AR and VR in the LRC

With the arrival of our new Leap Motion devices, and our existing Google Cardboard we have had the opportunities to really explore with our students. These coupled with our existing iPads and QR code Apps, have lead to a series of exciting activities so far, this school year.

Leap Motion in 11th Grade ITGS 

We have been  looking at input devices in 11th grade ITGS. This was a prime opportunity to test out with the leaps and have the kids prepare their own activities. During the session, we worked with both the Leap Motions and MakeyMakey input devices, both of which are powerful learning tools, however, this post is about AR and VR, so we will leave the MakeyMakey discussion for another time.

In order to prepare for the lesson, I provided students with a link to the Leap Motion Gallery and asked them to choose and download a couple of modules they were interested in trying out. It is important to note that there are a great variety of activities to choose from, unfortunately, some are not available for Mac users. It was easy to share the information with students, as we are using Google Classroom to run our lessons and communicate with each other. The kids had a wonderful time exploring different modules. You can view some of the work they did in this mashup video from the input lesson.

*We did find,  that we had to really work initially to get used to the range that the Leap Motion would detect. Students persisted and did get the hang of it rather quickly in the end.





Google Cardboard in 12th Grade ITGS

In 12th grade, we have been looking at wearable technology, what better time to bring out the Cell phones and Google Cardboard.

The kids downloaded the appropriate app to their cell phones for homework and after a brief introduction they partnered up and we took the tech outside. It is important to have kids working in pairs with VR as it is easy for them to trip and bump into things. Our students spotted each other in partners and took turns with the viewers.

The excitement quickly crescendoed,  as students explored using these simple cardboard devices. They were immersed in what they were doing,  actively exploring, evaluating the technology and having a great deal of fun doing so. All we needed to accomplish this was the cheapest of cardboard viewers,  their own cell phones, and the free apps. You can even download templates to help you build your own cardboard viewers.

Here are a few options for doing this:
Instructables
Pocketlint
Google Cardboard Production Kit

Please see the previous post for a short video and further details on this activity.


QR Code Scavenger Hunt-6th Grade LRC Orientation

Each year we host an orientation session in the Learning Resources Centre for the 6th grade students moving up to Secondary.

This year we decided to take advantage of the popularity that has grown around Pokemon Go and use it as our hook. We used our Pokemon theme, along with our existing iPads, a QR Code reader (We prefer i-nigma),  paired with physical QR Codes to build a massive (I kid you not-over 100 students strong!) scavenger hunt.

The  QR codes were used to place scannable text clues within Pokeballs which were distributed around the school, along with Pokemon characters. We used Google Maps to create a perimeter map for the work and determined different routes for each team.

Teams started off with a small Ziploc bag containing their first QR Pokeball clue and a copy of the map. Each team was given an iPad.  It was delightful to watch the students tearing across the field, verifying their positions on the map, discovering their clues and rushing to see which would be the first group to finish. Some of them even ended up in the shrubs outside the headmaster's office. Upon arrival at the LRC(They all ended up here), they had a book related clue to resolve and activity to complete upon finding the right location and identifying the book. They were then given some time to browse the resources on offer.

Here are is a link to the photo gallery for the event.

We have plenty of other activities planned for the school year involving our modest collection of AR and VR devices and applications and are looking forward to discovering, even more applications to use in our regular lessons and special events. The next step is to have t-shirts made for our annual book week, covered in interesting codes and having students scan us as we move about the school.

*One last note, we used to create VR pop-up books using Zooburst, which was a great application, however, the site has since closed.  They do offer an App however that seems to still be available. It is an app worth investigating.

Favourite Extension and App

I have a huge list of favourite extensions and apps that I love. My Chrome address bar is now minuscule as the result of me adding so many favourite Chrome extensions to my account.

There are only a few extensions in particular however, that I use many times a day without fail. Diigo is definitely one of them. I won't go into that now as I have written about it in the past.

Post to Blog
Diigo Groups for Student Content
My Wish Lists for Diigo and SimplyBox(now defunct)

Evernote clipper is one I plan on using more often, but funny enough one of my most useful extensions is the seemingly measly little goo.gl shortener. Now there are plenty of shortener extensions and apps out there, but this one has been with me from the on start and it works every single time. It is not only reliable, but fast and it generates a little QR code along with the shortened URL. It is this QR code that is so important to me.

Big deal you might say. QR codes are everywhere, they're certainly not new, so what is the big deal? Timeliness and reliability are both important here. I work on both a Mac and an iPad each day as do our students. Emailing links, or even bookmarking and then accessing them on Diigo (which I love) or tweeting them for example, seems to take too long, too many seconds spent opening up applications. Really,  I don't necessarily want these particular links taking up space in my Diigo account etc. Often we need the link in a pinch, while in the midst of a project.  At other times we generate them in advance, to use in directing the kids to starter activities, or as components of our online lessons.  We use one of my favourite iPad apps, i-nigma, to capture these QR Codes.

I have been loving this system for a while and decided that it deserves sharing.

Hold on....i-nigma is another application to open up, so why am I whinging about lost time?


The question is easily answered by answering another...Why do I love it?
It is free, it loads immediately, it is extremely reliable and it captures the QR Code without any kerfuffle. I don't even have to really focus it with the mobile device. I have stood at the front of my classroom and basically waved my iPad across the screen and it captures the code!!!

Getting a link to the iPad in a flash:
Basically what I do is generate the QR Code on the Mac and open it with i-nigma, that other app I absolutely love to bits. This opens it on the iPad where I can then use it in whatever project we are working on. This is great for working with citations of images the kids may have collected and sharing important links with each other.

Generating a link for starters or further investigation:
All you need to do is generate a QR code for the poll, reading selection, video etc, that you are using as a starter and having it up on your computer when the kids come in, ready to capture. I open mine in preview and they zoom very nicely, so even the kids at the back of the room can capture them with ease if needed.

Capturing on the spur of the moment:
Sometimes you may have reason to go off on a tangent and really want to share something with them for later followup or discussion. Just go to the page you want to share. Activate the extension and voila...you have a qr code for them to scan.

i-nigma is free for iPad, Android and Windows Phone, and goo.gl shortner is a free extension from the Chrome Store,so there is no reason not to try it out.

QR Codes

Have you ever wondered what those strange new bar codes are that are popping up in newspapers, on posters, on the web?

They are QR codes (2 dimensional bar codes) and they offer one of the easiest methods by far  of loading web content on a Smart phone. To give it a try, using the scan option on your phone. What page does this code link to?

If you are interested in using QR codes in your daily work, post them on a website, a blog, a social network, sign up at bit.ly, shorten a link and generate one of your very own.

Just consider the implications this may have for the role of mobile devices in education!