These 21 Augmented Reality app examples show the impact of augmented reailty in education being felt by both educators and students as they use this technology to create layers of digital information on top of the physical world that can be viewed through an Android or iOS device.
Augmented reality companies building AR apps for fun, educational, and commercial uses.
With Augmented Reality products like Elements 4D by Daqri, students manipulate and combine elements — like mercury — right from their Android or iOS devices, rather than just reading about them in a textbook. Anatomy 4D is another free app by Daqri that allows users to explore a human body and isolate various body systems.
Another app, Aurasma, allows users to engage in and create Augmented Reality experiences of their own. Educators and (more importantly) students can use this open source tool to essentially bring their learning to life. We’ve seen Aurasma used several different ways in the classroom.
There are endless ideas for augmented reality apps development to provide innovative augmented reality learning experiences.
Below is a collection of educational augmented reality apps for teachers and students:
Aurasma (Android) – Aurasma is an augmented reality app that’s changing the way millions of people see and interact with the world and is the only application that lets you create and share your own augmented reality. Users can bring tagged images, objects and even physical locations to life with interactive digital content, such as video, animations and 3D scenes
iPhone App
iPad App
Android App
Fetch! Lunch Rush (iOS) – In this Augmented Reality, multi-player game, you need to keep up with lunch orders from the movie crew on Ruff Ruffman’s PBS Kids TV Series, FETCH!. The challenge is keeping track of how many pieces of sushi everyone wants. Since the most important job on a movie crew is filling everyone’s belly, you’ll need to think fast and be quick on your feet to keep the sushi straight. Both your brain and body will be moving once you spread out the game pieces (Augmented Reality markers) and start taking orders. No sweat? See if you can make it all the way to Top Dog. Better yet, see if you can get there before your friends do.
ZooBurst (iOS) – ZooBurst is a digital storytelling tool that lets anyone easily create his or her own 3D pop-up books. Using ZooBurst, storytellers of any age can create their own rich worlds in which their stories can come to life.
ZooBurst books “live” online and can be experienced on your desktop or laptop computer, or on your iPad via the free ZooBurst mobile app. Authors can arrange characters and props within a 3D world that can be customized using uploaded artwork or items found in a built-in database of over 10,000 free images and materials.
As an educational tool, ZooBurst provides students with new ways in which they can tell stories, deliver presentations, write reports and express complex ideas. ZooBurst contains a powerful “classroom management” feature for teachers that lets them easily set up protected, safe spaces for their students.
Star Walk (iOS) – If you like stars then Star Walk is a stellar augmented reality app that labels all the stars, constellations, and satellites you point your iPad at. You can track the ISS, find out what constellation you’ve been looking at from your bedroom window and get a lot of exciting and educative information.
Spacecraft 3D (iOS/Android) – Developed by NASA, Spacecraft 3D is an augmented reality (AR) application that lets you learn about and interact with a variety of spacecraft that are used to explore our solar system, study Earth, and observe the universe. Using a printed AR Target and the camera on your mobile device, you can get up close with these robotic explorers, see how they move, and learn about the engineering feats used to expand our knowledge and understanding of space. Spacecraft 3D will be updated over time to include more of the amazing spacecraft that act as our robotic eyes on the earth, the solar system and beyond!
iPhone App
iPad App
Android App
SkyView (iOS) – SkyView is powerful, easy-to-use, and answers these questions and more. Simply point the camera to the sky, tap on what you see and discover neat things about these sky objects. SkyView is unique as it blends the camera view with incredible 3D graphics of the sky objects to provide an Augmented Reality (AR) view of your sky.
SkyView’s new iPad interface minimizes hand movement, making it easy to hold and point your iPad toward the sky whether you’re sitting, standing, or even lying down. When you see something exciting you can quickly take a snapshot of the universe and send it to others on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and more.
Free iPhone App
Free iPad App
Paid iPhone App
Paid iPad App
MagicPlan CSI (iOS) – MagicPlan CSI is the specific version of MagicPlan for Crime Scene Sketching. MagicPlan CSI MEASURES and DRAWS the FLOOR PLAN of a crime scene just by taking pictures and you can also position items of interest and annotate your floor plan. An electronic report is then automatically generated and sent to you by email.
Amazing Space Journey (iOS/Android) – Discover the Solar System and explore the Sun, the planets and their satellites in stunning details. Take over time and space and observe the planets’ position and orbit. Amazing Space Journey is a great and interactive learning tool for any age to comprehend the features of the Solar System.
iPhone App
iPad App
Android App
AR Dinopark (iOS) – Bring back ancient dinosaurs to life in front of eyes! By making use of AR( Augmented Reality ) let the ancient dinosaurs appear in various scenes taken by camera as if they are alive. You can proudly put such scenes in uploaded blogs, Facebook and Twitter.
