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Nearpod VR takes your classroom on Virtual Reality Field Trips with 450 ready-to-run lessons to inspire students to investigate and broaden their horizons.

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Creators Lab High School 360 Challenge Updates

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This would be great for building out stories that empathize with others or a reflection on a windows/mirror book selection.

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AR Learning Cubes - Brave In The Attempt

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Many educators and general folks are excited about the horizons we are moving towards with the advances of augmented reality in our society. To be able to remain in our current reality and simply will and simply add or shift it in such a way that makes it easier, more fun, or more informative sounds…

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We care about your students' privacy. CoSpaces Edu takes student privacy very seriously and is COPPA and FERPA-compliant.

We have several measures in place to make sure that the data that you and your students store in CoSpaces Edu is always kept safe.

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CoSpaces Edu for kid-friendly 3D creation and coding

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Boost your kids' learning experience by letting them invent, build and code their own creations. Runs on mobile, tablet and desktop, including Chromebooks.

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Virtual Reality Curriculum Guide: Experience, Immersion and Excursion in the Classroom (Published 2020)

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A framework for teaching with New York Times 360 V.R. videos, plus eight lesson plans for STEM and the humanities.

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AR / VR Collection

Happy Teacher Appreciation Week! Enjoy this collection of free AR/VR resources found in the Verizon Innovative Learning Portal.

Day 30: AR/VR Courses

Get a sneak peek into the FREE #AR and #VR courses + the FREE aligned micro-credentials.

Day 29: Timepod Adventures

Take a journey to the red planet in the year 2024 to find a habitable environment for humans to survive.

Day 28: Wonderscope Update

Immerse your young learners into interactive storytelling using augmented reality. Be the center of the story!

Day 27: Orboot Globes

Go on an AR adventure with these interactive globes on the topics of Earth, Mars, and Dinosaurs.

Day 25: Mozilla Hubs Updates

The same great platform has continued to improve the user experience. Connect, create and share in Hubs on most devices.

Day 23: UV Tech Tub

How do you clean your immersive supplies like viewers, VR headsets, or Merge Cubes? Consider UV to kill germs and bacteria.

Day 21: Horizon Workrooms

While still in BETA, Horizon Workrooms offer unique #VR capabilities to collaborate for work or school.

Day 20: Quiver Dashboard

Give students unlimited access to all the Quiver AR coloring experiences plus find complete activity plans to support immersive lessons.

Day 17: Career Day

Be inspired by these virtual mentors who have made great contributions to the world. Choose your own adventure interview experience.

Day 15: Aurelia

Are you ready to go deep-sea diving using Augmented Reality? Access FREE lesson plans and instructions!

Day 14: Mission to Mars AR

Take a journey to the red planet and discover the details of the rovers that traveled millions of miles to Mars.

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Explore the best augmented and virtual reality resources in education. From Merge to CoSpaces to Oculus Quest and more, you'll find an enormous library of tools to immerse your classroom.

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Reality Bytes: Innovative Learning Using Augmented and Virtual Reality

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Apps: Please consider downloading these FREE apps to your phone/tablet Galactic Explorer for MERGE Google Expeditions Catchy Words AR Metaverse Jig Space Jig Workshop Google Translate 4th Wall Quiver Civilisations AR InkHunter

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Take a look around and explore the Secret Annex where Anne Frank was in hiding for more than two years during World War II, and where she wrote her diary.

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Experience the world-famous "Secret Annex" of the Anne Frank House in a never before seen way. In this award winning experience you travel back to the years of the Second World War and wander through the rooms of the Secret Annex, where Anne Frank, her family and four other Jews hid from Nazi persecution during WW2.

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An epic celebration of the bravery shown by children at St. Jude Children's Research Hospital

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St. Jude Hall of Heroes is an epic celebration of the bravery shown by the children at St. Jude Children's Research Hospital. Twelve epic statues representing twelve inspiring stories of young cancer patients who fought in a battle for their lives, narrated by those closest to them.

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“IN PROTEST: Grassroots Stories from the Front Lines” is a 360° film series chronicling the heroic Black voices in America confronting inequality and injustice. The second volume in the 4-part series, ‘IN PROTEST: Washington, D.C.’  explores policy and the power of the vote. Available now for free on Oculus TV.

Get a front row seat for the March on Washington 2020, a protest to rekindle the civil rights spirit of 1963. Hear from an all-female cadre of journalists, educators, and activists who speak to racial equality, public policy, and the urgency of voting for change.

Tactical Broadcast: https://www.oculus.com/experiences/me...
Get In Where You Fit In: https://www.oculus.com/experiences/me...
Digital Justice: https://www.oculus.com/experiences/me...
Weaponziing the Vote: https://www.oculus.com/experiences/me...

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Digital Justice | IN PROTEST: Washington, D.C.

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Digital Justice | IN PROTEST: Washington, D.C.

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From the frontlines of resistance, a constellation of Black voices challenges systemic American racism in this four-volume series entitled IN PROTEST: Grassroots Stories from the Front Lines. Each Volume chronicles a different American city, profiling modern activists as they move beyond street protests to confront inequality and injustice in everyday life.

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Introducing a challenge to inspire students to use next-generation technologies for real-world projects. High school students use 360° video technology to share their communities, inspire action for change, and spur learning.

Participating high schools receive 360° video production equipment and ongoing support from professional filmmaker mentors. Students partner with these filmmakers to create 3-5 minute 360 films sharing what's special about their communities. Students learn new technology and production skills while they explore careers and higher education opportunities in STEM. The six week challenge concludes with a film showcase to celebrate their efforts and highlight the top films.

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High School 360 Filmmakers Challenge | Oculus VR for Good

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Introducing a challenge to inspire students to use next-generation technologies for real-world projects. High school students use 360° video technology to share their communities, inspire action for change, and spur learning. Participating high schools receive 360° video production equipment and ongoing support from professional filmmaker mentors.

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Non-profit: GO Campaign

Filmmaker: Fabiano Mixo

Imagine a world without children. In such a world, Aloyo, a twelve-year-old girl from Uganda, tells the story of the children's return following the war. Since 1986, Northern Uganda has been a place of constant conflict by the rebellion forces of the Lord's Resistance Army. Over 75,000 children have been abducted and forced to spend part of their childhood as soldiers in the bushes. Follow Aloyo as she plays a make-believe war game that hits too close to home, into open fields and forest where gunfire still echoes like ghosts, and through ruined and lively villages, as she reclaims stories about the children the war took away.

Mixing the tradition of African oral storytelling told around the fire with virtual reality, Children Do Not Play War immerses the viewer in Uganda's quest for redemption, hope, and healing.

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Children Do Not Play War | Oculus VR for Good

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Non-profit: GO Campaign Filmmaker: Fabiano Mixo Imagine a world without children. In such a world, Aloyo, a twelve-year-old girl from Uganda, tells the story of the children's return following the war. Since 1986, Northern Uganda has been a place of constant conflict by the rebellion forces of the Lord's Resistance Army.

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Around the world, 130 million girls do not have the opportunity to go school. Meet Rani, a 17-year-old from Varanasi, India, who is part of a growing movement of fearless girls leading change in their communities.

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Chalktalk is a digital presentation and communication language in development at New York University's Future Reality Lab. Using a blackboard-like interface, it allows a presenter to create and interact with animated digital sketches in order to demonstrate ideas and concepts in the context of a live presentation or conversation.

