Discovery Education — the innovative EdTech company that over 20 years ago revolutionised teaching with the first digital service delivering educational content directly to classrooms—today opens a new chapter in its history with the launch of a cutting-edge iPad app that puts Augmented Reality (AR) at the fingertips of learners and educators worldwide.
Since its inception, Discovery Education has been an early mover in bringing modern technologies—such as video streaming services —to the classroom. Now, Discovery Education is introducing a powerful new app putting the power of AR into the hands of educators.
AR technology has the potential to expand educators’ ability to create immersive, interactive learning experiences that unlock students’ natural curiosity. By superimposing virtual images and data on a user’s view of the real world, AR supports visualisation of complex topics, creates digital “hands-on” learning opportunities and heightens student engagement with digital content, all while improving students’ ability to retain knowledge longer by being a participant in the learning experience. To help educators leverage the power of AR wherever learning takes place, Discovery Education has made the Sandbox AR iPad app available today in the Apple App Store.
Discovery Education’s Sandbox AR app empowers students and teachers to create, share and even inhabit virtual environments. Within Sandbox AR, users can create virtual worlds and populate them with some of the hundreds of unique objects from history, the built world, science and nature, and more. Sandbox AR also gives students new ways to express themselves and demonstrate their learning through a feature that lets learners take photos or record a video walkthrough with their own voice over. Sandbox AR even offers a mode that allows users to scale up and inhabit their own life size virtual environments.
For those new to AR, Sandbox AR includes many pre-built sandboxes exploring diverse subjects such as ancient Egypt, space exploration, Mayan civilization, road construction, and more, with additional sandboxes coming soon. Discovery Education is also making available several free, pre-built lessons educators can use with the app to familiarize themselves with integrating AR into classroom instruction. Sandbox AR is available for download here.
“For over 20 years Discovery Education has provided innovative digital learning solutions to educators worldwide, and 2021 marked the start of a new chapter in the company’s history,” said Howard Lewis, Discovery Education’s Managing Director, Global Initiatives. “In 2021, we built on the extensive library of educational videos that educators know and love us for and added new time-saving tools and resources providing all learners with more ways to use our engaging content and dynamic platform every day. Sandbox AR and the resources we make available to educators today are just the beginning of what will be a number of powerful new resources Discovery Education plans to provide students and educators in 2022 and beyond.”
About Discovery Education
Discovery Education is the global leader in curriculum-aligned digital resources, engaging content, and professional learning for primary and secondary classrooms. Through its award-winning digital textbooks, multimedia resources, and the largest professional learning network of its kind, Discovery Education is transforming teaching and learning, creating immersive STEM experiences,and improving academic achievement around the globe. Discovery Education currently serves approximately 4.5 million educators and 45 million students worldwide, and its resources areaccessed in over 140 countries and territories. Inspired by the global media company Discovery, Inc., Discovery Education partners with local authorities, academy trusts, schools and like-minded organisations to empower teachers with customised solutions that support the success of all learners.
Contact
Angie Shatford, Press Officer
Email: ashatford@discoveryed.com
