Posts Tagged "toozla"
9 iPhone Apps for Rapid Learning
Those minutes spent waiting at red lights, doctor’s offices, and checkout lines really add up. Regardless of your age, career, or interests, there are several iPhone apps that can serve to enhance your knowledge, skills, and interests.
I used the following criteria to evaluate what I believe are 9 of the best iPhone apps that provide a quick mental boost during those brief times of waiting:
- Vested time requires less than one minute (with more time possible, but not necessary)
- Educational opportunity
- Little learning curve
- Unique experience with every interaction
In no specific order, here are what I feel are 9 of the best iPhone apps to use for quick-and-easy learning:
Read More10 Educational iPhone Apps to Explore This Holiday Season
For many educators, “routine” is a defining characteristic of our personalities. One of the only meaningful times we have to reflect and implement changes are during summer breaks and the holidays. Here are 10 iPhone apps – some well-known, some lesser-known – that you might want to check out during the pending holiday breaks for the benefits they can deliver to your classroom. After I introduce the app, I follow-up with an iTunes store description, along with educational value.
Although some of these are mainstream educational apps, I attempted to break away from apps found within the education category. Therefore, several of these apps haven’t received a lot of attention from educators, which makes the experience with them that much more unique.
Read MoreTop 5 Ways to Use Augmented Reality in Education: Part 5 – Virtusphere
This is the last post in my series, Top 5 Ways to Use Augmented Reality in Education.
Forget seeking money for traditional libraries and museums? If “virtual spheres” can give us instant 3D access to any museum or library that we want, I have a hard time arguing against a shift in thinking.
Before going further, I’d like to suggest you watch the following video clip featuring one of the front-runners in this field of augmented reality. It’s from a company titled Virtusphere, and since augmented reality has been a hot topic for video game enthusiasts, the video features a lot of video game interaction. While you’re watching though, consider the opportunities educators can capitalize on and integrate in their curriculums.
“What’s Holding Us Back?”
Capability is no longer a factor; technologically, we can do it. Augmented reality has hit our cell phones, and we’re also starting to see augmented reality creep out of video game consoles. But, the technology behind Virtusphere doesn’t yet have the widespread consumer adoption like cell phones and home-based video consoles already have. It comes down to the nitty-gritty of business and politics, neither of which I know enough to talk about. Even in my ignorance, I can still express that it’s hard to see widespread market penetration of this technology without subsidized funds from somebody or some organization.
Augmented reality like Virtusphere faces a whirlwind of skepticism in many circles. The telephone and the Internet are two historical examples of new technology that faced skepticism and doubt. We all know how that turned out.
I’ll admit, I’m biased towards the technology. But to be fair, we could also think of technology that was hyped and ended up failing. Pundits could conjure up many reasons why we may never see this happen. Since they already are, I’ll be an advocate for it and give my (very basic) top three justifications as to why I expect this technology to eventually succeed:
- Multifunctional and purposeful
- Not limited to one sector. Education, Special Operations forces, the video game industry, travel industry, and fitness field are a few examples of sectors that can capitalize on the opportunities this technology offers.
- It gets us from point A to point B faster
- Ability to build a new economy
Biggest Debbie-Downer
I’ll advocate for it, but I’ll also be a realist: there has to be outsourced financial support for this to reach our schools. Without widespread adoption, this ends up just being something most of us experience at amusement parks. Technology can be multifunctional and purposeful, but when it’s as expensive as this is, we have to do some outreaching. If this means dropping support from other outlets, like museums and libraries, do you think it would still receive support?
“How Can We Use This In Our Schools?”
With adoption of this technology, brick-and-mortar classrooms could become pleasant memories of “the good old days.” Here are some curricular connections I could come up with. If you have any ideas, post them in the comments section!
Distance Learning
- University of Phoenix, here’s your chance for more credibility!
- Dress your “online only education” with eye candy that brick-and-mortar students are jealous of.
Math & Science
- You set the speed. You determine gravity. Don’t just take notes; test out scientifical and mathematical theorems by giving them a go in this augmented reality world.
History & Field Trips
- Right now, many schools have scheduled distance learning field trips. It wasn’t long ago that high schools opened up distance learning labs, providing teachers with opportunities to take students on virtual field trips. Technology evolves, so naturally this would be the logical next step towards the progression of distance learning.
- As I mentioned in my post about Second Life in education, the opportunities to travel to re-creations of historical places and events will be abounding, I’m sure.