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Rockey lives in a tent in a park. We meet her on the day police and sanitation workers come to clear the park of homeless people. Rockey has to make a decision: flee or get arrested. She decides to go hoping that when she returns, her tent, her home and all her belongings will still be there.

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Virtual Reality drawing tools for architects and designers. A SketchUp extension allowing anyone to use SketchUp from inside virtual reality

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Virtual Field Trip

Six Sustainable Happiness Skills

Happy people are healthier, live longer, earn more money, and do better in school and life. Learn how happiness impacts our physiology and psychology from the experts at The Greater Good Science Center at the University of California, Berkeley.

Then, see how students and educators activate happiness using these skills through programming from LG Experience Happiness partners Inner Explorer and Project Happiness.

Join us on our journey to understand how regular practice of the Six Sustainable Happiness Skills-mindfulness, human connection, positive outlook, purpose, generosity, and gratitude-can help set anyone on the path to sustainable happiness.

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LG and Discovery Education have set out to equip youth with the skills necessary to reduce stress and create Sustainable Happiness in their lives. As part of the LG Experience Happiness platform, Discover Your Happy provides science-based tools for educators, students and parents to show how happiness can be achieved through learnable skills and practices.

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Virtual Reality Headsets:

Recommended VR Headsets: HTC Vive, HTC Vive Pro, Valve Index

Headphones (ideally noise cancelling)

NOTE: While the experience will technically run on any headset that runs through SteamVR, you may experience lower frame rate and lag with other headsets

High Performance Gaming Computer - Minimum Specs:

GPU: NVIDIA GTX 1080 TI

CPU: Intel i7-7700k

RAM: 16 GB

SSD Storage: 100GB free - NOTE: The experience must be run from an solid-state drive (SSD) not a hard disk drive (HDD)

Additional information:

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Virtual Reality Headsets: Recommended VR Headsets: HTC Vive, HTC Vive Pro, Valve Index Headphones (ideally noise cancelling) NOTE: While the experience will technically run on any headset that runs through SteamVR, you may experience lower frame rate and lag with other headsets High Performance Gaming Computer - Minimum Specs: GPU: NVIDIA GTX 1080 TI CPU: Intel i7-7700k RAM: 16 GB SSD Storage: 100GB free - NOTE: The experience must be run from an solid-state drive (SSD) not a hard disk drive (HDD) Additional information:

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The Holocaust: History and Memory provides students with a new way to learn about Holocaust history. Developed in cooperation with Houghton Mifflin Harcourt and powered by Google Expeditions, this field trip allows students to virtually experience the US Holocaust Memorial Museum.

The virtual field trip includes nine different scenes from the Museum-covering our permanent exhibition, The Holocaust, our Hall of Witness and Hall of Remembrance, and a conservation lab where students can examine how our staff preserve and present Holocaust history.

Get Started

There are two ways to access this virtual field trip. It was originally developed, and is still best experienced, as an immersive VR experience for use with the Google Expeditions mobile app. However, you can now explore the field trip as a virtual tour using the web browser on any computer or mobile device. You can learn more about the Google Expeditions field trip below or explore in your web browser here.

Download the Google Expeditions App

Google Expeditions is a free virtual reality teaching tool that lets you lead or join immersive virtual trips all over the world. For guidance on setting up and using the app, visit the Google Expeditions Help Center.

1. Download the app for your iOS or Android device.

2. When you open the app, you will be prompted to sign in with a Google account.

3. After signing in, click Discover.

4. In the search bar at the top of the app screen, search for The Holocaust: History and Memory.

5. Click on the search result to save the virtual field trip.

Download the Lesson Plan

Lesson length: One to two class periods

In this lesson, students examine how the Museum uses artifacts and photographs from its collections to present the history of the Holocaust and memorialize its victims-including artifacts and photographs that illustrate important aspects of Holocaust history such as Torah scrolls rescued during Kristallnacht, a train car, prisoner barracks from Auschwitz, and a gas chamber model. Students also tour the Museum's architecture and discuss what makes the Museum a living memorial. Through their exploration of the Museum's exhibitions, students gain a greater understanding of key events and topics related to the Holocaust and are able to explain the systematic nature, scope, and consequences of the Holocaust.

Frequently Asked Questions

What will I experience during this virtual field trip?

Using VR headsets and mobile phones, The Holocaust: History and Memory immerses you in several 360-degree virtual spaces within the Museum, including sections of the permanent exhibition, memorial space, and conservation lab.

Each stop along the tour provides prompts for you to take a closer look at selected photographs and objects, as well as details in the building architecture.

Narration, as well as questions and answers, are provided for teachers to focus student attention and encourage critical thinking.

What equipment do I need to view the Museum's expedition?

Google Expeditions were originally designed for use in a classroom with teachers acting as a guide and students following along. They are best experienced as guided tours with the teacher acting as the guide. However, students may also independently take self-guided tours.

A compatible iOS or Android phone or tablet is required. Some Chromebooks work as well. While the tour works without a VR headset, for the full immersive experience, they are required. The best setting is one in which teachers use a tablet to narrate the tour, and students use mobile phones or similar WiFi-enabled devices and VR headsets. Learn more about recommended devices and mobile phone requirements.

To explore on your own, the minimum requirement is a compatible mobile phone, tablet, or Chromebook and a WiFi connection. Learn more about exploring on your own.

Are there other technology requirements to use this expedition?

Yes. You need a WiFi connection in order to download the tour within the Google Expedition app. Once the tour has downloaded, WiFi is no longer required.

In order for a teacher to provide a guided tour experience, the teacher's device and all of the students' devices must be connected to the same WiFi network. The WiFi must allow peer-to-peer communication. This is how the teacher is able to use their tablet to direct students to visual details during the tour. Learn more about setting up your WiFi network.

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The Holocaust: History and Memory Virtual Field Trip

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The Holocaust: History and Memory provides students with a new way to learn about Holocaust history. Developed in cooperation with Houghton Mifflin Harcourt and powered by Google Expeditions, this field trip allows students to virtually experience the US Holocaust Memorial Museum.

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Birkenau Entrance ©USHMM, courtesy of bpk-Bildagentur
Ejszyszki ©USHMM, courtesy of The Shtetl Foundation
Neighbors Watch Synagogue Burn ©USHMM, courtesy of Trudy Isenberg; Vandalized Business ©National Archives and Records Administration; Buchenwald ©USHMM, courtesy of Robert A. Schmuhl
Warsaw Ghetto, ©Bundesarchiv (Bild 101I/134/734/16A); Lodz Ghetto, ©Bundesarchiv (Bild 101I/133/703/20); Milkcan/A Desperate Plea ©USHMM, courtesy of Zydowski Instytut Historyczny imienia Emanuela Ringelbluma
Slovakian Deportation ©USHMM, courtesy of Yad Vashem Photo and Film Archives; "Work Will Set You Free" ©USHMM, courtesy of Panstwowe Muzeum Auschwitz-Birkenau w Oswiecimiu
Women on Bunks @USHMM, courtesy of Unknown Russian archive; Birkenau Barracks ©USHMM, courtesy of Mark Chrzanowski; Hungarian Jewish Women @USHMM, courtesy of Yad Vashem (Public Domain); Bowl, ©USHMM
"Extermination Through Work" @USHMM, courtesy of Archiv der KZ-
Gedenkstaette Mauthausen

USHMM=US Holocaust Memorial Museum

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The Holocaust: History and Memory - Google Arts & Culture

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Explore the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, a living memorial that encourages visitors to remember, reflect, and act to confront hate and promote human dignity. In this virtual tour you will examine how the museum preserves and presents Holocaust history

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Augmented reality (AR) and Virtual Reality (VR) bridge the digital and physical worlds. They allow you to take in information and content visually, in the same way you take in the world. AR dramatically expands the ways our devices can help with everyday activities like searching for information, sh…

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Immersive presentations and meetings - right from the browser on desktop, mobile, and VR

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Aw snap! Google Earth isn't supported on your browser. You may need to update your browser or use a different browser. Please see our system requirements for more information. Chrome is a great choice and you can download it here. Or if you're feeling adventurous, you can try Earth anyway by choosing an option below.

