website and the 360 Panorama page.
11. Type in the URL of the photo into the box where it says Panorama link. 12. Click Save.
13. Now, click Download.
14. Open your iBooks Author book.
15. Open Finder and go to Downloads to find the new widget you just made.
16. Once you find the new widget, drag it onto your page in iBooks Author. At this point, you might want to edit the caption and title above the widget.
That’s it! You now have a Virtual Field Trip widget in your iBooks Author book for students! If you want to use the field trip in a NearPod presentation, choose to add content from the web. In the box that pops up, type your photo’s URL. Now students can experience the field trip in multiple places!
