— This post was written by Tim Wheeler —

I’ve been looking at Augmented Reality lately and how it can help give additional educational information without to much of the tech getting in the way. The majority of us have a phone that is internet connected and thats all you need to take advantage of its capabilities.

What do I need?

Well you have your phone so all you need now is an AR app, there are a few to choose from; Blippar, Layar, craftAR are all free to download and use and they even allow you to create a campaign free of charge. So if you want to make a highly interactive learning experience take a picture of it, upload it and augment it ready for your knowledge hungry students.

What can it do?

At its simplest level you launch the app on your phone and the camera starts scanning for an object or image you have augmented, once it recognises the object it then puts up information, animations, audio, video casts, web sites, even creates a poll about the object.

Why use it

As an example we can use AR to overlay the structure and functions of the brain so that the knowledge gained is in context. Or allow children to see how good their teeth will be when they are older if they continue to brush their teeth!

Have a think, how can AR make a positive difference to your teaching?