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Aw snap! Google Earth isn't supported on your browser. You may need to update your browser or use a different browser. Please see our system requirements for more information. Chrome is a great choice and you can download it here.

Or if you're feeling adventurous, you can try Earth anyway by choosing an option below.

Learn more about Google Earth.

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Aw snap! Google Earth isn't supported on your browser. You may need to update your browser or use a different browser. Please see our system requirements for more information. Chrome is a great choice and you can download it here. Or if you're feeling adventurous, you can try Earth anyway by choosing an option below.

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connect.

Harness the power of Student-created Virtual reality to connect the world through social-emotional learning.

connect.

Harness the power of Student-created Virtual reality to connect the world through social-emotional learning.

Kinful is a turnkey social-emotional learning program powered by student-created virtual reality. Our Kinful Kit will be delivered straight to your door withall the materials (and training!) necessary for you to guide your students through over 100 hands-on SEL exercises. Of course, that includes virtual reality headsets and cameras, so your students can use cutting-edge technology to actively listen to and inform others about issues important to them; as well asa global library of student-created VR videos, so your students can hone their SEL skills by stepping into the perspective of other students from around the world.

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Kinful - Social-Emotional Learning through VR

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connect. Harness the power of Student-created Virtual reality to connect the world through social-emotional learning. connect. Harness the power of Student-created Virtual reality to connect the world through social-emotional learning. Kinful is a turnkey social-emotional learning program powered by student-created virtual reality. Our Kinful Kit will be delivered straight to your door withall the materials (and training!)

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For UNICEF, new technologies, such as augmented reality and virtual reality (AR/VR), have the potential to vastly enhance the organization's ability to reach and assist children in its programme countries in key areas such as health, education and training. The challenge is to ensure that this potential is harnessed and scaled to benefit millions of children.

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Augmented Reality/Virtual Reality for Good

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For UNICEF, new technologies, such as augmented reality and virtual reality (AR/VR), have the potential to vastly enhance the organization's ability to reach and assist children in its programme countries in key areas such as health, education and training. The challenge is to ensure that this potential is harnessed and scaled to benefit millions of children.

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Shelley Mannion, Samsung Digital Discovery Centre at The British Museum, United Kingdom

http://www.britishmuseum.org/samsungcentre

Abstract

In fall 2010, the British Museum's education team embarked on a multi-year plan to explore the potential of Augmented Reality (AR) in our galleries. We have since run four AR projects for young people, each of which focused on a different aspect of the technology. Our first project focused on revealing content on markers; the second on creating alternative views on the collection; the third on location-based AR for navigation; and the fourth on exhibiting virtual art in the galleries. These projects have both challenged and surprised us. Technical problems like the instability of compasses for positioning and poor 3G reception have challenged us to find workable solutions. Working with different age groups in formal and informal education settings led to discoveries about AR's ability to delight and engage young learners and to teach fine motor skills. Shoestring budgets forced us to be creative and resourceful in our approach to mobile app development. Here, we share our experiences and lessons learned in integrating AR into museum and gallery learning programs.

Despite widespread curiosity about AR, in 2010 few museums had used it in a serious way with large numbers of visitors. AR is essentially a new style of interaction which belongs to a wider set of Natural User Interactions (NUI). Other natural interactions include touch, gesture, eye tracking and emerging interaction styles that accept user input through intuitive physical actions and movements rather than the keyboard and mouse. The elegant touch screens of Apple products like the iPad are the best examples of this new style of interaction; they have dramatically changed users' expectations about how user interfaces should work. Increasingly, children who attend our digital learning events expect these styles of interaction. Driven by the demands of our young audiences, the British Museum's education team decided to experiment with AR and how it could be used to deliver learning programs for our collection. Thinking about AR in education forced us to go beyond the cool factor. We knew it was an exciting technology, but we wanted to understand what it could contribute to learning.

We were not the first to experiment AR in this context. Among the pioneers was media artist Hugo Barroso whose interactive artwork Pret-a-Porte (2005) was installed at Centro Nacional de los Artes in Mexico City. Children donned wearable AR markers and stood in front of a two-way mirror. The mirror displayed unusual costumes, armor and extra appendages depending on which markers they wore. In 2009, London's V&A in collaborated with Open Frameworks developers to create an AR experience triggered by facial recognition. Children sat in front of a webcam and saw a mask generated over their face which was dynamically assembled from Baroque patterns in the collection. No two masks were the same. In May 2010, the Getty Museum created an AR activity for the Augsburg Display Cabinet. Users downloaded a marker from a Web page, printed it out at home and used a webcam to see a 3D reconstruction of the cabinet which they could manipulate. An ambitious tablet-based AR application at the Natural History Museum in London populates the Attenborough Studio with fish, birds, dinosaurs and other animals as part of an interactive film about evolution.
Figure 1: Media artist Hugo Barroso's interactive installation Pret-a-Porte (2005) explored the potential of wearable AR in a learning context.
AR for Ancient Egypt

These examples were compelling, but none fulfilled our goal of getting children into the galleries with mobile devices. The arrival of 20 Samsung Galaxy Apollo phones in November 2012 provided the opportunity for our first mobile project. The delivery of the phones coincided with a major temporary exhibition about the ancient Egyptian Book of the Dead. With a tiny budget of roughly $2500 USD building a fully-featured AR app was out of the question. We concentrated on building a simple and inexpensive AR interaction into a wider activity for families which also included a paper-based gallery trail and a desktop publishing task on the computer. The activity, called Passport to the Afterlife, had two parts:

1) Families followed a trail around the Egyptian galleries using mobile phones (Android phones supplied by us) to scan AR markers. The 3D objects that displayed when the markers were scanned represented missing words they needed to collect. Collection here involved writing down the word on a paper worksheet.

2) Families brought their finished trails back to the Samsung Digital Discovery Centre and used the information they had gathered to create a colorful document on a computer.
Figure 2: In Passport to the Afterlife, AR interaction was integrated into a two-part activity that included a gallery trail followed by a desktop publishing task
The surprise of kinesthetic learning

Passport was a success. Children and parents enjoyed the AR interaction despite slow loading due to poor network reception and overcrowded galleries which made finding markers difficult. Reinforced by the computer activity, children got the point and understood that the missing words completed spells from ancient Egyptian Book of the Dead. For younger children aged 6-9, AR delivered an unanticipated learning outcome. At first these children struggled with the physical coordination required to scan markers. They stood too close or too far away from the marker. They had trouble holding the phone steady with one hand while tapping the screen with the other. In the context of Csikszentmihalyi's theory of Flow (1991), they began the activity with poor skill and high challenge. After seeing the interaction modeled by adults nearly all managed to master it and they enjoyed an overwhelming sense of accomplishment when they succeeded. Scanning markers made children more attentive to their bodies and improved their coordination - two surprising outcomes associated with kinesthetic learning.

