Discovery Education, an ed-tech company, has launched a new iPad app intended to put augmented reality (AR) technology at the fingertips of learners and educators.
In a press release, Discovery Education said educators and students can use its Sandbox AR app to create, share, and inhabit virtual environments. Within Sandbox AR, Discover Education said, users can create virtual worlds and populate them with hundreds of unique objects from history, the built world, science, and nature.
After creating a new virtual environment, students can take photos or record a video walkthrough with their own voice-over. There is also a mode in the app where users can scale up and inhabit their own life-size virtual environments. Users can also share their sandboxes with other users via a QR code.
To ease the introduction to the AR world, the app comes with pre-built sandboxes exploring subjects including Egypt, space exploration, Mayan civilization, and road construction. Discovery Education has also created free, pre-built lessons that educators can use with the app to familiarize themselves with integrating AR into classroom instruction.
While the basic app is free to use, Discover Education subscribers can access additional features to add teacher audio descriptions to sandboxes and add links to teacher-curated resources on the broader Discovery Education platform.
