Dr. Lainé's French students learned about holiday celebrations from around the world by safely engaging in immersive virtual reality experiences using Oculus Go VR headsets.
Students:
- Explored Winter Festival of Lights at Niagara Falls
- Studied Francophone lights festivals (Les fêtes des lumières), how they started and how they have evolved. They focused on Lyon, France primarily, and then included areas with smaller francophone populations such as Laos and Canada. With the Oculus goggles they could virtually walk through the illuminated streets in France.
- Learned some new facts about the Festival of Lights in Jerusalem. Dr. Lainé learned about the French influence in Jerusalem through a book she is using for the class called, Héritages Francophones (Francophone Heritages).
In the time of COVID19 and with limited travel opportunities, this was a perfect opportunity for students to enhance their language and culture learning with immersive virtual reality travel within the physical boundaries of their classroom.
For their final semester project, students voted on the theme “Florida: La faune, la flore, et la famille,” and each student will create a box light display and complete an oral presentation.