Not all 3D animators are created equal

Our aim in designing the AR interaction for Passport was to convey the delight of decoding mysterious-looking codes like hieroglyphs. The bulk of the budget was spent on animated 3D models, some exact replicas of objects in the collection, which appeared when the markers were scanned. Finding the right 3D animator for mobile AR projects can be tricky, since models must be produced according to the technical restrictions of your chosen platform. This can be difficult for animators used to working in film or animation who typically produce high resolution output which is too large for mobile AR. Gaming animators are more familiar with the optimizations AR requires. We saved money by using a combination of custom-built and purchased models. The freelance animator we hired adapted models we bought from Turbo Squid ( http://www.turbosquid.com), reducing the number of vertices and simplifying texture maps to make them suitable for mobile delivery. The rest of the budget was spent on web hosting and materials to produce the paper trail.
Figure 3: Scanning an AR marker in the gallery reveals an animated 3D object. This object is a replica of an ancient Egyptian heart scarab amulet.
The technical side

Having invested our budget in the development of 3D models, we had to tackle the programming ourselves. Of the two main styles of AR, marker-based and location based, the majority of apps are location-based. Common examples are "what's near me?" applications which display information about nearby restaurants, gas stations or movie theaters. Marker-based AR applications like the Getty's Augsburg Cabinet use printed images to reveal hidden content. Unlike location-based AR, they work indoors and do not require GPS. For Passport we needed a cheap, marker-based solution for Android. We evaluated four potential platforms:

1) Layar was eliminated early on because, at the time, it supported only location-based AR ( http://www.layar.com);

2) Second Sight, a robust AR platform used widely in UK schools, ran only on Sony PSPs (http://www.mysecondsight.com);

3) The open source AR Toolkit had the features we needed, but required too much development time (http://www.hitl.washington.edu/artoolkit);

4) Junaio, a free, cross-platform AR browser supported markers and offered a developer API (http://www.junaio.com).

Junaio suited our low-budget rapid development plan. It was free to register as a developer and the API came with sample code in different languages. Using an existing web hosting platform and one staff programmer, we built, tested and launched the Junaio channel for Passport in three weeks. One crucial decision was to use AR markers rather than images as triggers for the 3D content. Although Junaio supported the use of images as markers, testing favored the black and white markers. Light levels in the gallery were very low, which meant the high contrast, two-color markers were picked up more reliably than images. The markers also provided good reference points for participants because they stood out in the busy visual landscape of crowded galleries. Finally, decoding mystery characters on the markers was a good metaphor for the activity, which involved completing magic spells and translating hieroglyphs. Many exhibit designers view AR markers and QR codes unwelcome interventions, but there may be legitimate reasons to use them, even after image recognition and indoor location-based AR become more feasible.
Figure 4: AR markers worked more reliably than images in galleries with low light conditions.
Young people make their own AR trails

After building a Junaio channel ourselves, we wanted to help others to create them. Our second AR project, Talking Objects: Museum as Object, ran in December 2010. The participants, fifteen young adults aged 16-18, designed and built their own AR trails through museum galleries. The young people toured the museum with an historian and then split into teams to design interpretive trails on themes which interested them. The content of their trails included videos, images and texts. Like Passport, content was triggered when AR markers were manually scanned. As the trails took shape, we discovered the limitations of 3G connections in the galleries. Upper floor galleries had a reasonably strong signal, especially those with skylights. Lower floor galleries containing large stone sculptures were dead zones. In areas of patchy coverage, strategically placed markers which tested well initially did not work on the day students presented their trails to museum staff. This experience informed future projects in which we only included galleries with consistently strong signals.

Even when markers scanned correctly, videos stuttered because they were streamed from YouTube. Video slideshows of objects with solid backgrounds, simple transitions and music soundtracks worked best. While not an option for us in this project, video content should be cached locally on the phones before a live event. Issues arose around the placement of markers in low lighting conditions, since some of the objects included in the trails were displayed in dimly lit cases. Repositioning them or asking participants to choose different objects solved these problems. On the final day of the week-long project, young people led museum staff on their trails, demonstrating the use of the phones to scan markers.
Figure 5: A Talking Objects participant places an AR marker on a display case as part of a student-designed trail through the Ancient Egypt gallery.
Despite technical glitches, the project was an exciting leap forward. With a budget of under $1000 and less than a week's development time, it proved we could easily and cheaply integrate AR experiences into our education work with young people. It also showed how AR might provide an alternative to the traditional multimedia guide and meet the aims of participatory engagement by allowing visitors to create their own themed trails through the galleries.

Testing the limits of AR with Cultures in Contact

Building on our experiences with Passport and Talking Objects, a third and more ambitious AR project got underway in late spring 2011. Funding for Cultures in Contact came from corporate sponsorship and Samsung contributed 20 3G-enabled Galaxy Tablets. The arrival of the tablets offered us the chance to work with larger (seven-inch) screens. Not quite as big as the iPad's 9.7 inch screen, the Galaxy Tablets were light, compact and easy for small hands to grasp. The tablets were at the heart of a gallery activity for over 700 teenagers who visited the museum in summer 2011. Students worked in groups to first research objects in the gallery and then make a short film about them. The AR interaction was integrated into a learning framework which included:

An interactive lecture and film screening explaining purpose of the workshop

Four-part gallery activity in groups:

Finding objects with AR

Reading and discussing questions on screen

Answering questions on a worksheet

Rating the objects against five thematic categories

Analyzing results of the ratings in a classroom space

Making a short film informed by the gallery activity
Figure 6: In Cultures in Contact, location-based AR was used in a gallery activity where students collected objects that were used to make films in the second half of the workshop.
AR and indoor positioning

From a technical point of view, Cultures in Contact offered the opportunity to experiment with location-based AR. In Passport and Talking Objects, we had used marker-based AR to reveal or deliver rich media content, but now it became a navigation tool to find physical objects. True location-based AR was not an option because GPS positioning does not function indoors. Other solutions such as wifi triangulation or even sonic sensors can be used to obtain users' location, but we could not afford these. With no way of automatically determining location, we decided to use a hybrid approach. Within Junaio, users could manually scan a marker to tell the mobile device where they were. Once their location was found, users looked through the live camera view to see five objects near them. The objects appeared as animated 3D cubes with pictures of real objects mapped onto them. The positions of the cubes on the screen corresponded to the locations of the real objects they represented. Users chose an object, approached it in the gallery, and then tapped its picture. Tapping its picture launched a dialogue box (superimposed on the live view of the gallery) with a set of questions that were answered on a paper worksheet.
Figure 7: Two screenshots from the AR module of Cultures in Contact. Above, the live view of the China gallery with 3D cubes displayed near real objects. Below, the question screen superimposed over the live view.
Using AR for indoor navigation proved challenging. First, we discovered that when markers are used to determine position, the user cannot move freely around the gallery. The display of all content (here, the 3D cubes with pictures of objects) is based on hard coded coordinates calculated from the spot where they perform the original scan. When the user moves, the display is not updated to show the position of objects relative to his or her new location. This made the activity less compelling from a user experience point of view. It also posed a logistical problem since 5-6 groups of students needed to scan from the same point in each gallery. If one group scanned and then moved away to make room for the next, it would invalidate the location of objects on their screen. We addressed these problems through a variety of workarounds. To improve the user experience, we turned static scanning into a game by placing a colorful "scanning point" on the gallery floor. We involved live volunteers in each gallery who held the markers, helped users to scan and explained how the process worked. To reduce the number of groups needing to scan at the same time, we staggered their start times by a few minutes.

