#AR

Aurasma: a retrospective

Like anyone interested in augmented reality, I have been closely following the launch of iOS11 and the debut of the much heralded ARKit apps. Like many other educators though, I’m not in a position to harness them in school as our devices are not powerful enough to actually run them. The buzz around AR has made me reflect on my own experiences with augmented reality though and in the five years I’ve been using AR in education, one platform has definitely been harnessed more c

Early Learning in AR with NeoBear

Recently I caught wind of an augmented reality company based in China called Neobear. What struck me about their AR products was that they were purely educational and aimed squarely at younger learners. This week I was fortunate enough to get my hands on three items from the NeoBear range – the AR Globe, The AR Pop-up Zoo flashcards and the NeoBear’s World Tour Pop-up AR Paintings book set. Each product comes with access to a free app (iOS or Android) which brings the content

Augmented Feedback using Gabsee

A couple of weeks ago I came across Gabsee on Twitter. Its a fun little app for creating AR avatars that has the unique feature of taking your selfie and applying it to the avatar (you just add the hair and clothes.) You can select one of several actions for your character and then place it on a surface in the real world via AR. It's a fun, simple tool and not one that is necessarily aimed at the classroom. That being said, other avatar creation apps like Tellagami were nev

Manipulating Markers: changing the scale of AR

There are essentially four ways that you trigger an augmented reality experience using a mobile app: 1. Using a product that you have to buy to access the AR content. Examples of this would be the new Merge VR Cube, the 4D+ cards from Octagon Studio and the augmented reality puzzles from Ravensburger. 2. Using a printable marker that you download from the developer. These are usually free but you will sometimes have to pay for specific experiences within the related app. Exa

The Augmented Reality Dinosaur Safari

A few months ago a colleague of mine who works in EYFS asked me for ideas to enrich their new dinosaurs topic. I suggested several applications that provided opportunities for these young students to learn more about dinosaurs during independent learning and free flow activities. Then I remembered an augmented reality app that I’d stumbled across a couple of years ago called Dinosaurs Everywhere and we used it to create quite a powerful hook for the start of their topic: she

Five reasons I love the ZooKazam app

One AR app I have loved using with students over the last few years is ZooKazam. This mobile app offers a bank of augmented reality animals in 3D. There are several similar apps that can bring animals into AR but ZooKazam is by far the best and the one I recommend most regularly to other educators. There are two versions of the app available: the free version has a limited selection of models available but lets you try the app and experience it for yourself. What you want t

Building multi-user AR/VR experiences with Eon Creator AVR

There are lots of platforms available that offer AR and VR experiences for the classroom. There are far fewer though that allow educators to actually design the learning experience by framing the content effectively. Nearpod lets you build presentations around 360s, Expeditions scaffolds their experiences with information and focal points whilst other apps will enrich their virtual content with facts and figures. Eon Creator AVR offers something quite different - the ability

Bringing designs to life with Quiver Fashion

My six year old daughter has recently decided she's going to be a fashion designer when she grows up. She means business too - from drawing sketches of dresses to using her junior sewing machine to sew pieces of material together to make herself a skirt (which she then wanted to go to the shops in!) I originally showed her the Quiver Fashion app last year and she enjoyed testing it out but with her budding interest in fashion, it seemed like a great time to remind her of the

7 amazing ARKit demos - the future of AR in education

When ARKit was announced at Apple's WWDC event, I must admit my first thought was "but I've been using AR on my iPad for the last five years." It wasn't until I watched the full video from the event and dug into the logistics a little more that I came to realise that this really could be the next evolution of augmented reality. Apps like Snapchat, MSQRD and Pokemon Go have brought the basics of AR to the masses. People get AR now and understand the power and potential of it.

Dubai based startup bringing dinosaurs to AR

One of the best things about being based here in Dubai is that there are a lot of innovative people here doing a lot of interesting things with technology. I've seen some great stuff in the field of augmented reality in particular from companies like Pixelbug and Etechan and now I can add iLike to that list. I came across their products whilst in the Mall of the Emirates today and was struck by two things - the range they had on offer, the price (surprisingly affordable.) Fou

The VirtualiTee - AR you can wear

In the lead up to our VR presentation at BETT Middle East in April, my colleague and co-presenter Ronan MacNicholl managed to get his hands on a couple of the VirtualiTee shirts from Curiscope. I have to admit -when I first heard about this product (during their Kickstarter campaign) I was skeptical. It seemed gimmicky to me and I wasn't sure how well it would work or if it would be worth the investment. Turns out - yes, it works incredibly well and is definitely worth the i

Ideas for integrating the Octagon 4D+ Cards

Having been a fan of all this augmented reality for some years now, the AR flashcards from Octagon Studio caught my eye late last year. At the time, I couldn’t source any (cheaply) in Dubai but after seeming them for myself at BETT Middle East (courtesy of Denaster) I managed to get my hands on three sets of these awesome cards. These flashcards do what all AR does, in that you scan them with the relevant app and digital content comes to life from them on the screen, and t

Using Chatterpix Kids with Aurasma

When Luke Rees (@LukeReesEdu) first showed me Aurasma back in 2011, I called it a game changer. As someone with a background in film, I often recorded video clips but there was no easy way to share them like you could with images. Aurasma provided a way to essentially put videos on a display board. It did more than that though as you could create some startlingly magical effects with a little creativity and attention to detail. I remember working in Year 4 at Jumeirah the yea