Review of AR App Designed for the Classroom:
“Google Expeditions” is an app that allows educators to bring concepts to life in the classroom through augmented and virtual reality technology. Teachers can take students on “tours” that include virtual field trips in 360 degrees and 3-D, as well as 3-D models using the tour library or even creating their own scenes and tours. The app requires a teacher device (smartphone or tablet) that acts as the “guide” while learners use a mobile device to join the tour and view the selected scenes. My students viewed Qin Shi Huangdi’s terracotta army and tomb in the app’s “AR Tour” mode. Using my app, I launched the tour and students joined in. I was able to print out sheets of paper with QR codes that act as anchors for the 3-D images throughout my classroom. Students were then free to roam the classroom and view the image in 360o while I read from the tour guide script (provided in the app) and added additional information as needed. Students were very excited to see clay warriors built over 2,000 years ago come to life in front of their eyes. It created an immersive environment where students “experienced” history rather than hearing or reading about it. There was minimal set up, and I found it to be a much richer and more rewarding lesson for my students than the lecture and slideshow I used in years past to teach this unit. The only drawback was that a few of the student devices had trouble connecting to my “tour” and had to look on with a classmate. Ideally, each student would have their own device, but exploring in groups would be a great way to incorporate this app in an environment where fewer devices are readily available. I would absolutely recommend that teachers use this app in their classroom. Google Expeditions has hundreds of AR/VR tours available that span across all disciplines.
Review of AR App Adapted for the Classroom:
AR Makr is an augmented app that is advertised an “creative toolbox for augmented reality” that allows users to transform 2-D images into 3-D scenes, record videos, and share with others. The application is free and requires a device with a camera (such as a tablet or smartphone). To get started, users simply select a template to use preloaded 3-D images, or can upload images that the app will convert to 3-D. It is a fun tool that is fairly intuitive and would be accessible easily for middle school-high school students. I could see this app having great potential for storytelling in the classroom. Students could create their own scene and record narration to explain the plot of a book read in english class, or to recreate scenes studied in history class. It also has great collaborative and social learning implications as students could share their creation via the class LMS. This kind of activity would be much more active and engaging than an assigned essay or book report. Students could exercise a great deal more creativity through AR technology to see their ideas come to life! AR Makr is a free toolbox for creativity using AR making it a cost-effective option for teachers looking to integrate AR in the classroom.