Joe Tedesco, the man behind SA Makerspaces for Education, posted about CoSpaces a couple of weeks ago. CoSpaces is available on the web, and as a free iOS or Android app. My students and are still investigating its features, so I may be incorrect about what we’ve discovered so far.
Using CoSpaces on a computer (desktop or laptop), you can register for a free account and then create projects. To experiment, I created one account that my students could also use (if you do this, make sure each student knows how to start a new project or collaborate with someone else on one). There are tools on the web browser version to “build” 3-dimensional scenes, somewhat Minecraft-ish. For those of us who are spatially challenged, it’s good practice for using other 3-d modeling programs like Tinkercad. You can also add your own images as well as audio files.
The scenes can be viewed on mobile devices as 3d by walking around with or moving the device to explore the scenery. If you have a VR headset, you can also experience the scenes this way. The video on this page is the best way to understand how it works. At this time, you can only create CoSpaces projects using a web browser and experience they are best experienced through mobile devices.
An intriguing detail about CoSpaces is that it already has a link for educators in its menu – and describes the many ways it can be used in school (such as storytelling or exhibiting research projects). According to the site, there are plans to offer classroom type accounts to teachers.
CoSpaces shows a great deal of potential for use by students to create – which is one of the main purposes for technology in my point of view. I have a feeling there are going to be some exciting advances made by this company as it evolves, so you should definitely check it out.
