Join the #ARevolution Post #3: Augmented Reality Apps in Education
Welcome back to another post in our series about Augmented Reality! This week’s post is going to focus on some of the great apps that we have found that can be utilized in your classroom immediately to enhance your student’s learning experience! And please if we miss any Augmented Reality apps that you love, let us know in the comments!
Daqri
DAQRI is the world’s leading augmented reality developer, providing custom software and creative solutions to clients across a broad spectrum of industries. (www.daqri.com) Daqri is using their 4D technology to create educational experiences that allows students to learn like never before.
One example is their free app Anatomy 4D, which allows students to explore how each system in human body works.
Another example of Daqri’s 4D technology is shown in their recently funded Kickstarter campaign, Elements 4D. Elements 4D lets you interact with elements of the periodic table using beautifully crafted cubes. This application will allow students to view various modes of chemicals and their interactions, to deepen the learning experience.
Aurasma
Aurasma, is a free open source product that allows users to engage in, and create, augmented reality experiences of their own. Educators, and more importantly students, can use this tool to enhance their learning experience and essentially bring their learning to life. Many educators have collaborated to create this list of meaningful ways to use Aurasma in education.
ColAR Mix
FREE App (upgraded version cost $1.99)
ColAR Mix is one of those apps that we show everywhere we go. It’s easy, it’s fun, it’s exciting, and more importantly it doesn’t cost a ton of money!! What ColAr Mix does is allow you to print a coloring page off their website (there are now 12 different pages). You then color the page, open your ColAR Mix app (on your iOS or Android device) and watch your coloring pages come to life right in front of you! It’s pretty incredible! Now we will tell you, you only get 4 coloring pages for free with the free app. But if you pay the $1.99 upgrade you can have access to ALL of the coloring pages, even coloring pages they’ll be coming out with in the future! We promise you, after you see one page come to life, you’ll be paying the upgrade fee to watch the others!
AR Flashcards
FREE app
AR Flashcards is a FREE educational app primarily designed for your little ones (Pre-K, Kinder and 1st). You can download the app free from an App store, then you’ll need to go to the AR Flashcards website and print out the cards. (Word of Advice: The cards must be printed out in color and we advise not to laminate them because the laminating paper causes a glare which sometimes doesn’t allow the cards to work).
After printing out the cards you can scan them with the app and watch them jump to life! You’ll get the entire alphabet (as well as a few dinosaurs) and when the kids scan the card, the animal pops up on the screen, and if the child taps the animal the animal will speak it’s name and letter it represents. A totally fun and inventive way to get kids to learn their letter and sounds.
AR Flashcards: Space
$0.99 app
AR Flashcards Space is designed by the same company who designed AR Flashcards. The entire premise behind AR Space is pretty self-explanatory, but you can scan cards that you print out from their website and scan them and watch the planets come to life. When children tap on the planets they’ll hear the name of that planet along with a few interesting facts.
NASA 3D Spacecraft
Nasa 3D Spacecraft is an interactive augmented reality app that allows for students to use 1 trigger image, or marker, to explore an abundance of spacecrafts! The benefit to having only 1 trigger image is that multiple students can interact with a different spacecraft at the same time. This app give students an amazing opportunity to explore how NASA learns about the Solar System.
TRACLabs Atlas AR by FuelFX
TRACLabs Atlas by FuelFX brings a robot to life giving students the ability to “program” its arms and legs in a series of steps, then playing the steps in quick succession. Here is the iOS link and Android. Terri Eichholz has an amazing post about using this app in her classroom.
Fetch! Lunch Rush! by PBS Kids
This fun app uses augmented reality to engage students in solving addition and subtraction problems. Each math problem is timed, challenging the students to increase their quick recall of addition and subtraction facts. This is an iPhone app but still works well on the iPad. Our students loved this game and can be used with anywhere from 1- 4 students per device.
Planets! (Coming Very Soon!)
Planets! will allow students a learning experience like never before. It creates a new and engaging way to explore our Solar System. This mind blowing app brings a new depth to learning with cut away views of each planet including detailed information of each layer.
Now you may be reading some of these and thinking “wow those are some pretty amazing tools, but how can I actually use these in my classroom in meaningful ways?” Well that’s what we’re writing about next week! Our post next week will be all about using Augmented Reality in Education! Stay tuned, and in the meantime go out and play with some of the tools above, and don’t be alarmed if you start to feel like a giddy little kid again!
**This post was co-written with Drew Minock. You can follow him on twitter @TechMinock or visit his Website.
