3 educational AR and VR apps you should show to your child
Technology is everywhere. Artificial intelligence proposes a new movie based on your interests, application in smartphone detects traffics and chooses the best way for you and virtual assistant organizes your calendar… So why we are forgetting about high tech when speaking about education? Below you can find a list of my top 3 applications thanks to which you can change it!
Quiver — Bring to life your coloring book
Coloring books are not only a great form of relaxing but also an irreplaceable learning tool! Thanks to them, kids can improve their motor skills and ability to concentrate. Coloring is also good preparation for writing lessons and training of moving precision. That’s why we’ve been doing it for generations! Unfortunately, not every kid loves crayons from first sight. Also, it’s not easy to convince kids to do it regularly. And those cases are a good reason to install Quiver. Quiver is an Augmented Reality app that brings your colored characters and animals to reality! You can not only see them in reality but also observe short scenes — your butterfly will fly, doll dance and shark swim. Fun guaranteed!
Visit National Parks with Google
What do you remember from your geography classes about National Parks? To be honest I remember almost nothing… I spent a lot of time over the book to learn by heart locations, typical fauna, flora, and many more details just to forget everything at the end. But the places I visited are a completely different story! I remember beautiful views, numbers mentioned by the guide, accidentally spotted animals… Why? Because learning through experience is much more effective than learning through theory. And engineers from Google know it very well. It’s why they created VR application thanks to which you can travel through US National Parks and see for yourself breathtaking landscapes, fly with bats in Carlsbad Caverns or swim through Coral Reef in Dry Tortugas. Everything with short but interesting and essential comments about the most important facts from a given place. The 360-degree videos are available on desktops, phones, and Google Cardboard, so visit: https://artsandculture.withgoogle.com/ and check on your own. I wish I had it at school!
Anatomy 4D
The human body is one of the most complex but also the most interesting organisms in the world! I will not surprise anyone saying that anatomic atlases are still very popular all around the globe. But what if I tell you that you can not only see 2D drawing but also easily generate model, interact with it and see from all sides? Sounds awesome, isn’t it? You just need to print basic schemas and install the app to experience a completely new quality of learning. Thanks to the app you can see all details about the human body, separate particular systems (nervous, lymphatic, etc) and feel like a surgeon watching the operation on a living heart. Are you brave enough to check it?
That examples are only a very small slice of possibilities to use computer science in teaching and science. Of course, on the market, you can find many more apps using AR or VR which can be useful for your or your kids’ education. It’s almost impossible to test and describe all of them — it’s why I presented in that article only my favorite 3 ones. But be warned — when you taste a new approach to learning you will never want to go back. I strongly recommend searching for topics you are interested in the most. Who knows? Maybe you will discover your hobbies from a completely new side? Let me know if you’ll find something interesting!