The biggest challenge was the positioning itself. The digital compasses in our Galaxy Tabs (and nearly all the other devices we tested including iPhones) were incredibly unreliable in calculating position. Testing 20 identical devices, we found that only a handful gave the same reading when placed in the same location. The compasses were easily disrupted by other mobile devices nearby and electrical currents in the galleries. In the India gallery, compasses were thrown off by an electrical cable under the floorboards running straight through the center of the room. The instability of the compasses caused the 3D cubes to jitter and jump around the screen, sometimes wildly. Calibrating the compasses helped stabilize them. This was accomplished by vigorously waving the tablets in a figure eight pattern, a motion that became known on the project team as the "AR wiggle" (Samsung Digital Discovery Centre, 2011).

The erratic compasses forced us to reconsider our original interface design, which called for arrows to hover above the real objects in their cases helping students to find them. Testing soon showed that arrows would not be accurate enough. They were replaced with pictures of the objects mapped onto 3D cubes. As long as the cubes appeared close to the originals, users found it somewhat easier to locate real objects by comparing them against the pictures. They delighted in seeing virtual representations of objects next to real ones and, suddenly, the AR interface took on a game-like character. Finding objects was like fishing on the tablet's touch screen and ironically this interaction benefitted from the jitteriness of compasses. In some cases though, compasses malfunctioned and the object pictures did not correspond at all with their real counterparts. No doubt compasses will improve with the next generation of mobile phones and tablets, but users with older devices are likely to struggle. These issues highlight the challenge of using AR for indoor navigation.

Live view: We're loving it!

The biggest surprise with the AR activity was students' utter fascination with the live camera view. It was so entrancing that, from the moment the AR module went live half way through the project, camera usage on the phones dropped dramatically. During the first half of the project run with just the web-based ratings app, cameras were used constantly. Photography was not part of the activity and students were never instructed or encouraged to take pictures. Even so, they used the camera at some point during the gallery session. The content of the photos fell into two categories: 1) Photos of each other; 2) Photos of objects. As educators, we were pleasantly surprised to see so many relevant photos, especially considering that this photography was technically off-task. Despite investing considerable effort in taking the photos, students seemed unconcerned about receiving copies of their pictures afterwards.

Camera usage changed immediately when the AR module was introduced. One facilitator writes:

Once [the AR component] came onboard I didn't see anyone using the camera function of the phone. They didn't try to save images, but they did use Junaio as a viewer.

The live view of the Juanio browser replaced the camera as a way to mediate looking and exploring in the galleries. It seemed to hold an irresistible fascination for users who held the tablet at different angles, swung the device around and shouted at classmates to move into or out of their live view. Unfortunately, because no images were saved, we don't know what kinds of subjects students tried to capture, but simply viewing objects and friends through the camera's lens produced visible enjoyment. More research is needed to understand this phenomenon, but it suggests applications that combine live camera views with people and virtual objects are appealing to users. The Exploratorium did this successfully with Junaio at its Get Surreal event (Rothfarb, 2011).

Using tablets with worksheets in the gallery

The model of a gallery activity followed by a classroom-based one worked well. Other elements were trickier, particularly the integration between the AR module and question screens, both of which ran inside the live camera view, and the rating exercise which ran inside the web browser. The worksheet used to capture answers created confusion because it competed with the tablet. The worksheet was not part of the gallery activity as first conceived. It was introduced to address a problem observed in testing of users not taking enough time to look carefully at objects before rating them. Testing also indicated that large groups of 5-6 students had difficulty staying focused around a single tablet. Passport had already demonstrated that worksheets can complement a mobile AR activity. In that context, the worksheets provided a perfect way for families to share the task of collecting objects. Parents looked after the worksheets while children used the phones to scan makers. Once the scanning was completed, parents helped children to write down their answers.

In Cultures in Contact things worked differently. For many groups, the worksheet led the gallery experience, whereas we had intended the tablets to lead. When facilitators intervened and encouraged students to use the tablet as their primary tool, there was often lingering confusion. Some groups split up into pairs or threes, taking the worksheet and tablet in opposite directions. Without more data, it is difficult to say why the students struggled to understand the role of the worksheet even after it was repeatedly explained. Perhaps this is a legacy of traditional museum education sessions, which are often centered on completing worksheets. Having attended other workshops where worksheets were their only outcome, students may have assumed this activity worked in the same way.

Worksheets and tablets in group work

The interplay between worksheet and mobile device was one of the most puzzling aspects of the project. Comparing the use of worksheets here with Passport (where they worked effectively), suggests that the dynamics between group members influence how interpretive media are used. Passport is a family activity in which parents or carers willingly take on a subordinate role to assist their children. John Falk (2009) writes that when adults visit museums with young children they become facilitators whose priority is their children's experience. Facilitators are happy to perform any task that supports the child, such as holding the worksheet. In a group of teens, however, everyone is equal in their desire to have a good experience and less likely to take on a role that would help the group at the expense of their own enjoyment. When tablets were handed out, minor arguments broke out about who should hold it. These frictions often continued for the duration of the gallery session and led to teams splitting up or teammates fighting amongst themselves. This sent the tablet and worksheet in different directions, severing the functional link between.
Figure 8: Participants in Cultures in Contact using a tablet and worksheet in a gallery. The two competed with each other for students' attention.
Overall, friendship groups worked more effectively than those assigned by teachers or adults. Self-selected friendship groups were successful because the natural camaraderie among friends facilitated the sharing of the device. Even in friendship groups where sharing did not occur, individuals willingly took on the roles that seemed natural to them. The adoption of roles was usually prompted and readily accepted by their teammates with phrases like "You're good at technology, so you should hold the tablet;" "You have neat handwriting, so you do the worksheet". These groups cooperated well and worked through problems harmoniously. Non-friendship groups tended to split up under the pretense of "doing things faster" with one half of the group taking worksheet and the other taking the tablet.

Group size and mobile learning

We suspected from the outset that groups of 5-6 students were too large and the more we observed students working, the more obvious it became. We concluded that three students per group is the maximum for this style of activity. In a different mobile learning project with smaller groups of teenagers, each student was given a device. Despite our initial concerns, having their own device did not discourage students from interacting with their peers during the course of the session. Even in highly structured sessions where students had few opportunities to chat, most students felt they talked "loads" with their classmates. When they captured or created media such as photos, videos and voice recordings, they were anxious to share. Sharing led to productive, on-topic discussions. Sadly, one device per student is rarely possible. Practical realities dictate that groups of 3-6 students must share a single mobile device. Data from Cultures in Contact suggests one way of coping with large groups is to build distinct phases or "chapters" into the activity. These present an opportunity for a facilitator or even the device itself to suggest or insist on role swapping. Within friendship groups, switching roles and sharing the device occurred spontaneously at these transition points.

