A seventh and eighth-grade teacher from San Diego, California, came up with a fascinating idea to deliver a full online math lesson in Half-Life: Alyx, one of the greatest VR games so far that was released this week. Such remote lessons can be especially helpful now when most schools in California and the US, in general, are closed due to the pandemic.
Teaching 7th graders online in Half Life Alyx (VR)#tlap @SteamVR @Steam #HalfLifeAlyx #edtech #CoronavirusLockdown #edutwitter https://t.co/U3WVFjaoXD
— Charles Coomber (@CharlesCoomber) March 24, 2020
Charles Coomber, a teacher at Otay Ranch Academy for the Arts in San Diego, began his lesson from Alyx’s balcony, joking that he is stuck in self-isolation during the COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic. After that, the teacher briefly showed the surroundings of the game and proceeded inside to teach students geometry.
Using dirty greenhouse windows panes and erase markers, Coomber delivered an astonishing 16-minute math lesson for the 7th grade, drawing diagrams and explaining angle vocabulary, which covered supplementary and complementary angles.
As a bonus, at the end of the lesson, Coomber gave a tour around the building, joking and saying, “Teachers get paid tons of money, so I can pick anywhere to live that I want and I’ve chosen this apartment complex.”
The teacher has already received lots of words of appreciation from the gaming community in comments under his video lesson on YouTube. In the description below, he said that he decided to give a lesson this way because he had to “teach today, but Half Life Alyx just came out.”
His idea is truly an educational innovation that shows how technologies can be implemented in the learning process and also an incredibly creative attempt to share educational content with students while they are studying at home.
