Week 8 Activity 3

I really feel that literacy is an area that would benefit tremendously if it were paired with AR. Depending on the age/reading level of the text, there are endless possibilities for this. As others have mentioned, this could mean that parts of the text are re-enacted and brought to reality, or allusions within a text are highlighted or explained, or author/expert analysis are included to deepen/clarify the readers' understanding of a text. All of these would contribute to greater literacy and comprehension of written texts, but perhaps more importantly, is that these would all be entirely independent interventions -- accessible by the reader where and whenever needed.

Like others, I can see numerous applications of Augmented Reality in areas beyond applied science. One application is the education to read nature, such as understand plants and animals around us. Many times we are very used to live in concrete buildings that we lost the connection with nature. If there is a AR application to inform us about what is the nature surrounding we can learn to understand and appreciate nature in a much deeper way.

AR often gets overshadowed by the potentials of VR, but it has its benefits on its own for simplicity and low cost (no need for a VR device) and portability as well. Despite it often being targeted for science and the like, I feel that it is just as intriguing and important to incorporate AR into childrens storybooks and textbooks. Stories can be acted out in front of the students to ensure greater literacy and comprehension, and even simple math problems can be easily understood with a visual cue that can pop up by using an AR barcode in a textbook. Although there are very few of these kinds of ventures at the current moment in time, I truly believe that AR in text has a very large potential for growth in the coming years.

AR definitely stretches much further than applied science. AR is a technology that has a very positive outlook in both the long term and short term future. AR can definitely be used in almost any school subject and course material. The technology has proven to be successful in all sorts of areas already, including museum tours. The technology of smart phones and tablets allows for the ease of use for many individuals and can be included into almost any situation.

As others have highlighted, it would seem apparent that, like VR, the opportunities for AR would be unlimited. In fact, students would have additional information and content at their disposal to further learn and explore concepts. I believe that this could pertain to any topic or subject area, including fine arts (music, dramas, works of art, etc.), languages and beyond. As a history major, I can see the benefits being able to explore topics or historical figures through a combination of text, photos/pictures and videos. As with VR, the opportunity to take students on a learning ‘field trip’ could be better provided using augmented reality. This is especially true when considering the challenges of participating in some activities due to their costs or accessibility. I am intrigued with AR since it works within an existing reality. I like how its abilities/aspects can work to enhance the learning ability (such as making the learning more meaningful through interaction) while also being able to separate them easily.

There are so many ways that I could see using AR in areas of study aside from applied science. In the early stages of learning French,for example, label overlays of everyday objects would be useful to learners looking to practice basic nouns. Translation of environmental print into a more familiar language could be helpful for travellers who are not fluent in a French speaking country. For more advanced French learners, AR tours with notes, videos, sounds, and additional photos could be created to enrich a walk-throughs of a location of cultural significance. Using apps like Morfo 3D Faces (http://apple.co/29hQVNz) students could make book covers present oral summaries of books they’ve read come alive - either using their own photos or pictures of characters within the story.

I have never heard of augmented reality until now. I think the possibilities are endless. Can you imagine by just looking at a piece of food and see all the options of creating a super meal? Can you imagine looking at a piece of cloth and seeing what you could create out of it? Home Economics aside, for applied sciences, I think it would be a great resource to see what each equation looks like in real-time. It would be exciting to see how teachers use augmented reality in their classrooms. If you looked at a piece of food and see how much it travelled to get to your house or how much water was needed to grow an apple would be incredible. I feel in a disconnected world, augmented reality can re-connect the students to their current environment.

With the move towards student centered and project based learning, augmented reality has tonnes of potential. In project based learning the goal is through students creating and working on a project they deepen their learning of important concepts. This can get lost if the students are spending more time working out technical issues than they are tackling the project. With augmented reality students would have at their disposal access to a wealth of information on materials, tools, processes, and tips. This would free them up to focus on troubleshooting and problem solving.

This is a very interesting technology and we have played with ideas for how to use augmented reality in the past. There is an option to use XY coordinates to generate information and content and so you could program an app to relay information along a path to give directions, provide historical, geological or natural history for any location or feature. It could also be used to give students an idea of the geological/soil structure of their location, the ecosystem they are in and the species, both flora and fauna, that exist at any given place. I think it could be used to teach Earth Science and actually show students the process involved in the creation of geological features like kame terraces, river deltas, glacial moraines and so on. The challenge is setting up the app and location precision and accuracy. Now with wifi augmented locations and improvements in GPS technology, the XY location app may be easier to use. Perhaps students could also have a tag like the one on the element app and show the phone the symbol and then turn on the augmented reality for a given site. That way there would be a way to access the information even if location was not available for a given site.

My two cents: I just came across the Timetraveler Berlin Wall app, which visually reconstructs the Berlin Wall when standing in front of different sections of the Wall. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CY9f6UJZlmM). The app includes informative videos and pictures of what once was there... I think that's pretty cool! Sometimes it could be hard for students to imagine how a certain place looked like in the past, imagine having this kind of app for all cities? I'm thinking social sciences, field trips and, of course, tourists.