Disneyland Virtual Tour

 

Disneyland Virtual Tour

    For the first time ever last year I got to visit Disneyland in Anaheim, California. Disneyland has easily become one of my favourite places in the world, so naturally when I had to create a virtual tour for my emerging technologies class I would do one for Disneyland. Until I created this tour, I never saw the implications that Disneyland could have in the classroom, but now my ideas are flourishing. In this virtual tour I showcased three of the rides in Disneyland that I adore, and some interest points in those rides that I believe could be used in the classroom. You can click here to go to the virtual tour that I created. 

    I personally believe that the opportunities to implement Disneyland in the classroom are endless; however, I want to discuss three big ideas that I am interested into implementing into my own classroom one day using my virtual tour.

1. Create your own "It's a Small World Wall" 

The wall at the entrance of It's a Small World is stunning, but also features many patterns and geometric aspects. In my tour I feature the clock that was made to look like a face using different geometric shapes. However, when you encourage students to build their own It's a Small World Wall students are gaining experience with geometry, patterns, building, and potentially even colour. This can be linked to many curricular outcomes across all grades, especially in math and the visual arts.

2. Explore the rockets on Astro Orbiter 

In my virtual tour I showcased the rockets you ride in while riding Astro Orbiter. These rockets of course have many differences from real rockets, but do have some similarities. I think it would be particularly meaningful to students to explore these similarities and differences during the grade six sky science unit; however, they are many other curricular connections you could make to this. Additionally, I think it would be interesting to dig further into the imagineer's design of the ride Astro Orbiter, and how they came to develop the design of the rockets. 

3. Analyze a POV Scene from Nemo's Submarine Voyage 

In my virtual tour I picked one point of view shot for Nemo's submarine voyage as a point of interest; however, you can see all the ride in it entirety in many YouTube videos. I have linked one here. While creating this point of interest I thought it would be interesting to have grade one students, or any students who are exploring animals to analyze an animal POV scene from the ride. This could bring up many interesting, and important conversations such as if it is okay to take animals from their home in the ocean. 

    These are just a few of the ideas I have for integrating Disneyland, and my virtual tour of Disneyland into the classroom. I personally believe any virtual tour could be used similarly by picking out relevant points of the tour and finding ways you could integrate it into the curriculum. To me, virtual tours are like field trips, but you have the freedom to travel anywhere in the world to allow for more meaningful connections for your students. Therefore, I believe virtual tours should be integrated wherever relevant to allow students to make the most meaningful connections. If you have any suggestions on some of your personal favourite virtual tours I would love to hear them in the comments below!