AR in the Classroom: Metaverse

Metaverse is a free website and app for the creation of augmented reality experiences. Educators can create experiences on a storyboard, add in any number of graphics, prompt clues, and design virtual scavenger hunts. In turn, they can share these experiences with their students, who follow along with the use of QR codes.

The platform maintains extensive resources for its users, from

YouTube playlist on getting started to blog posts that share the impact of Metaverse in authors' classrooms to ideas for the use of Metaverse experiences with students.

In addition to these resources, there is a bank of experiences for teachers and others to use. While there are many platforms to choose from pre-made AR experiences (such as Google Expeditions), Metaverse offers educators the chance to create content tailored to their own lessons - and at least one blogger reported allowing students to create with the Metaverse studio, giving her students the opportunity to create digital content.

Metaverse experiences allow students to problem-solve and collaborate while interacting with the content. A history teacher might create an experience where students have to find clues to navigate an important historical event, science teachers could create an experience withe layers of the earth or different animal habitats, and more - the possibilities are endless!

Makerspace Toy: Squishy Circuits

Makerspaces are the modern, future-ready library's evolution of the library's purpose; "to define a school makerspace by its purpose and simplest of terms, it is a place where young people have an opportunity to explore their own interests; learn to use tools and materials, both physical and virtual; and develop creative projects" (Fleming, 2015). The makerspace movement is much like the idea of teaching a man to fish as opposed to just giving him the fish. The skills that are encouraged and developed within the Makerspace are skills that will serve our patrons well in the future, as makerspaces foster creativity, innovation, and collaboration.

In several posts on Robert Pronovost's blog, attempts on using tech effectively in education, [his last post was in 2016, but the posts are still valid] he chronicles the establishment of a space (this post would certainly help a librarian as they embark on the creation of their physical makerspace). In his blog post on makerspace tools, he references a number of  toys worth exploring, including Squishy Circuits. Squishy Circuits kits combine a clay and conducting wires for endless possibilities for makers to design, create, innovate, and engineer.


Squishy Circuits would be an excellent toy for a school library for a number of reasons. The tactile stimulation that many kids get from molding clay, the incorporation of artistic elements, and because it combines a number of different elements (much like cardboard and coding), when students are working in groups, highlighting different strengths. From the design and implementation to the production, working with Squishy Circuits mirrors the real-life work scenarios our young charges will encounter in the future. Students using Squishy Circuits can also realize that coding and programming is not only about screens and keyboards, but about the creative process and working together - those future ready skills that Makerspaces, and modern libraries, are striving to develop.
Fleming, L. (2015). Worlds of making: Best practices for establishing a makerspace at your school. United States: Corwin.