Jodi McFarland INST 6233

Augmented reality can be a valuable educational tool for teachers. Educators are constantly challenged to keep students' attention in an ever expanding world of technology. Many teachers are now "gamifying" their lesson plans to engage students. AR has many uses in the classroom, however accessibility and functionality of AR within the classroom is limited. On my quest to find an AR app I may use in my art classroom, I found very few. Many of my students do not have computer access, much less access to a mobile device or computer capable of running the programs. For this assignment, I found an AR coloring app by Crayola called "Color Alive 2" where students can color sheets and then by scanning them, the program creates the character in 3D and shows the drawing/character running around the room and is animated in amusing ways. This app would appeal to younger, elementary level students the most, but it could be used in a high school setting to show some of the m...

Virtual reality, augmented reality, and hybrid, or mixed, reality are promising new technologies that will enhance education, gaming, medicine, and much more. Virtual reality are simulations that pull the user into thinking they have been brought somewhere else. It transports the user to an artificial location that they can interact with and experience a virtual reality. Using highly advanced systems of depth perception, motion sensing and tracking, users experience virtual realities similarly to real world activity. Many pieces of the VR system are currently lacking, which can cause some users motion sickness and other problems. As scientists work to improve the system, it can still be used in many ways which education, gaming, and for advancements in technology, engineering, and medicine. VR seeks to provide users with a seamless virtual reality experience, merging real and virtual realities with lifelike interactions. "If you are talking about what you can feel, what you can ...

Newsela is a platform that encompasses digital articles from all over the world. Newsela is very useful in education. You can select an article and then select the lexile level of any article, which makes any article on the site available and accessible for all reading levels. Newsela will also generate questions and quiz items for any of it's articles that are also scaled to the selected reading level. Newsela focuses on reading skills and comprehension. I have personally used Newsela very often in my classroom to use as bellringer activities or supplemental activities for materials being covered in the classroom. Newsela is a very useful instructional resource for teachers in classrooms across all curriculum.

I tried out two augmented reality apps! Samsung Note 9 9 "Pie" 1. Google Lens Google Lens is an awesome AR app that uses your phone's camera to read labels on products and identify objects and then produce Google search results with objects or products that most closely resemble the object identified by Google Lens. Lens is also integrated with Google's other apps, like Google assistant and Google photos. I personally use Google Lens often and have identified several things I ended up purchasing or using in other ways. Recently, a table in my classroom broke, but I didn't know what kind of table it was or how to replace it. I used Google Lens to identify the work table and found a really great store online where my school is currently now ordering several pieces of furniture. 2. Just a Line https://justaline.withgoogle.com/ Just a Line is a simple AR app that allows you to draw in 3D. Just a Line records your drawing and you can share it with ...

Technology in the classroom continues to move forward and advance at an ever-increasing rate. "Gamification" is a new term used to describe learning activities that utilize game-like priniciples to drive interaction and appeal to digital learners. Using games can help students comprehend and retain information. Device mesh is a term used to describe how people are using technology in the classroom to interact and communicate with each other on a personal and organizational level. As device mesh continues to integrate itself into daily life and educational settings, new ways of monitoring and security will need to be implemented into the systems. New technologies also enable personal learning, where learners receive customized learning that teaches to students' personal needs. Through personal learning, students can choose what they learn and how they learn it. The popularity of robotics will give rise to students seeking knowledge in coding and computer programming. Due t...

RealSense is an amazing new technology that can enhance many experiences, from education, to gaming, facial recognition and much more. RealSense technology can recognize facial features, hand gestures and track people and objects in crowds or busy streets. RealSense can also recognize voices and create digital images of 3D objects it scans. I personally own a RealSense camera that I use to scan basic 3D objects for 3D printing on my FormLabs II SLA printer. One of my first projects was to scan a small egg and import the object into 3DS MAX to create a surface to work on. I scanned in the chicken egg and used the object to edit scales onto the surface - creating a dragon egg. I designed it to open with magnets. I then printed the egg! It was really fun to use RealSense and I look forward to learning more about it. I use the eggs to keep my D&D miniatures safely stored as I travel to conventions or in local games. Here is a link to a FaceBook video of my RealSense egg! https:/...

