This week on his blog, Richard Byrne introduces a PBS game called "Plum's Creaturizer". It never fails that as soon as I finish up a particular unit I find an awesome resource that would have been a great addition to my plans. This app is definitely that. I have enjoyed playing around with it and am already eager to show my students and collegial partners this resource next school year.PBS offers many fun activities (on their website and as apps) that help students learn. This particular app focuses on adaptations and how animals adapt to their environment. This app is free and although it is primarily geared towards elementary school students, most of them do not have their own device so I can definitely see how this app would be beneficial in the early middle grades. The only downside would be convincing students to delete other apps in order to make room for this one :) (thanks goodness it's only 26.4MB). Plum's Creaturizer and allows students to use augmented reality in order for students to learn about how different characteristics, environmental and genetic factors allow an organism to be best suited for their environment.
Students launch the app, create and personalize their creature and then can place their creature in whatever environment outside using their phone or tablet's camera by superimposing the creature onto the image. The app allows the user to take four pictures and these can be saved to their gallery in order to use for future sharing and/or discussion once back inside the classroom.
**picture from Richard Byrne's FreeTech4Teachers.com blog
I love the idea of this as augmented reality! I have long considered implementing some sort of virtual reality technology into a project but have never known where to start. - LAUREN SMITH
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