This last Saturday I was fortunate enough to take part in a Seminar organized by Oxford University Press in Barcelona, along with some of OUP most outstanding authors and lecturers on ELT and CLIL. One of the topics covered in my talk English 2.0: the winning ticket to success was Augmented Reality (RA).
We talked about how Web 2.0 allows us to enrich all kinds of things by adding interactive layers of information.
- Images
- Videos
- Reality itself
We saw an example of an image made interactive with Thinglink, in which pictures, youtube videos, and links to websites and to the Wikipedia had been added. Thinglink offers endless possibilities for learners, who can not only enrich pics but they can also create the content they will link to them: videos they have recorded and uploaded in youtube, articles in Wikipedia they have edited, photos they have taken…
A great tool to enrich videos is PopcornMaker. Students can add layers of information onto videos by inserting links, pop-up text, annotations and pictures, thus making them interactive.
Check this enriched TED-ED talk by Beau Lotto
Augmented Reality (AR) allows learners to bring their learning to life by linking the physical and the digital world through mobile technology. Among the many apps available to create AR experiences are Aurasma, Layar and Junaio.
Shaw Wood Primary School in Lancaster, UK, uses Aurasma to integrate AR meaningfully into their learning activities. Do not miss one of their students explaining what AR is in his own words.
[youtube]https://youtu.be/5qRcIek4NY0[/youtube]
Some ideas on how to use AR in the classroom are biographies, presenting works of Art, book reviews, Science projects, describing landmarks in the local area, local legends, describing places, lab safety procedures, etc.
Augmented Reality is already used by some companies to train their employees and it’s transforming such diverse fields as medicine and medical training or mechanical engineering.
See how BMW uses it.
[youtube]https://youtu.be/P9KPJlA5yds[/youtube]