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Interest in Augmented Reality (AR) and its potential for education has increased greatly in the past 6 months. It was highlighted as one of the emerging technologies to watch in the '2010 Horizon Report K-12 Edition' (pdf) Collaboration between the New Media Consortium and the Consortium for School Networking (CoSN).
"Augmented reality has strong potential to provide both powerful, contextual, in situ learning experiences and serendipitous exploration and discovery of the connected nature of information in the real world'
2010 Horizon Report K-12 Edition'
Advances in mobile devices, better connectivity, new and simple tools, new and creative learning experiences and a fascination with geolocation have contributed to the buzz.
One of my favourite sources of up to date information on AR is Digital Buzz. And, of course, the twitterverse.
'Exile on Your Street' by The Rolling Stones is an example where users can create a virtual poster, with a track from Exile on Main St. To view the poster you need an iPhone 3GS or Android plus the mobile AR browser, Layar.
Two other examples are the ACWAR Civil War project and London: past and present in London Museum Releases Cool Augmented Reality App and Street Museum.
7Scenes is an exciting mobile storytelling platform. Some colleagues tried this out last week as a team, testing its creative potential for creating a mobile virtual tour with images, text, audio and questions in the local area. Great teamwork and the geolocation feature is really cool.
An e-School news item , 'Augmented reality takes hold in classrooms' (Educators say enhanced learning experiences can lead to engaging lessons) by Laura Devaney (May 10, 2010) suggests that AR 'raises the level of interaction for students'. This involves mobile / handheld GPS-enabled devices, connectivity, creativity and imagination."A small but growing number of (US) schools across the nation are turning classroom lessons into engaging experiences with augmented reality (AR), a technology that overlays digital information on top of real-world surroundings as viewed through a smart phone or other handheld, GPS-enabled device."
AR is taking the world of marketing by storm and an article by Chris Cameron in ReadWriteWeb (June 23, 2010) asks the question, Can Augmented Reality Help Save the Planet?
Ubiquitous learning, anywhere anytime is part of the mobile learning landscape.
What are your thoughts on AR?
This week some colleagues carried out an activity, combining the use of QRCodes and geocaching. It was part of a collaborative experience and sharing of knowledge after a team meeting. (Check a short explanation of QRCodes here).
We organised the route to suit a walk back from a lunch break and used the QRCodes and code readers on iPhones to scan and then locate the prize - a heritage item (40mm anti aircraft gun) located in the middle of Port Road at Hindmarsh.
One member of the group, Paul created the original QRCode for the team and had secreted another at the spot. Once found and scanned, the QRCode link provided the essential additional information we needed, via a mobile site Paul had created.
My Flickr photo (Southoz) shows the team in the vicinity of the heritage 'bofors gun' as we checked out Paul's mobile site after scanning the hidden QRCode.
Next, the team intended to use an iPhone app to locate a geocache nearby that was created as part of a previous teacher workshop. This geocache has been registered on Geocaching.com since 2004 (Pathway to the sea and hills) GCHTVX - check the Google map on the site in the vicinity of the brewery at Thebarton.
It is a traditional cache, easy level of difficulty and easy terrain, to suit a group pf teachers getting started with geocaching. The site provides a very useful clue to locate the geocache.
It has been discovered quite a few times in the past 5 years and is in need of a little TLC. Geocaching is even more popular now as an adventure activity, especially for family groups.
There is a lot of potential in using Geocaching and QRCodes creatively in education - literacy, numeracy, ICT, problem solving, teamwork and collaboration. The greater shift towards mobile and anywhere, anytime learning, increasing accessibility and connectedness and new tools make this easier than before.
I recently discovered the excellent BeQRious site (via my Twitter PLN) which has a generator and many examples of use of QRCodes in a range of settings. Check my Delicious bookmarks for QRCodes for other links.
Another area of interest is augmented reality and I am currently exploring Layar.and Google Goggles. Check the video.
Augmented Planet also has an interesting recent post on Google Goggles and Augmented Reality.
