It’s taken me awhile to find this (thanks to Ignatia on Twitter for the tweet to the PetaPixel website), but how good is this … “Streetmuseum is a new (and free) augmented reality iPhone app created by the Museum of London that allows you to browse historical photographs in various parts of the city”.

“The [iPhone] app leads you to various locations around London using either the map or GPS. Once you’re there, click the “3D View” button, and the app will recognize the location and overlay the historical photograph over the live video feed of the real world, giving you a brief glimpse into how the past looked.”

And it’s not just the Museum of London, even National Geographic are looking into the possibilities of Augmented Reality. At last, the possibilities are being explored by the kind of people and organisations who have the ability to lead.

So, who’s next?

Image/Quote Source

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I was reading the post by @universityboy this morning and then I thought … blimey, what will out children do when they leave School? Will they go to University .. or even will there be Universities for them to go to?

• Read the whole original post here: Universities of the Future

Anyway, there were sections of the post that really made me think, see if they strike a chord with you too;

“But concrete does not a university make. It takes time to turn a smart school leaver into a plausible junior lecturer, and it takes time for research departments in the western model to mature and bed in. The old ‘first world’ model of the university will be hard pressed to scale to accommodate the surge of the new middle class youth of what used to be called the third world. Out of need, something new will take its place. The new ‘gigaversities’ of China, India and Brazil might not command much respect in the staff common rooms of the old NUI, but they will rise to meet that need. In time, they will enter first world markets with degrees that are faster and cheaper than anything we can deliver.”

“The death of distance as a factor in education has been predicted since the telephone was invented, but only now are remote classroom tools becoming usable, though fully immersive environments like Second Life are still fringe. Growth in bandwidth and processing power will move these tools into the mainstream over the next ten years, as telepresence suites currently sold to corporates as alternatives to private jets price down into the mass market.”

“Institutions reliant on local students and without a global draw will find themselves relegated, their reputation slowly crumbling as the cream of the crop goes elsewhere.”

And finally …

“The university my daughter attends may prepare her for a job no one today has thought of yet, working at the centre of a network of increasingly intelligent tools and services. But there is no law that says that new technology will keep creating new jobs for humans as it has in the past. It is an open question whether the university my granddaughter goes to will be able to prepare her for any job at all.”

I think (hope) that, on the whole, there will be Universities and our children will be able to attend them. I am planning that my children will have the same opportunities I was lucky enough to have … the option to take up Higher Education, even if they don’t want it!

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Last year I left my 4gb USB stick in the socket of a PC that was sat on the floor (I know, silly me, but I was in the middle of a presentation). As I walked past I clipped the stick and bent the ‘sticky-out’ bit right back … damn!

The case broke and my heart sank – I use that for work and personal files to transport them between work and home (and friends, etc). I got home and was about to drop it in the bin when I thought I’d plug it in and see if it still worked. It did!

I taped the case back up, bent it straight again, and have been using it regularly since then. Until last week when something broke. And that was that (I’d expected it for a while so I’ve been using my iPod and iPhone for data back-up of the really important stuff).

So, instead of buying another I looked at online storage solutions and came across Dropbox. The free account gives you 2gb of online, secure storage (which you can get an additional 250mb for if you follow the simple steps during install and setup).

So now I have an online storage solution, available on work and home PCs, and on the iPhone (although I really only use this option to review files, other mobile devices are coming soon), and I can easily share and store files or folders with colleagues, friends, etc.

Here is a presentation I’ve put together on how to install and use it.

Dropbox – Save to the Cloud

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Augmented Reality (AR) is still in its infancy, but as people like me look further afield to find interesting technology to use in (and out of) the classroom, it has been on my radar a bit recently. So, what is it?

“Unlike Virtual Reality (VR) that aims at replacing the perception of the world with an artificial one, Augmented Reality (AR) has the goal of enhancing a person’s perception of the surrounding world. Being partly virtual and real, the new interface technology of AR which is able to display relevant information at the appropriate time and location, offers many potential applications; these include aiding in education, training, repair or maintenance, manufacturing, medicine, battlefield, games and entertainment.”
Source: Asia Research News, Augmented Reality: The Future of Education Technology

Check out this YouTube video that demonstrates AR from the SMLXL blog;

It is also worth watching this video, this time from TED Talks: “Blaise Aguera y Arcas demos augmented-reality maps“. Here Blaise shows a new Microsoft online mapping enterprise called Bing Maps, which is amazing (dependent, I would think, on the quality of your Internet connection?) in the implementation and scope for it’s uses. How about a virtual tour around a museum, a building, or even an archaeological dig by a member of the team  or organisation involved (in a different country?) while the class stays in the classroom but interacts and even directs the proceedings – bring the field into the classroom:

