AMERiCA LEARNiNG MEDiA

Augmented reality is being installed with increasing interest in academic and corporate learning process. The m-learning and e-learning projects are no strangers to this trend, which also revolutionized the mobile marketing, digital advertising and networking, searching for new experiences. AR should be a tool in the education of students. The challenge will be to bring these technologies to the users in a way that add value.

by Nicholas Hellers, Managing Editor - America Learning Media

The market is speaking. A survey developed by E-Learning 24/7, revealed that 52% of people are looking for this type of experience in virtual training processes, considering the augmented reality offer power to the courses and LMS and LCMS platforms.

Here some useful applications:

LearnAR: ‘eLearning with Augmented Reality’ is a new interactive learning tool. The application includes ten study programs for teachers and students, which helps them to explore by combining the real world with virtual content using a web camera. The resource pack consists of activities in math, science, anatomy, physics, geometry, physical education and languages . All 10 of the learnAR augmented reality resources are available at no charge. All you need is to print the markers from the resource pack pdf (below), plug in your webcam and get started. (See video demo of LearnAR).

Google Sky Map: free application to support the study of astronomy, especially for those who are interested in observing the space at night. Focusing the camera phone in the sky, the program can identify stars, constellations, planets and celestial bodies, offering live data. The application has search options. Requires Android 1.6 or higher.

ZooBurst: ZooBurst is a digital storytelling tool that lets anyone easily create his or her own 3D pop-up books. Using ZooBurst, storytellers of any age can create their own rich worlds in which their stories can come to life.

ZooBurst books “live” online and can be experienced on your desktop or laptop computer, or on your iPad via the free ZooBurst mobile app. Authors can arrange characters and props within a 3D world that can be customized using uploaded artwork or items found in a built-in database of over 10,000 free images and materials.

ZooBurst authors can share books with readers using a simple hyperlink, and books can easily be embedded in any website or blog, allowing authors to provide their own contextual framework to their stories. Authors can also maintain a moderated discussion forum for each book, providing a virtual space in which readers can interact with one another.

Readers who have a camera installed on their computer can also experience any ZooBurst book in Augmented Reality. Using nothing more than a standard webcam, visitors can hold up a special symbol to the webcam to watch as a 3D pop-up book “jumps” out of the paper and into the room around them. In addition, our Augmented Reality mode also allows readers the ability to interact with a book using simple gestures. For example, simply waving your hand in front of a book will allow you to turn its pages back and forth.

iPad users can also experience ZooBurst books using our free mobile app (available on the iTunes app store). With the ZooBurst iPad app you can also “scan” for special “Story Codes” that let you easily attach a ZooBurst book onto any physical item, such as a class bulletin board, parent newsletter or a printed textbook.

As an educational tool, ZooBurst provides students with new ways in which they can tell stories, deliver presentations, write reports and express complex ideas. ZooBurst contains a powerful “classroom management” feature for teachers that lets them easily set up protected, safe spaces for their students. Teachers can assign usernames and passwords to their students without having to input any sensitive or personal information, and can manage and moderate student work in a protected environment. In addition, premium users have access to a wide range of advanced book building features, such as audio & speech integration, downloadable books and an unlimited book library.

GeoGoggle: is a great helper to acquiring geography skills and judging distances to specific destinations. Students can learn geographical measurement such as latitude and longitude by applying GeoGoggle to real-world surroundings. Is a tool for check your location, view direction (compass), speed of movement, as well as you can see the distance to the destination.

WordLens: translates printed words from one language to another with your smartphone's video camera, in real time. No network connection needed. The application allows you to translate to your language the words that appear in an image. Simply take a picture of any text unknown (an ad, a menu, brochure, etc.) and you get an instant translation on the same object. The process is very simple: the software identifies the letters that appear in the object and look up the word in the dictionary. Once the application found the translation, instead draws the original word. The application is ideal for those who travel a lot and need to know quickly the meaning of a word. For now, the program offers the follow translations: English-Spanish and Spanish-English. Although, its creators Otavio Good and John DeWeese said the next step is the translation in other languages, such as French, Italian or Portuguese.

Wikitude World Browser: Wikitude is the award winning augmented reality app that allows you to see more. Explore what’s around you, find new and interesting places, events, and activities. Play augmented reality games, scan objects and be delighted! With thousands of content providers, Wikitude is your access point to a world of stunning augmented reality content around you. Is more than just one app, it gives you access to literally thousands of AR apps (See more)

NASA Spacecraft 3D: NASA's Spacecraft 3D is an augmented reality (AR) application that lets you learn about and interact with a variety of spacecraft that are used to explore our solar system, study Earth, and observe the universe. Using a printed AR Target and the camera on your mobile device, you can get up close with these robotic explorers, see how they move

Goggles: free services only for mobile with Android operating system, which automates the internet search real objects, using their barcodes (for products) or location (for geographic points). It also provides text recognition to scan business cards.

TAT Augmented ID: service capable of recognizing a person's face and display web services in which the person is present (e-mail, Twitter, Facebook), developed by The Astonishing Tribe. For example, during a conference, take a video of the speaker and in the phone screen will appear below of the face of this person: business cards, social networks and other web services to which the person is subscribed, with a first level of detail. It is an application that is likely to be branded as the enemy of privacy because it does not focus places, focusing on people.

Layar: Layar is bridging the gap between the print and digital worlds. Layar-enabled interactive print magazines feature extra digital content that readers can engage with using their smartphone or tablet. The free Layar App, downloaded over 30 million times on on both iOS and Android, is available to brands as a white-label or embeddable SDK solution.

Layar specializes in mobile augmented reality - the most popular medium through which the average person interacts with AR content. The mobile AR world consists largely of two different types of experiences: geolocation- and vision-based augmented reality.

Geolocation-based AR uses GPS, compass and other sensors in a user’s mobile phone to provide a “heads-up” display of various geolocated points-of-interest. Vision-based AR uses many of these same sensors to virtually display digital content in context with real-world objects - like magazines, postcards or product packaging - by tracking the visual features of these objects.

Is a free application for iPhone and Android phones that leverages components of these devices as the mobile camera, GPS, accelerometer and compass, to show contextual information.

Junaio: Today it is used by more than 30.000 AR professionals.

• Print and Publishing. Publishers around the world are taking advantage of junaio's advanced AR capabilities to enrich their print content with multimedia experiences. Scan specially marked pages and discover the digital experience.

• Travel and Transportation: Junaio provides information on subways and train schedules, hotels in the vicinity, tourist attractions, ATMs, car rental agencies, gas stations or if you prefer where to find a bike to rent. In some cities, San Francisco for example, you can even use junaio to find available parking spots.

TwittARound: the app shows current tweets around your location right at the spot they were written via augmented reality. First demonstrated in July 2009 it was the first augmented reality application for the iPhone showing real time social network data.

TwittARound’s Annotation Engine is 100% based on web technology and standards like HTML 5, Javascript and CSS and thus renders in every Webkit frame (Google Android, QT, …). Due to its scalability it will adapt WebGL (X3DOM) as soon as it will be available on mobile platforms.