The rating activity and other people's ratings

The rating activity is where we hoped crucial learning would take place. Each object was given a star rating (1-5 stars) for five thematic categories linked to the culture it belonged to. Ratings were saved by group name and accessible on a web page in the afternoon session when students created their films. Nearly all the groups rated objects successfully, and though some struggled to understand the principle behind it, they quickly got the hang of it. Groups took 5-12 minutes to rate their first objects, but sped up significantly (70-80%) on subsequent ratings. The final ratings took 30 seconds to three minutes. Surprisingly, very few groups (less than 5%) changed their initial ratings after seeing how others rated. Because of its similarity to ratings on YouTube and Amazon.com we hoped students would appreciate this feature. Particularly when their own ratings differed significantly from what others said, we thought it would trigger discussion, this was not the case. The few times that someone attempted to revise ratings he or she was immediately discouraged by teammates who asserted complete confidence in the team's own ratings and encouraged them to move on. As a result, nearly all groups kept their original ratings and the comparison screen became simply another page to click through.
Figure 9: Screenshot of the ratings comparison screen from Cultures in Contact. Students dismissed what others said and kept their original ratings.
Using the tablet

From a usability point of view, the design of the tablet was problematic. The most common problem users encountered was jumping out of the application back to the home screen. In AR applications devices are usually held in landscape orientation rather than portrait, which forces users to grasp it in a way that easily triggers the built-in function buttons. Function buttons on the Galaxy tablet are embedded in the frame of the device and positioned close to the edge, making it almost impossible not to touch them while holding it in landscape mode. This has been a recurring usability issue with all our mobile activities: Users became frustrated because they unintentionally and repeatedly exited the application. Fortunately, the newest generation of Android devices reduces this problem by incorporating built-in function buttons into the screen rather than the frame of the device. We anticipate the issue would be resolved if students used their own mobile devices simply because they would be familiar with the idiosyncrasies of operating their own equipment.

Re-thinking the role of AR

Cultures in Contact could be called a successful failure. Although we set out to use AR as a navigation tool, the poor performance of the tablets' digital compasses paired with the limitations of marker-based positioning forced us to rethink the role of AR in the gallery activity. When working smoothly, AR did provide some help in locating objects, but it proved more useful in enriching the user experience. It delivered a game-like interaction which involved users "fishing for" and "catching" objects on the screen. It offered a delightful new way to look for and at real objects by comparing them with their virtual counterparts. And it provided an intensely enjoyable twist on traditional photography by allowing users to view live scenes and events, people and objects through a layer of virtual content.

The project yielded many practical insights about how to run mobile learning activitie, the most important of which are the impact of interpersonal dynamics in groups on the use of interpretive media such as worksheets and tablets, and the way larger groups can be managed by creating breaks or transitions in the activity. As a result of the technical challenges we encountered, we have a clearer understanding of the effort required to implement a large scale AR project on a shoestring budget. Using Junaio was a sensible choice, but the integration between the live view and web module (with the rating activity) needed more attention to streamline the user experience. Ideally, students and teachers would have been able to access their ratings back at school through a secure system during the follow-up visits by teaching staff that took place in the weeks after their visits.

A History of the Future: Timepieces

Post-Cultures in Contact we have continued to pursue indoor location-based AR. Inspired by the work of the Stedelijk Museum (Schavemaker, M., et al., 2011) in Amsterdam and the artists' collective Manifest AR ( http://www.manifestar.com) who have staged several installations of AR artwork, we ran a workshop for young people which culminated in a virtual exhibition. In A History of the Future, a collaboration with science fiction writer and game designer Adrian Hon (2011), young people created their own futuristic timepieces based on the museum's collection of clocks and watches. They made digital drawings of their inventions, written descriptions and short videos about them, all of which became part of an AR exhibition in the Clocks and Watches gallery. Looking ahead, we're hoping to use the recently launched Junaio Creator to teach children to build their own AR channels and install virtual content around the museum.
Figure 10: Using Junaio's live view on the Samsung Galaxy Tablet to locate virtual installations created by participants in A History of the Future.
Lessons learned

Eighteen months worth of experimentation with AR has left us with an appetite for more. Despite the technical and logistical challenges involved in AR applications, it has repeatedly surprised us with its ability to engage and delight our audiences. The list below summarizes our main insights about working with AR in a mobile learning context:

AR is an inherently engaging interaction style. It's magical. Kids like it. Grown-ups like it.

Users love AR's live camera view. The live camera view alone is satisfying enough to keep users engaged. Try to find a way for them to capture views that include objects, people, museum spaces and virtual objects.

AR markers are not a bad thing. They have an interesting retro quality. Try to design metaphorically to take advantage of AR's "hide and reveal" quality.

Design for kinesthetic learning. AR offers a novel way for children aged 6-9 to develop fine motor skills. Challenge them to do two things at once: hold the phone steady, scan, tap, rotate, etc.

Integrate AR interactions into a learning framework, and use paper-based tools sparingly and wisely. While the Passport activity integrated a paper trail in a helpful way, the experience with Cultures in Contact indicated that students expected the worksheet rather than the tablet to lead. If the point is to get students to make use of the technology, then consider scrapping the paper to ensure the device leads. On the other hand, paper worksheets for families give carers something to do.

Reduce group size as much as possible when working with school children and teenagers. Even tablets with screens everyone can see are unlikely to be shared easily in non-friendship groups. Create groups of 2-3 students maximum. One device per student is ideal.

Design activities where students capture or create media on their own devices. Teenagers especially enjoy sharing what they have made and engage friends or classmates in discussion about it. This promotes much more natural interactions than forced group work.

If you have to work with groups, provide clear phases or breaks in the activity where the mobile device can change hands.

Where possible build a native app. If that is beyond your budget and expertise, then use free tools and builders. Be wary of cobbling together multiple platforms, however, as this introduces usability problems when users move between different parts of the application.

If you need 3D models, hire a game animator who knows how to optimize models for mobile delivery. Reduce costs by purchasing models online and adapting them.

Do thorough, realistic testing of 3G or wifi signal strength in galleries long before development begins. Identify sweet spots where the signal is especially strong and be aware of potential disruptions from existing gallery media, cabling or other infrastructure elements.

Compasses are wonky. If you are working with indoor location-based AR, then design carefully and test with as many devices as possible. Don't rely on accurate positioning, but create an experience that users find engaging.

Acknowledgements

A huge thank you to all of the interns, volunteers and facilitators in the Samsung Digital Discovery Center who worked hard to make AR projects happen. Special thanks to Elena Saura Ramos, Katherine Biggs and Alessandra von Aesch whose expert and dedicated assistance made these projects possible. Thanks to colleagues Faye Ellis, Katharine Hoare, Sarah Longair, Emma Poulter and Richard Woff at the British Museum who supported our AR work with their project budgets. Thanks to Olly Venning for excellent 3D models for Junaio GLUE. Thanks to Frank Angermann the whole team at Metaio for being incredibly supportive and responsive to bug reports and change requests.

References

Barroso, H. (2005). Pret-a-Porte. Centro Nacional de los Artes. Mexico City, Mexico. Published September 14, 2008. Consulted June 1, 2011. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IVrQ7VpB8Fw

British Museum, London. Talking Objects: Museum as Object. Consulted 20 March 2012. http://www.britishmuseum.org/channel/object_stories/talking_objects/video_the_museum_as_object.aspx

Csikszentmihalyi, M. (1991). Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience. New York: HarperPerennial.

Falk, J. (2009). Identity and the Museum Visitor Experience. Walnut Creek, California: Left Coast Press.

