Tag: educational augmented reality

Augmented reality for Toronto kids makes geography interesting

| February 24, 2013

Toronto Augmented RealityA startup company is helping to make learning more exciting and fun for children.

A Toronto, Canada, startup is using augmented reality technology to help to overcome the tedium and boredom that is often associated with geography classes and make the subject more exciting for children.

The strategy uses maps in a unique and interactive way to help Canadian children to learn about the world.

The augmented reality program is called Fun Maps for Kids, and it applies interactivity to digitized maps in order to help to make them more interesting to child learners. This startup was created by a family in Toronto who had returned from a trip with their son – three years old – which took them around the globe.

Worldwide travel helped to inspire the development of this augmented reality learning tool.

The founders of the company are Martin Pietrazak and Natasza Cieplik, who created it in 2012. Their initial purpose had been to help to teach their son about different places around the world. However, the idea soon proved to be too interesting for them to keep within the family, so they expanded it to be able to provide this augmented reality learning experience to other children, as well.

Though it is based on print maps, they offer students a great deal more than the traditional atlas. Instead, the creators made sure that their maps would have an interactive feature that would bring them to life for students. They used the patented Layar app in order to take advantage of its ability to add digital content to printed pages using augmented reality.

This experience starts off with nothing more than a map that is mounted on the wall, which is a common sight in geography classrooms. However, when the students in those classes use an iPad on which the Layar app has been opened, the map soon provides additional images, animations, and audio clips that can all be accessed through the use of the touch screen.

The company’s website claims that the augmented reality maps offer students a “window to the world” which would not be available to them through traditional printed images and drawings.

Augmented reality is increasingly finding its way into education

| February 14, 2013

Augmented Reality collegeThough the technology is becoming quite popular as a teaching tool, many wonder if it will continue.

Colleges and universities are both beginning to take a look at augmented reality as they discover its potential as a teaching tool, but many wonder whether it is simply a gimmick that will temporarily catch the attention of students, or whether it is a trend that will continue to develop over time.

With the high penetration of smartphone and tablets among college-age students, the technology holds potential.

The latest estimates have said that among students who are between the ages of 16 and 24 years old, 71 percent currently have smartphones. This means that nearly three out of every four students already has the technology that would be required to be able to take advantage of augmented reality learning tools if they were being offered by their schools. It is, however, the professors and the teachers who are slow to embrace the technology as a part of their lessons and lectures.

Only a few trailblazers have worked augmented reality into their classrooms as a teaching tool.

This is leading many to wonder whether a considerable opportunity to help to build significant workplace skills is currently being overlooked. Augmented reality could potentially provide more engaging and interactive lessons that would allow students to develop their skills for facing the real world.

AR technology gives people the ability to add a digital element to print materials, objects, and geographic locations. A smartphone or a tablet are all that is required to use an applicable app and scan the object to which the digital content has been applied.

The University of Manchester presented a considerable and successful example of the use of augmented reality as a learning tool, through its Scarlett Project. This program gave student device users the ability to access rare manuscripts and books in their digital versions through AR technology.

Similarly, City University London also used a number of mobile friendly techniques, for their Creating Augmented Reality in Education (CARE) project for students in the healthcare program, which provided them – among other things – with a number of enhanced “health walks” that combined AR and GPS technologies.