Hello and welcome back to this European Schoolnet
Academy Games in Schools course. This is Module 4,
where we are talking about, ‘what
can we learn from games’. In this short video
we will be talking about Augmented Reality.
Augmented Reality has been around for a little
while now. The basic premise is that you can
take a digital device, a tablet or a smartphone
and when you hold the device up to the real world,
you are able to augment digital data
and digital information over the real-world
view.
Augmented Reality is becoming increasingly
sophisticated, Because a lot of modern Augmented
Reality applications also use the internet
through 4 and 5G and the device's compass and smartphone, so that you can get
real time updates.
To give you an example of Augmented Reality
in practice, you might want to have a quick
look at what is happening here with this IKEA
app. Again a very simple idea, you take virtual
furniture from the catalogue, you go to a
place in your home where you might like to
have that item of furniture, and then you
can view to see what that piece of furniture
might look like actually in your home. Pretty
clever isn’t it?
Augmented Reality has become popular in recent
years due to the rise in different Augmented
Reality games. There are a number of very
popular games out on the market at the moment.
The most popular is of course Pokemon Go,
but it’s rivalled by Harry Potter Wizards
Unite.
Augmented Reality games are not really a new
thing, though. SpecTrek, where you chase virtual ghosts
around your local neighbourhood has actually been
around for a long time. You might remember
that in the last module, where we were looking at movement
games, we mentioned games like Pokemon Go
have been found to improve people’s exercise
rates for a short period of time.
Of course it’s not just modern games that
have come under the new domain of Augmented
Reality, one of my favourite educational games
of all time is Scrabble. Scrabble has been
translated into many different languages all
around the world. The interesting thing about
Scrabble is that over time it’s been digitised.
This includes a game for hand held devices,
and more recently games for social networking
sites such as Facebook.
There’s also an Augmented Reality version
of Scrabble, it’s not an official version
but it works in exactly the same way. It’s called
Seek 'n Spell. How this works is that you
download the app, and you go and find a space
where you can play the game, normally this
would be a large open area, most importantly
this would be a really safe area.
You press start and what happens is the augmented
letters appear in the area where you are going
to play the game. Then over a period of time,
it’s up to you and you opponents to run
around the space, in order to collect the
different letters, to be able to spell different
words. So a very simple version of Scrabble
that has been updated for an augmented reality
era.
Augmented Reality in the past has also been
popular on games consoles, the reason that
I mention this is that even though it’s
not so popular on the modern games consoles,
there are still a lot of XBoxes and Playstation
3’s in schools. My two favourite Augmented
Reality apps and games for these consoles are Sesame Street TV, based on the popular TV series Sesame Street,
where you can actually interact with the characters using the XBox Connect, and also the Sony EyePet,
where you can look after a virtual pet.
Again, the reason that I mention it here is that there are still a lot of these consoles in schools,
or as an opportunity for teachers that have got these consoles at home to take them into their classroom and still use the games,
which are now increasingly available and also very, very cheap.
Let’s now have a look at different types
of Augmented Reality app to give you an idea
of the sorts of things possible.
The first app that we are going to have a
look at is simple measure app that normally
comes in your iPhone or iPad. As you can see
from looking at the video, it allows you to
take fairly accurate measurements, just be
using the camera and augmented reality on
your screen. Of course it’s not 100% accurate
but it gives you an idea of the sorts of things
that you might be able to do.
The other favourite Augmented Reality app
although people don’t always think of it
as an Augmented Reality app is Google Translate.
As you can see in this video here, what happens
is you use the camera function in Google Translate
and when you put it over typed words it is
able to translate it into a different type
of language. This is another great example
of Augmented Reality.
Moving on to something a little more sophisticated,
this is an app called Quiver. The reason that
I like it is that it combines pictures that
you colour in, then when you view the pictures
via your Augmented Reality app, it makes them
come to life and jump out of the screen. It’s
nice because you have coloured it in or the
children have coloured it in, there’s a certain
degree of ownership to their week.
The next augmented reality app I want to show you is called AR Dino
Park. It’s a pretty simple idea really,
you walk around a public place and when you
use the app you are able to superimpose dinosaurs
into the real world. It’s great for exploring
what prehistoric life might have been like,
and it’s also great for a context for things
like creative writing.
The last one I want to talk about is one that
is called Star Walk. Star Walk was first introduced
on the iPad a number of years ago. People
thought it was a big joke, but of course,
it was one of the first Augmented Reality
apps on the market. What you do with it, is
you hold the app up to the sky and it superimposes
what the stars looks like and also labels
them. This can be really handy at night time
as you can see the stars and of course, you
can also use it in the daytime too to study
things like Astronomy.
Don’t forget that things like Star Walk
are not only used to study things like Astronomy
but they can also be used as a great stimulus
for literacy and creative writing skills.
I couldn’t really finish this video without
mentioning HoloLens. HoloLens is a Microsoft
product which actually was released about the
same time as we did the last Games Course.
One of the challenges of HoloLens is that
it is incredibly expensive, although it is
also incredibly powerful. What I wanted to
mention about HoloLens is there’s lots of
talk about how you might be able to use it
to do things you’ve not done before. Although
I see the point of this for example, looking
at this giant heart and dissecting it, where
I really see the power of HoloLens is being
able to superimpose virtual data into a real
place. I think it’s got a massive amount
of potential in things like the construction
industry where you are actually able to walk
into a real life giant area and see what is
happening underneath the ground.
For example, if you were going to work a shop
where cars and lorries were being serviced,
you’d be able to look inside the cars and
lorries to see what you might have to do.
We are yet to see the benefit of HoloLens
in education partly because of the lack of
educational apps but also partly because of
the expense.
So that’s our brief introduction to Augmented
Reality. During the introduction I introduced
you to a number of Augmented Reality apps. What I’d like you
to do is just to go away and experiment with
a few. It might be a simple Google Translate
app, you might want to have a go at virtual
Scrabble, maybe you want to take a picture
of a dinosaur in your garden or your school
grounds. Or perhaps you want to explore the
night sky using Star Walk, what ever you choose,
see if you can come to grips with Augmented
Reality and have a think about how you might use it in the classroom.
Don’t forget we’ll be discussing Augmented
Reality and some of your favourite apps online.
Use the hashtag #GamesCourse to get you started
doing this.
