SILVER SPRING, MD, Jan. 25, 2022 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Discovery Education—the innovative edtech company that over 20 years ago revolutionized classroom instruction 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 and digital textbooks—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 visualization 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.
“While 2021 marked Discovery Education’s 20th year of providing innovative digital learning solutions to educators worldwide, it also began a new chapter in the company’s history,” said Discovery Education Chief Executive Officer Scott Kinney. “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 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.”
In addition to announcing the availability of the Sandbox AR app, Discovery Education is today introducing DE Originals. Produced by Discovery Education’s expert curriculum team, DE Originals represent a new generation of streaming media and is exclusively available to subscribers of Discovery Education’s K-12 learning platform.
The DE Originals content features many of the company’s former educators presenting assorted topics to students in a fun and engaging fashion. Designed to ignite every student’s spirit of inquiry, DE Originals spark a desire to solve real-world problems while offering all students a chance to be seen, heard, and valued by their peers.
The more than 100 new DE Originals now available to Discovery Education educators are headlined by the DEmystfied series. The first DE Originals series, DEmystfied, explains complex science concepts through fun, funny, short, digestible, and standards-aligned videos. Combining Discovery Education’s signature storytelling style with creative graphics, DEmystfied helps students ask and answer questions about the world around them. Discovery Education users can access DEmystfied here.
For more information about Discovery Education’s digital resources and professional learning services, visit www.discoveryeducation.com and stay connected with Discovery Education on social media through Twitter and LinkedIn.
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About Discovery Education
Discovery Education is the worldwide edtech leader whose state-of-the-art digital platform supports learning wherever it takes place. Through its award-winning multimedia content, instructional supports, and innovative classroom tools, Discovery Education helps educators deliver equitable learning experiences engaging all students and supporting higher academic achievement on a global scale. Discovery Education serves approximately 4.5 million educators and 45 million students worldwide, and its resources are accessed in over 140 countries and territories. Inspired by the global media company Discovery, Inc., Discovery Education partners with districts, states, and trusted organizations to empower teachers with leading edtech solutions that support the success of all learners. Explore the future of education at www.discoveryeducation.com.
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