For my Phun Phriday post this week, I am writing about an augmented reality app called Zookazam.  There are actually 3 downloadable iPhone apps in this series: Zookazam Lite, Zookazam Pro, and Zookazam Zoo Atlanta.  The first and 3rd are free.  Zookazam Pro currently costs 99 cents.  However, I think I got it for free one day through Apps Gone Free – as I somehow have it on my device and don’t remember paying for it.

All of the apps are iOS only.  They are iPhone apps, but will work on the iPad as well.  To use them, you need to print out the appropriate target page – based on which app you are trying to use.

With the Lite version, you will only be able to view one animal – a deer.  Zoo Atlanta offers you 6 different animals: Lion, African Elephant, Zebra, Giraffe, Giant Panda, and Eastern Black Rhinoceros. The Pro version will give you more options, of course.  It includes bugs.  You can see all of the animals here.

Though I don’t usually offer education integration ideas on Phun Phriday posts, it might be a neat lesson to have students build habitats around a particular Zookazam creature.

Zookazam is a fun novelty.  You can choose the weather conditions for your animal, and take photos of it enduring rain, snow, and cloudy days.  What also distinguishes it from some of the other AR apps is that it gives you the opportunity to take video in the app.  This allowed me to amuse myself by watching a few pandas cavort right in front of my bulldog’s nose…