But what of AR in the classroom? The wiki from Trends in EdTech for “Classroom Learning with AR” (currently) lists the following applications for Augmented Reality in the classroom environment;

• Learning styles: rich examples of complex phenomena (engineering, earth sciences, medicine, environmental applications to name a few) while being engaging.
• Authentic Learning: AR can tremendously enhance vocational studies for those wishing to enter the trades: auto and aviation mechanics, electricians, carpenters, etc… The ability to annotate real elements and the ability to add to reality by superimposing virtual aids, will aid in instruction and learning for those disciplines where a specific spatial configuration of elements must be learned and remembered (auto mechanics, medicine, chemistry).
• Realistic models: AR provides a means of “seeing” phenomena in 3D, thereby bringing the contextual three dimensional nature of the real world to the their learning. Textual and pictorial information in the typical 2 dimensional print-based resources loses much of the richness of the “real” world elements, and involves an element of interpretation that is difficult for some students.
• Engagement/Interactivity: Illustrations in books can come to life with AR technology and can captivate readers of all ages.

Rob De Lorenzo, on the Mobile Learner blog post “Augmented Reality and On-Demand Learning” says:

“… that using AR apps is unrealistic given the current reality of school board policies and certain teacher attitudes concerning the use of cell phones for learning. Granted, if students are not allowed to use their cell phone to help them learn then AR apps are useless.”

We have a huge shift in expectations to overcome before technologies such as AR, game-based learning, simulations, etc are accepted in anything more than a fad or ‘suck-it and see’ mentality.

Further reading:

• “Augmented Reality in Education”: Mark Billinghurst
• “Augmented Reality in the Classroom”: New School Technology
• “Cell Phones in Education Part 4: Learning on Location”: The Mobile Learner
• “Augmented Reality and On-Demand Learning”: The Mobile Learner

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This video, forwarded to me by ShellTerrell on Twitter, is something that many of us already understand, but many administrative individuals do not. Those of us who work ‘in’ education understand these concepts (“the death of education, the dawn of learning” as Stephen Heppell says), but those who work ‘for’ education (administrators, planners, managers, chancellors, etc) may not yet have had the time to grasp these concepts.

“Every turned-off device [phone, netbook, etc] is potentially a turned-off child [learner]” Stephen Heppell.

There are some very excellent quotes from this video, too many to write here, so please watch this video and take from it what suits you and your interests.

Related posts:

1. ‘Revolutionary Learning Spaces’, Prof Stephen Heppell @stephenheppell
2. Video: Future of Learning
3. Design Learning Spaces

“There’s a shift happening and its all around us. We may not be a part of that shift yet, but I’m sure each one of us will soon be. We might want to think that technology is changing the way we collaborate and yes that’s true! But there’s a lot changing in the way we think as well. Managers are starting to think differently, staff definitely has a mind of their own and are more empowered each day and the focus on collaboration is much more than we saw even 3-4 years back.”

“Collaboration 2.0: There’s a shift happening” by Sumeet Moghe

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Jane Hart (Twitter: @C4LPT) is keeping her Learning Technology Directory up to date. The Tools the directory “enable and support all kinds of learning – formal structured learning, personal learning, group learning and intra-organisational learning”.

The directory has been reorganised into the following comprehensive categories;

• Instructional tools,
• Live tools,
• Document and presentation tools,
• Blogging, web and wiki tools,
• Image, audio and video tools,
• Communication tools,
• Micro-blogging tools,
• Collaboration tools,
• Social networking and collaboration spaces,
• Personal productivity tools,
• Browsers, players and readers,
• Mobile tools.

So, get on over there and find something new to try out. Even better, see if your favourite tool is listed and, if not, ask to get it listed.

Related posts:

1. Learning Tools: for the Educator/Teacher
2. PLE / Personal Learning Environment: What's yours like?
3. Learning Tools: for the Learner

This is great, the use of animated flip-charts is a nice touch.

However, if you watch this from the beginning try looking at it like this … the first 1 minute and 50 seconds (or there about) sounds like a trailer for some new disaster movie that will see Keanu Reeves save the human race from the marauding machines. It’s nothing of the sort, it’s just the Web 3.0 or Semantic Web being explained. Stick with it, it’s good.

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This is a great presentation from Nova Spivack outlining the evolution of the web / Internet through the ‘connections’. As educators we can consider ourselves at the fore of the early adopters and those that start trying to put real-world scenarios on otherwise development or theoretical systems.

Enjoy.

Web Evolution – Nova Spivack : Twine

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“Since most of today’s students can appropriately be labeled as “Digital Learners”, why do so many teachers refuse to enter the digital age with their teaching practices? This presentation was created in an effort to motivate teachers to more effectively use technology in their teaching.”

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