Homework Planners Meet Augmented Reality
Augmented Reality is a great tool for enhancing student (and parent) engagement with their homework planner, as well as getting additional functionality from it. Technology is embedded to such an extent in the lives of children today that it makes absolute sense to try to leverage that fact, as well as the opportunities that it presents, to your school’s advantage. Although AR sounds complicated it's really quite straight-forward, inexpensive and best of all, we will do all of the hard work for you!
We've been experimenting with AR as part of our homework planner R&D for a little while and have come up with a range of possible ways in which it could enhance the printed planners…
Scan the cover to access…
o School website
o Social media links or feeds
o School welcome video
o Contact details (absence line)
o Blog feed
Links to online homework records or resources…
o The school's VLE
o Online home-learning systems such as MyMaths
Links to up-to-date school policies and information from a contents page
Links to the school’s merit or reward system e.g. Vivo from the merit pages
Link to the school’s online calendar of events from a calendar page
Link to subject specific resources and learning tools from curriculum page(s)
We have partnered with the Layar AR app, which gives us a wide range of available features and functions whilst being reliable and affordable for schools. Check out our short (and slightly shaky) video below of a homework planner AR experience, alternatively here’s how you can experience AR for yourself in the context of a homework planner:
1. Download the free 'Layar' app from the relevant app store on your tablet or smartphone, or by visiting http://get.layar.com
2. Open the image of our example planner cover by clicking here.
3. Open the Layar app on your device, point the camera at what you want to scan (in this case the screen rather than an actual planner).
4. Tap the screen to start the scan, you should find after a short time a number of buttons appears down the left hand side of the screen and a twitter feed and video appear on the right, as you move the device closer, or rotate it you will find that the content moves in relation to the image seen through the camera.
5. Try viewing the video, reading the twitter feed or clicking any of the links to experience how it works.
If you would like to talk about how the system works, how it could work for your school, or to talk about your own ideas about what AR could offer your school don't hesitate to get in touch.
P.S. Why not read about some other great ways to engage students with their planner? Click here to read about Tweet the Task and more.