Hon, A. (2011). Update #8: A History of the Future at the British Museum. Published September 20, 2011. Consulted March 20, 2012. http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/adrian/a-history-of-the-future-in-100-objects/posts/120807

J. Paul Getty Museum. (2010). Augmented Reality of the Augsburg Display Cabinet. Published May 17, 2010. Consulted October 15, 2011. http://www.getty.edu/art/exhibitions/north_pavilion/ar/index.html

Natural History Museum, London. Interactive film - Who do you think you really are? Consulted April 2, 2012.
http://www.nhm.ac.uk/visit-us/darwin-centre-visitors/attenborough-studio/interactive-film/index.html

Rothfarb., R. (2011). Mixing Realities to Connect People, Places, and Exhibits Using Mobile Augmented-Reality Applications. In J. Trant and D. Bearman (eds). Museums and the Web 2011: Proceedings. Toronto: Archives & Museum Informatics. Published March 31, 2011. Consulted February 20, 2012. http://conference.archimuse.com/mw2011/papers/mixing_realities_connect_p...

Samsung Digital Discovery Centre at the British Museum. (2010). Passport to the Afterlife: A Collection on Flickr. Published December 20, 2010. Consulted April 2, 2012. http://www.flickr.com/photos/britishmuseum_samsungcentre/collections/72157625445071736/

Samsung Digital Discovery Centre at the British Museum. (2011). Testing AR Gallery Explorer. Published June 29, 2011. Consulted 20 March 2012. http://vimeo.com/25782400

Samsung Digital Discovery Centre at the British Museum. (2011). Mobile Explorer on Galaxy Tabs. Published November 25, 2011. Consulted 20 March 2012. http://vimeo.com/25782400

Schavemaker, M., et al. (2011). Augmented Reality and the Museum Experience. In J. Trant and D. Bearman (eds). Museums and the Web 2011: Proceedings. Toronto: Archives & Museum Informatics. Published March 31, 2011. Consulted March 10, 2012. http://conference.archimuse.com/mw2011/papers/augmented_reality_museum_experience

Victoria & Albert Museum. (2009). Mirror, Mirror - A User Generated Performance. July 22, 2009. Consulted October 15, 2011. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AmgqwtOmsOM

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Beyond Cool: Making Mobile Augmented Reality Work for Museum Education

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http://www.britishmuseum.org/samsungcentre Abstract In fall 2010, the British Museum's education team embarked on a multi-year plan to explore the potential of Augmented Reality (AR) in our galleries. We have since run four AR projects for young people, each of which focused on a different aspect of the technology.

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AccuVein Vein Visualization-Improves IV 1-Stick Success 3.5x

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The global leader in vein visualization. Projects a map of veins directly on the skin to access or avoiding veins for IVs, blood draw & injectables.

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Not all of these are school appropriate so use with caution!

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AR in Google Search

Now you can use AR to place 3D digital objects right in your own space directly from Search or from websites on Chrome. Learn more about everything from NASA's Curiosity Rover to human anatomy to animals like hedgehogs, penguins, and sharks, with a greater sense of context and scale.

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Augmented reality (AR) overlays digital content and information onto the physical world - as if they're actually there with you, in your own space. AR opens up new ways for your devices to be helpful throughout your day by letting you experience digital content in the same way you experience the world.

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New to Moment AR!
"Text-To-Speech" added to the Actions module. Tap on labels to hear them!
"Custom" module, where you can create your own cubes.

PLEASE NOTE: This app requires a MERGE Cube and a smartphone or a tablet to play. To find out how to get a MERGE Cube and learn more, visit our website at: https://www.MergeCube.com.

Help a child open up about themselves and their feelings with The Moment App. Appealing cartoon characters with the latest in augmented reality technology are used to engage a child in discussions about emotions.

The Moment App can be used as a tool by psychologists, other professionals, and/or parents to facilitate therapeutic communication with children, with the app being specially designed for children and young adults with autism spectrum disorder (ASD), those in need of mental health support, social and language development. The Moment App is able to trigger a child's curiosity and engagement by turning the usually passive 2D content into interactive 3D augmented reality (AR) content. Once the child is engaged by the app, they have a higher probability of engaging with others about what they are seeing in the app, and how it might relate to them personally.

Emotional development can be a major stumbling block for anyone. The Moment App serves as a means to engage with difficult feelings/emotions and social-emotional situations. The Moment App works with the Merge Cube to deliver an interactive audio-visual experience grounded in the real world with the latest in augmented reality technology.

Simply point your mobile device's camera at the Merge Cube, and the interactive and engaging characters of the Moment App come to life. The characters represent different challenging emotions and portray a wide variety of emotional situations and social interactions. Select from a variety of different emotional situations by simply tapping on the various characters on screen. With a simple and easy to use interface, children of a wide variety of developmental levels can engage with the Moment App completely, or be passively engaged while the professional drives the experience.

Engaging characters in a variety of familiar and social-emotional situations, in augmented reality, serves as a basis for discussion, for learning and for growth. The Moment App is designed to use the latest technology to help psychologists, other professionals, and parents reach children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) but is intended to be beneficial in facilitating emotional discussion between any individuals.

Version 2.1.1

New to Moment AR!

New "Text-To-Speech" added to the Actions module, where the user verbally hear the action verbs
New "Custom" module, where you can create your own custom cubes and save them. You also have the option of placing custom labels and with the new "Text-To-Speech" function, you have the ability to verbally hear that text out loud!

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The developer, Kevin Chaja, indicated that the app's privacy practices may include handling of data as described below. For more information, see the developer's privacy policy.

Data Not Linked to You

The following data may be collected but it is not linked to your identity:

Privacy practices may vary, for example, based on the features you use or your age. Learn More

Information

Compatibility

iPhone

Requires iOS 12.0 or later.

iPad

Requires iPadOS 12.0 or later.

iPod touch

Requires iOS 12.0 or later.

Mac

Requires macOS 11.0 or later and a Mac with Apple M1 chip.

Family Sharing

With Family Sharing set up, up to six family members can use this app.

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‎PLEASE NOTE: This app requires a MERGE Cube and a smartphone or a tablet to play. To find out how to get a MERGE Cube and learn more, visit our website at: https://www.MergeCube.com. Help a child open up about themselves and their feelings with The Moment App. Appealing cartoon characters with the...

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Did you know that only 11% of the stories in U.S. History Textbooks are about women?

Lessons in Herstory is an app that uses AR to bring to life the forgotten heroes in U.S. history textbooks-women. By putting a new lens on history, this app has the power to inspire the next generation through the stories of powerful women.

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Lessons in Herstory is an app that uses AR to bring to life the forgotten heroes in U.S. history textbooks-women. By putting a new lens on history, this app has the power to inspire the next generation through the stories of powerful women.

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A collection of immersive storytelling features, including augmented reality, virtual reality and 3-D web experiences.

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In this official course from Unity, you will learn to design and develop your own Virtual Reality (VR) applications. You will create prototypes, attempt challenges, and complete quizzes to build and solidify your skill set.

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The following post was written by Kayla Engle, your Flipgrid Summer Experience Protege!
FlipgridAR is LIVE: transform family nights, homework, school events, book reviews, Science Fairs, student art galleries, language classrooms, the entire school, ANYWHERE by "sticking" student voice everywhere with FlipgridAR codes.

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The following post was written by Kayla Engle , your Flipgrid Summer Experience Protege! FlipgridAR is LIVE: transform family nights, homework, school events, book reviews, Science Fairs, student art galleries, language classrooms, the entire school, ANYWHERE by "sticking" student voice everywhere with FlipgridAR codes.

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Produced by Jonathan Corum and Graham Roberts with support from the National Science Foundation and the United States Antarctic Program.

