Augmented Reality vs. Virtual Reality

Yesterday, I was asked about the difference between augmented reality and virtual reality. I made the following video and short slideshow to further explain the differences between the two.




Click here to learn more about the AR app that I mentioned in the video.

Try YouTube Live for Review Sessions - Breakfast With Tom Richey

This morning I opened YouTube to see a notification from my friend Tom Richey that he was going live with a review session for AP European History students. When I joined in there were nearly 2,400 viewers and at one point there were over 2,500 viewers. Tom was talking to students in his own classroom and broadcasting the review for anyone who wanted to watch. A bunch of classrooms around the U.S. were watching.

What Tom was doing is something that many other teachers could do for a small or large audience. If you're hosting a review session for students during school hours or after school hours, streaming it on YouTube Live will let the students that can't be in the room with you, follow along and ask questions too.

Broadcasting on YouTube can be done from your Android phone or iPhone. You can also broadcast from your laptop, but the set-up is a little more difficult than it is on a phone. Here are the directions for broadcasting YouTube Live from your laptop.

How to Find Old Maps Online

In yesterday's Practical Ed Tech Live episode I answered a question about where to find old maps to layer in Google Earth. One of the resources that I suggested was Old Maps Online. Old Maps Online is a map that you can browse and search to find historical maps to view online, to download, and to print. You can search the map by entering a location or you can just pan and zoom around the world to find historical maps. In the video embedded below I demonstrate how to use Old Maps Online.


Applications for Education
The maps that you and your students find could be used as overlays in the Google Earth layers. You might also use the maps for a local history comparison activity by comparing your students' current vision of where they live with what it looked like in the past.