Augmented Reality (AR)
If you follow my blog, and I hope that you do, you have noticed that I have been playing around with Augmented Reality and using it in therapy. Wikipedia defines AR as :
“Augmented reality (AR) is a live, direct or indirect, view of a physical, real-world environment whose elements are augmented by computer-generated sensory input such as sound, video, graphics or GPS data. It is related to a more general concept called mediated reality, in which a view of reality is modified (possibly even diminished rather than augmented) by a computer. As a result, the technology functions by enhancing one’s current perception of reality. By contrast, virtual reality replaces the real world with a simulated one.”
This territory isn’t new and if you follow Speech Techie’s blog you can see he did a wonderful 8-part post on QR codes and their use in therapy. In a recent post of mine I used a Spider-Man AR app to have fun with clean up time and to Appdapt various flash card activities. This leads me to a pretty awesome app called Aurasma (available for both the app store and google play). Aurasma was just featured in a TED Talk. If you didn’t catch it check it out:
As you can see the premise of Aurasma is fairly simple as you can turn any thing you see with a smart phone or tablet into AR and have a picture/video overlayed live. I believe the potential uses of this app are endless and if you are a crafty app developer you can even take their API and include it in a therapy app. Hmmm… that really makes you think of how you can use this in therapy right?? Well have no fear I have come up with a few ideas for you!!
Not as tech savvy as me? Well stay tuned for Part 2 where I’ll be explaining the “how to” on making some basic AR using Aurasma. As always, I would love to hear some feedback! So please comment and post some questions if you have them!