Layar (iOS) – Connect digital content with the real world with Layar. Scan print materials enhanced with Layar to view rich digital experiences right on top! Then be amazed as extra digital content appears, allowing you to interact with your world in a whole new way!
See magazines come alive with videos right on the page, easily buy items with direct mobile shopping links and connect with links to web content and share items on social media.
AR Liver Viewer (iOS) – A real-time 3D medical education and patient communication tool, featuring incredibly detailed anatomical models. It is a member of a series of apps developed specifically for the iPad 2 and the New iPad by a team of anatomists, certified medical illustrators, animators, and programmers using actual human CT imaging data, and the most accurate 3D modeling technology available.
AR Liver is appropriate for use by secondary students, undergraduate and graduate students, and medical professionals.
colAR Mix (iOS/Android) – Print, color and see your drawing in beautifully hand-animated 3D worlds. Let your kids bring their creations to life. Enjoy a traditional physical coloring experience and watch your artwork come to life on your mobile device screen. See the animation from any angle using the latest augmented reality technology.
iPhone App
iPad App
Android App
Daqri (iOS) – The daqri app is a portal to a vibrant world of 4D augmented reality experiences. The daqri 4D platform is the first and only enterprise-class cloud-based publisher that makes it easy to create, update and optimize augmented reality in real time. To use this app, aim the camera at a 4D-enabled object and watch it come to life.
Interact with amazing digital content spatially, as if the digital is seamlessly a part of your physical world, bring to life 4D-enabled images, objects, and places, revealing interactive 4D content and experiences. Understand educational data and information in a completely new way.
PopAR Viewer (iOS) – A gateway to the exciting world of PopAR Augmented Reality content! Digitally explore your surroundings while enhancing it with a living, breathing 3D world!
The PopAR Viewer lets you try out Augmented Reality yourself absolutely FREE! Just start up the application, tap the “Demo” button, and point your camera at a physical dollar bill, and watch your world come alive! While you’re playing, snap a picture and upload it to Facebook or save it to your device, all right inside the Viewer!
PopAR delivers a compact, educational, and fun Augmented Reality experiences through our series of physical products. Books, cards, puzzles, maps, charts, and much more are augmented in 3D right on your mobile device.
Planets (iOS) – A 3D guide to the solar system for aspiring astronomers.
With Sky 2D you can locate planets with flat view of sky. Sky 3D lets uses have a planetarium style view of the sky. The app also shows times when planets are visible as well as a rotating 3D globe of planets and moon
Star Chart (iOS/Android) – You can now have a virtual star chart in your pocket. Look through the eyes of your iPhone or iPad* to see a high-tech window into the whole visible universe. All you have to do is point your AR enabled device* at the sky and Star Chart will tell you exactly what you are looking at.
Using state of the art GPS technology, an accurate 3D universe, and all of the latest high tech functionality, Star Chart calculates – in real time – the current location of every star, planet and moon visible from Earth and shows you precisely where they are; even in broad daylight!
iPhone App
iPad App
Android App
Wikitude (iOS) – Wikitude is your “third eye” and allows you to see things you wouldn’t normally see. Wikitude’s Augmented Reality connects you with the world around you in a completely new way – a truly exciting and immersive experience. By using the camera, simply hold up your smartphone and engage with your immediate surroundings. Get information on places, find restaurants, discover people and even play games – all through Wikitude’s field of vision.
Augment (iOS/Android) – Easily visualize 3D models in augmented reality. Try new furniture in 3D, redecorate your walls with posters and paintings, take pictures with your favorite characters in 3D or discover amazing pieces of architecture.
iPhone App
iPad App
Android App
Life of a Monarch Butterfly (iOS) – An interactive application for teaching the life cycle of a butterfly. The lesson can be done as a whole class or one-on-on. The application has been designed with the teacher in mind and includes easy to follow instructions for every portion. When the student has completed the lesson they will have a pop-up style book with a writing sample at their level. The lesson includes video, an augmented reality feature, and hands-on activities that make it possible to teach this lesson to a classroom that includes high, medium, and low students.
Reality of AFib (iOS) – The “Reality of AFib” application is a real-time 3D medical education and patient communication tool, allowing the user to view a realistic and anatomically accurate 3D model of a heart from the exterior, and cross-sectional views. The application also shows the heart beating in normal sinus rhythm and atrial fibrillation.
Anatomy 4D (iOS) – 4D Anatomy allows viewers to understand and interact with complex information with unprecedented ease, speed, and depth. Visually stunning and completely interactive, augmented reality is the perfect vehicle for 21st century education.
4D Anatomy takes viewers inside the human body via a simple-to-use 3-dimensional learning environment. Perfect for use in the classroom, or anytime.
We hope that gives you a bit of perspective on augmented reality learning and shows some of the great solutions available to use augmented reality apps in education.