History is boring no more! Time Travel in the Classroom!
Teaching about the Mayan Empire? Put your students on top of a jungle pyramid mid-ritual in 760CE. The Vikings? How about boarding a 10th century longship as it sails across the North Sea. Learning about the Mughals? Stand with imprisoned Shah Jahan in 1664 as he overlooks his masterpiece, The Taj Mahal. Shift students from spectators to active participants in historic world events with the power of immersive learning.
In the Footsteps... ™ powered by Edify, brings the past to life by helping students explore and engage with history in a completely new way. This tech-forward social studies enrichment program, built on over a decade of teaching experience, harnesses Edify’s combination of virtual reality, spatial computing, and gaming technology. Created by acclaimed educator and explorer Denis Belliveau, this pioneering curriculum offers students everywhere the opportunity to relive historical periods like never before.
Traditional learning and teaching resources are 2D, static, and hard to interact with. In the Footsteps... ™ powered by Edify, meets today’s students where they are, through highly engaging, active, experience-based learning, that reduces the cognitive load. * History becomes a visceral learning experience for building knowledge, expanding world views, and fostering respect for other cultures.
Belliveau’s award-winning content, formulated into a week-long ‘Explorer-in-Residence' program, quickly reached capacity and proved difficult to scale. Add in the COVID-19 pandemic and this kind of in-person activity became prohibitive.
“For a long time, I grappled with how to overcome the limitation of being just one person. And the barriers to entry for this type of in-person programming. […] Having the valuable experience of knowing what works and what doesn’t in schools, we also needed to answer the key question of how to translate this intel into an engaging ed-tech experience. And then I met Edify!”
Edify’s powerful platform offers educators the ability to create and deliver customised curricula without limits.
“If you can visualize it, you can create it.” […] “Having been to so many of these places I am astonished at how accurately we can now recreate these environments, providing students with opportunities to visit places that they would not be able to otherwise. Having taught in so many underserved schools, this ability to democratise learning is beyond impressive.
.png)
In The Footsteps... Powered by Edify incorporates highly accurate simulated environments, 3D museum artifacts, and a wide range of multimedia presented as beautifully crafted in-depth explorer-led journeys and dozens of VR Walkabouts across the course of human history.
Edify’s proprietary platform combined with In The Footsteps’ rich treasure trove of historic content is the perfect formula for creating spectacular learning contexts.
“History’s greatest explorers pushed culture and learning forward by experiencing things most of us can only imagine…until now. Edify’s powerful ed-tech solution, coupled with the guidance and expert curation of incredible modern-day explorers like Denis Belliveau, takes learners on their own journeys of discovery.
"When we learned about the vital, innovative, and unique curriculum development and outreach work Denis, Lisa, and the awesome team at In the Footsteps...™ were doing, we realised we had a great chance to present extraordinary learning moments from history by utilising the ‘superpowers’ made possible by VR. We couldn’t be happier with the results, and we very much look forward to turning students worldwide into explorers for a day!” Fergus Bruce, Director or Education Partnerships at Edify.
In the Footsteps...™ powered by Edify is launching at BETT MEA, London 2022, 23-25th March and will roll out in the coming months. The first wave of content takes users "In the Footsteps of Marco Polo” from Venice to the Great Wall of China via the ancient city of Samarkand and the Silk Road, while soon to be launched updates will follow in the footsteps of other great adventurers including Matthew Henson, Ibn Battuta and extraordinary women across the ages.
In the Footsteps... ™ powered by Edify trailblazing educational opportunity is now available to students around the world. Take the journey for yourself and contact us for a demo.
.png)
ABOUT : DENIS BELLIVEAU is a photographer, author and explorer whose career has taken him to over 70 countries and whose work has been widely published in Photographic Magazine, Smithsonian Magazine and the companion book for the BBC documentary series, ‘Planet Earth,’ to name but a few. In 1996 Belliveau was inducted into the renowned Explorers Club on account of his remarkable achievements and received an Emmy nomination in 2009 for writing and directing his acclaimed documentary film, “In The Footsteps of Marco Polo.”
*How VR In Education Will Change How We Learn And Teach, Nick Babich, Sept 19, 2019
Curious about how you could leverage virtual reality to enhance learning outcomes?
Find out more about how we partner with universities on our dedicated higher education page.