Cinematography by Evan Grothjan.

Underwater cinematography by Rob Robbins and Steven Rupp.

"A Shifting Continent" was produced with support from the Rosetta project and the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory of Columbia University.

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Produced by Jonathan Corum and Graham Roberts with support from the National Science Foundation and the United States Antarctic Program. Cinematography by Evan Grothjan. Underwater cinematography by Rob Robbins and Steven Rupp. "A Shifting Continent" was produced with support from the Rosetta project and the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory of Columbia University.

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Grand Prize winner of the Google I/O Experiments Challenge, Camarada is a true 3D camera that lets you capture 3D pictures and 3D videos, and enjoy amazing 3D effect/3D illusion right on your screen or share with friends!

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Camarada: 3D Camera, 3D Video, 3D Selfie, 3D Photo - Apps on Google Play

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Grand Prize winner of the Google I/O Experiments Challenge, Camarada is a true 3D camera that lets you capture 3D pictures and 3D videos, and enjoy amazing 3D effect/3D illusion right on your screen or share with friends! Also supports Cardboard VR viewers (stereoscope), red-cyan glasses (anaglyph), , parallax view/cross view, and 3D TV!

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Merge Miniverse | VR & AR Apps & Experiences curated by Merge

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Explore curated VR/AR content that is compatible with the Merge Headset. From gaming to 360 videos to other immersive experiences, we review the latest to provide recommendations for the best merged reality experiences!

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Since the announcement of Google Tour Creator ending this June, I've enjoyed exploring a great alternative that offers interactive features. Google Earth Projects has been a recent favorite and I believe it has greater potential than Tour Creator. Not only is Google Earth Projects a great creation tool for students, but it includes many experiences in Voyager already pre-built.

A new feature in Google Earth Projects is Games. Selecting the Games category, all the Voyager stories include a quiz with a final score at the end. After every answer, the student will see the virtual reality experience associated with the question. Test your archaeological skills in this Google Earth Project found at https://earth.app.goo.gl/5rcrHH

"For building immersive tours, Google Earth Projects is now a creation platform incorporating 3D maps, text, personal images and videos." page 36 The Immersive Classroom

Steps to Get Started:

1. On your computer, open Google Earth.

2. On the map, search for a location.

3. Click the placemark you want to add

4. In the Knowledge Card, click Add to project.

5. Under "Place title," you can add or edit the name.

6. Under "Add to project," click the Down arrow and select or add a project folder.

Continue to follow the #31DaysofARVRinEDU this month as we explore immersive resources.

Thanks to ISTE, we are giving away 10 signed copies of The Immersive Classroom. Post how these tools can be used in the classroom on social media using #31DaysofARVRinEDU and WIN! Two weekly winners will be selected.

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Since the announcement of Google Tour Creator ending this June, I've enjoyed exploring a great alternative that offers interactive features. Google Earth Projects has been a recent favorite and I believe it has greater potential than Tour Creator. Not only is Google Earth Projects a great creation tool for students, but it includes many experiences in Voyager already pre-built.

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This last week has been a busy one for me. Not only did I finally find the time to relaunch the site (and produce half a dozen new pieces of content for it) but I was part of a G20 event hosting AR and VR demos and then delivering the closing keynote sharing insights on VR in Education.

As I mentioned in the Rise of the Virtual Phoenix article, announcing the site relaunch, I had to sacrifice some of the old site structure in order to accommodate the changes to the Wix blog tool which the site was essentially built around. Losing the Guest Articles and ViveEDU sections did bother me but I knew the content was still available in amongst the main pool of blog posts. The same was true for my AR/VR Theory section, but with one major exception - the ORIGINAL piece of content here on VirtualiTeach and still the most widely shared and best received piece of content I had ever produced: my Model for the Depths of VR from March 2017 -

This was never part of the blog as in the early days of the site, before there even was a Theory section, the model WAS its own section. I knew I couldn't lose it... but then I looked at it for the first time in well over a year and I realised that it was seriously in need of an update. My understanding of VR as a medium has grown so much in the last two years, both through my own work and the amazing work of people within the industry who inspire me on a daily basis.

So I decided to rip it apart and put it back together and then debut it at the G20 event as a part of my keynote. I'll share the new 2.0 model below and then break down some of the changes and also provide a second graphic with some examples of apps at each level.

The first thing that became clear to me was that I needed to change the actual levels of the model. In particular the second level STIMULATION stood out to me as too small a step from the initial level PERCEPTION. So I removed this and was now left with a 3-step model which basically looked like:

PERCEPTION (simple 360° media) INTERACTION (adding a simple interaction mechanic - but still 3DOF) IMMERSION (6DOF, room-scale VR experiences)

At this point my attention switched to the other end of the table. Having two levels that essentially represented 3DOF experiences and then just one for ALL possible 6DOF experiences seemed wrong. It was unbalanced. Simply put, 6DOF experiences ARE true virtual reality and so I focused on these and explored the possibility of teasing this single level apart into two separate ones - if it made sense.

Ultimately I felt that it did make sense.

Not all 6DOF experiences are created equal. Some are more guided and lack freedom of interaction. Others are more like tools within a room-scale space. Then there are those experiences which truly transport you to a virtual space. The experiences which make you forget that you are in a classroom or a living room and convince your brain that you are underwater, on the Moon, in Ancient Rome or walking a plank at the top of a high rise tower. You also have the multi-user experiences where the communication and connection with others exacerbates the sense of "being there" even more.

These are the most powerful experiences - the ones that create a genuine, emotive and visceral reaction in the user. And with that realisation, it became obvious what my new fourth level was - PRESENCE.

From here, rebuilding the graphic was fairly straight forward using this new four-step model of PERCEPTION - INTERACTION - IMMERSION - PRESENCE. I shared initial drafts with some colleagues within the VR education community and feedback was very good with a couple of people suggesting that I include examples of apps at each level. I was a little hesitant to do this as I didn't wasn't app names/logos on my graphic (and didn't have the space anyway) so I decided to curate some examples on a separate graphic which you can find below:

So there it is folks. I hope you like this update to the graphic and please do feel free to share it on social media and use it in your own presentations or studies. Will this be the final version of the model? Hard to say. I'll take another look at it in 2021 maybe...

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This last week has been a busy one for me. Not only did I finally find the time to relaunch the site (and produce half a dozen new pieces of content for it) but I was part of a G20 event hosting AR and VR demos and then delivering the closing keynote sharing insights on VR in Education.

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TimePod Adventures

Take the TimePod on a journey across time and space to Mars in 2024 to help solve a series of crises as Earth begins its full colonization of the red planet. You will be helped along by ADA (Autonomous Digital Assistant), who has traveled with the TimePod across millennia. As you encounter challenges, invite your friends to help you and even remotely control the TimePod wherever they are. Episode 1-Intro Sequence will get you familiarized with the TimePod, TimeFrames and ADA, as you fix the TimePod and arrive on Mars! In Episode 2-Water students will work to discover water on the planet. Students will work through questions to help them think through how to best utilize and secure water on Mars. TimePod Adventures is an Augmented Reality app with multiplayer elements allowing multiple users to take part wherever they are through a browser.

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TimePod Adventures Take the TimePod on a journey across time and space to Mars in 2024 to help solve a series of crises as Earth begins its full colonization of the red planet. You will be helped along by ADA (Autonomous Digital Assistant), who has traveled with the TimePod across millennia.

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