What can children learn?
The development of the Fabulous Frogs App: Splendid and Native completes the second phase of the Mapping the Museum Project. Developed using Junaio this app is an interactive AR tool which is targeted at 7 – 11 years and maps to Key Stage 2 of the National Curriculum in England and to the “responsible citizens” and “successful learners” capacities of the Scottish Curriculum for Excellence: specifically the AR app helps to develop children’s capabilities to understand the environment and to use technology for learning independently. The app addresses the following learning objectives:

• Species Information e.g. where the Splendid Leaf Frog lives – presented with a map of its geographical extent
• Frog anatomy – using label overlay on the trigger image
• Frog life cycle – interactive quiz comparing between the Splendid Leaf Frog and the native Common Frog

Other fun features

Due to the successful collaboration with Manchester Museum we have been fortunate to gain access to some fantastic content to produce the app such as:

• Sir David Attenborough’s introduction to the Splendid Leaf Frog during his visit earlier this year to Manchester Museum’s Vivarium
• In-depth description of the Splendid Leaf Frog provided through the very popular Frog Blog
• A high quality image of the Splendid Leaf Frog photographed by Chris Mattison (see below)

How does it work?

• Download Junaio
• Open Junaio and scan the QR code below
• Hover you smart phone or iPad over the below trigger image and enjoy the interactive content

 

 

 

 

 

 

Next steps

Andrew Gray, Curator of Herpetology plans to implement the Fabulous Frogs App: Splendid and Native in the Vivarium Gallery over the summer, this will allow visitors to try out the app then and there in the gallery with their mobile phone. He will also be adding a link to the Virtual Vivarium on the Frog Blog where the Google Earth KMZ file can be downloaded so that all the Vivarium collection can be explored and viewed in the 3D globe either at home or school.

To conclude…

It has been a great experience working with Andrew and Adam Bland (Vivarium Assistant) at the museum and is an example of a very successful collaboration with Mimas in developing the Virtual Vivarium and Fabulous Frogs App. I would also like to thank Tom Hart (User Experience Developer) for all his hard work on developing the Virtual Vivarium website and interactive Frog Life Cycle quiz and to Matt Ramirez (AR Developer) for his help and advice when I have been developing the AR app.

Find out more

If you found this post interesting you might also like to read the complementary Frog Blog  post ‘Fabulous Frogs’ featuring a link to Sir David Attenborough’s Nature episode about Fabulous Frogs he encountered at the Vivarium during his visit to Manchester Museum.