There are constantly new and changing trends in technology. Many of them apply to education. Here are the current top educational trends! 1. Custom Learning Experiences Education has a long history of teaching to the majority, which left many different kinds of learners behind. Thanks to modern technology, learning experiences can be more customized to specific kinds of learners and what they need to master concepts within the system of education. 2. Cloud Computing Cloud computing is a type of anytime-anywhere accessibility to information that is stored on "cloud" servers. Apps from mobile devices can access a vast source of information at the touch of a fingertip. Cloud access offers so many ways to access and store information and even collaborate with others across the globe. 3. Speech To Text Options Many apps and technology applications offer speech to text options. This allows for faster note taking and more comfortable speech to text communications. Smart...

Plickers is a student response system that is all on paper cards. Plickers is available on their website and in an app, which can be downloaded on your digital device. The app will scan the paper cards to get students' responses. The app has each student listed, and their corresponding response. Each student is assigned a number, which corresponds with their Plicker cards. Questions for the students are added by the teacher within the "library" section on the Plicker app. Teachers can create questions for specific classes and from there, the teacher can switch to "live mode", in which the lesson continues within the app from there. Questions are presented to the students by projecting them from the teacher screen using a projector or other digital screen the students can interact with. To scan the Plickers, teachers touch the camera icon and each Plicker card is scanned across the classroom, which stores the students' responses. From there, teachers can clic...

http://digitalstorytelling.coe.uh.edu/page.cfm?id=27&cid=27 Digital storytelling is the utilization of digital tools to tell stories. This kind of "story-telling" combines ideas using a variety of digital resources and techniques such as graphics, video, and audio. Digital storytelling can be used in many ways: to convey ideas, educational topics, personal opinions and much more. Digital storytelling emphasizes technology use and often people use audio clips, audio narration, digital videos, and digital photos to tell their stories or present educational material. People can create digital stories from anywhere, utilizing a variety of digital tools to connect, educate, and share with others. Students are growing up in a digital world, and these new tools for expression, study, collaboration and feedback can be vital to the education of digitally native students. Digital storytelling is a fantastic tool that can be utilized for the benefit of all learners and students ac...

Augmented and Virtual Reality are two gaming platforms that will see a massive rise in consumer popularity and educational technology application in the near future. Augmented Reality Augmented Reality is a virtual augmentation of the real world. Augmented reality means that the user interacts with virtual stimuli within real world environments. A good example of this is PokemonGO, which was a huge success, although short lived. When a pokemon appeared, you would be able to see it on your phone and capture it using the digital device, but the pokemon would appear in real world locations. Such as water pokemon being found near lakes, rivers, and fountains. The user would have to travel to these locations to capture specific pokemon using an interactive program on their phone or other mobile device. Virtual Reality Virtual reality is different from augmented reality in that the world is entirely fabricated, digital reality that is accessed with a headset and interacted with via h...

As a gamer myself, I found this TEDTalk very interesting. It's true, game worlds offer and escape from reality and offer many more rewards and opportunities to connect with others than in real life. Learning with games has it's limitations though, as not all people are gamers. Can play and learning be combined? Absolutely! I personally think this is the very best way to learn. Engagement and learning is often emphasized in all areas of study. Engagement isn't just keeping students' attention, it's presenting them with tasks that require mastery of a skill and collaboration with others. In school today, many problems are still presented without collaboration and without minute systems of reward. For example, students in a math class are presented with concepts of solving math problems, but they are usually assigned to solve problem after problem, with no reward for each problem, only a point grade at the end. For some people, this is highly motivating in itself, ...

The presentation by Tom Chatfield about rewarding the brain has introduced new points about learning behavior I hadn't thought about before. As a gamer myself, I can personally confirm the effectiveness of the methods he presented. Humans are hard-wired to progress and seek reward from the completion of tasks. In gaming, rewards are given at incremental periods to keep players interested in the content. Some rewards are more valuable than others, but each task will reward the player to increase their desire to acquire more or bigger rewards. Some rewards are kept rare, or are presented with less frequency, to increase their desirability and "specialness", which increases their value to the player. This information is highly adaptable to all learning environments, including the traditional classroom. As an art teacher, I often find that some of my students struggle with certain art techniques and can feel negatively because they "aren't as good" as the other ...