EDAD660 (2008)

Recently I’ve been researching “Augmented Reality” techniques and how they can be applied to support educational / instructional applications. For those of you who don’t know what Augmented Reality (AR) is, it’s a way in which we can “superimpose” a layer of additional information onto the “real world” through the use of various types of technologies. It’s actually easier to show than to describe! Here are a few demos of me showing off my newest AR creations:

Earth/Moon system:

Wind Power Relief Map:

In each of these demos you can see that I’m using my webcam to detect a special symbol – this symbol, when recognized, tells the computer to overlay the incoming video stream with a 3D object or animation. The orientation of the symbol gives the system the ability to determine its location in space as well as rotation and tilt.

I’m hoping that I will be able to expand my research into creating interactive tools that be used by teachers to explain difficult concepts to their students. I’m also working on developing a streamlined display system that may include head-mounted glasses that allows a person to walk freely around a space and experience any AR content that may be present. Stay tuned!

Here’s some basic information about Scratch that we covered in class today.  Hope this is helpful!

1. You can download Scratch from http://scratch.mit.edu
2. You can also sign up for a Scratch account at http://scratch.mit.edu – you will need this in order to post your Scratch project to your blog
3. The basic unit in Scratch is called a ‘Sprite’ – all Scratch projects start with a cat Sprite
4. You can give instructions to a Sprite by clicking on it and then on it’s corresponding ‘Scripts’ tab.  You can then use the menus on the left (“Motion”, “Looks”, “Control”, etc) to drag out puzzle pieces into the Scripts area.
5. Double clicking on puzzle pieces in a Sprite’s script area will cause the Sprite to perform the action specified
6. You can snap together puzzle pieces to form more complex actions
7. In class we started by using the ‘move 10 steps’ puzzle piece to move the Sprite to the right.  We used ‘move -10 steps’ to move it to the left.
8. You can snap a ‘When ____ key is pressed’ puzzle piece (from the Control menu) onto another block to tell the Sprite to perform an action when a specific key is pressed.  We used this in conjunction with “Turn in direction ___” and “Move ___ steps” from the Motion menu to allow our Sprite to move around using the arrow keys on the keyboard.
9. You can give a Sprite multiple “costumes” by clicking on it’s Costume tab.  This allows you to animate your sprite (for example, the cat Sprite has two costumes – using the “next costume” block under the “Looks” tab allows you to switch to the next one)
10. You can use the Stage button at the bottom of the screen to change the background of your project
11. You can use the “Play Sound” puzzle piece to play a sound from your computer.  If you have a microphone you can also record your own sound as well.
12. You can post your project to the web if you have a Scratch account.  Your project will show up on your Scratch homepage, along with some Embed code.  Copy and paste this code to include your Scratch project on your blog.

The assignment for Scratch is under the Assignments tab above.  If you have any questions please let me know – we have Thursday set aside as a lab day so don’t worry if you’re unable to get everything done outside of class.

Hi everyone,

Here are a few links related to educational gaming (or random things that we talked about in class) that may be of interest:

1. Crayon Physics – http://www.kloonigames.com/crayon/
2. Spore – http://www.spore.com/ftl
3. Drawball – http://www.drawball.com/
4. The Sheep Market – http://www.thesheepmarket.com/
5. Scratch homepage – http://scratch.mit.edu
6. Digital Storytelling – http://www.shambles.net/pages/staff/dstorytell/
7. Using Scratch in the classroom – http://g4classes.com/learningforward/?p=15
8. Scratch Resources – http://www.smsn.vic.edu.au/ictguy/index.php/scratch-resources/
9. Scratch Programming Handbook – http://www.redware.com/scratch/