- Augment reality in augmented reality?!? What?!?! Even in our fully interactive virtual world, we could leave significant audio commentaries at our virtual places of interest. Will we start seeing augmented reality version of GPS being utilized in virtual worlds? I don’t see why not, although thinking about it too long may give you a headache!
Home Schooling
- Network with other home-schooled students, as if you were in your own school.
Tutoring opportunities
- Teachers, use your conference period to meet with absent students by using a virtual sphere. I guess the student missing from class would need to find a way to access a sphere.
Ultimately, I see this as being like Second Life on steroids. I am excited to see where we go with this in the next few years. For many people right now, it may sound almost sci-fi-ish (I just made that word up). But remember, so did electricity, the telephone, cloning, and the Internet.
Here are other ways you can use augmented and virtual reality in education:
- Free Augmented Manipulatives for Education
- Part 1 of 5: Second Life
- Part 2 of 5: iPhone AR Apps
- Part 3 of 5: Xbox 360 Kinect
- Part 4 of 5: Toozla
I know I didn’t give examples that cover all content areas; what are some of the curriculum benefits of this technology you can come up with?
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Top 5 Ways to Use Augmented Reality in Education: Part 4 – Toozla
This is part four of my series, Top 5 Ways to Use Augmented Reality in Education.
Your classroom is a hidden gem, full of great works that are ready to be shone in the light… if only they had a voice.
Using Toozla in your classroom, students and teachers can share their audio classroom reflections with each other. Students and teachers can record their own commentaries everywhere using a compatible mobile phone, and then access each others’ commentary based on GPS location.
Toozla describes themselves as being “a [free] mobile service that uses a global positioning system with audio tours, user content, and much more… Wherever you go, use Toozla to learn more about the famous sights and great works of art described in your conventional travel guide, or explore the city’s hidden gems — independent restaurants, small but exquisite parks, unique shops, theatres and museum exhibits, for example.
By making your classroom one of the hidden gems, you’ve opened up a whole new dimension to learning.
Check out Toozla in action below!
If you’re like me, your imagination is swirling with the teaching and learning potential of this service. Here’s how I see Toozla influencing our classrooms:
Enhancing classroom reflections
Students can leave class with also leaving an audio snippet of a classroom reflection that’s accessible in the cloud for other students (and teachers) to listen to. A collective bank of relevant and readily-accessible notes! Isn’t this what we’ve been asking for? Not only will this benefit other students, but promoting reflection in the classroom promotes individual learning.
Providing an evaluation tool
At the end of the day, teachers can evaluate the commentaries of students and adjust instruction based on student response. What a great response-to-intervention tool!
Effective study tool
Students can “reflect on each others’ reflections;” essentially, study a collective resource of audio notes. Not only is this an engaging way to study, but much more information can be stored in recording a fifteen-second audio clip compared to fifteen seconds of note-taking.
Assisting our linguistic learners
These students learn best by saying, hearing, and repeating. Story-telling is a key characteristic of this learner-type – what a great opportunity this is for them to tell their story and listen to others!
Facilitating classroom projects
This is one of the features mentioned in the “iPhone augmented reality apps” article; however, as it stands now, I think Toozla has more potential for classroom projects. The problem with using some of the visual augmented reality apps is that GPS precision is a near-necessity in order for it to be effective. With Toozla, you’ll have to browse through a list of nearby audio commentaries, but as long as each commentary is properly labeled with its respective classroom project, this shouldn’t be an issue. It’s not as misleading as a result. Until mobile GPS can be more precise (aren’t we greedy? it sure has gotten much better over the last couple of years!), this is a more practical approach.
Guiding classroom field trips
In addition to accessing a collection a user-generated audio recordings and commentaries, you can also listen to Wikipedia streams (called Wikistreams), Imagineear audio guides, and multiple other channels relevant to your students’ needs. All of these channels take advantage of your phone’s location-based features – that means you’ll be able to access content that’s entirely relevant to your physical location!
These are just a few ideas to chew on. This is certainly not an exhaustive list – how do you think educators could integrate Toozla in the classroom?
Here are other ways you can use augmented reality in education:
- Free Augmented Manipulatives for Education
- Part 1 of 5: Second Life
- Part 2 of 5: iPhone AR Apps
- Part 3 of 5: Xbox 360 Kinect
- Part 5 of 5: Virtusphere
Thanks to Nigel D. for educating the author about this service.
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