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| Will, getting more than books from his visit to the library! |
Our trip to the local library ended up being an Experience that augmented reality....
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Inspiration for 'World Book Day'...
match the title to the author. |
World book day is just around the corner, the day in which children are given the opportunity to attend school dressed as one of their favourite characters from a book. The challenge is 1. finding a character that your child wants to be, 2. ensuring that you have the means/costume/accessories to re-create that character at home and 3. ideally the book where their hero or heroine of choice are featured to bring to school. My son William and I came up with a protagonist that ticked two out of three of those boxes, but knew the hat-trick was achievable by visiting the library to borrow the book. However, when we arrived at Romford Central Library on Saturday afternoon, William and I were in for an unexpected treat.
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| Mathematical conundrum completed! |
William found his book (phew) and was browsing the bookshelves for others that he wanted to borrow. During this time I came across a table with a moving picture - it was essentially a giant touchscreen tablet table! Will and I sought some explanation from one of the librarians who proceeded to take us on a guided tour of what the Inspyro table was capable of. Up to four children can participate in this interactive screen at one time which encourages team work, problem solving and collective creativity.
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Perfect - painting at the library and no messy
children, brushes and pots to wash! |
Children can engage in a number of activities ranging from 'painting' through to WW1 augmented reality (images come to life or are enhanced in someway to bring greater depth to learning and understanding). It was a quiet afternoon and so we had this technological gem to ourselves. The programme is primarily geared towards children at KS2, though clearly enjoyment comes to all who have a play from the young to a little bit older (like me!). Mathematical games and challenges; matching books to their author; painting in a vast spectrum of colour with different effects and erasing using your hand are just some of the 'apps' alongside the showstopper: the aforementioned WW1 Augmented Reality app. By inputing my library number into the Inspyro app that I'd downloaded onto my smart phone, I was able to place my phone over the image on the table and see statues and soldiers reciting poems and telling their story, a fighter plane flying across the table and the Cenotaph monument becoming three-dimensional - visible from all aspects through the rotation of my phone. William and I had a great time and we await with anticipation, the further developments that are planned over the coming months including amongst others a local history app for this dynamic, captivating, entertaining and of course educational state of the art gadget!
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| Images for the WW1 app taken from the Inspyro website |
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An abstract portrait - not sure that my budding artist , William
has quite captured the movement of my hair - what do you think?
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I would without reservation recommend that you pop along to Romford central library and enjoy the 'table' with your children but be warned, if it's at a busy time, you will be limited to 15 minutes, unless you can choose a quiet time as we did.
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