Passbook as an iBeacon app

Fellow Apple Distinguished Educator Gary Bass of Advaita Digital has pointed me to a discussion about how the Passbook built into every iPad/iPhone can be used with iBeacons: 

"Over in apple communities there is a raging and wide ranging discussion..with a discovery about PassBook and passkit just revealed..

An App is not required to detect beacon(s)..

- could be very useful in schools!

Teachers use MBP as 'virtual beacon' from their projector connected computer.

As student approaches the classroom..or learning space, messages pop-up (recall wifi is not needed for bluetooth).

Perfect for excursions..the imagination begins to go wild!!

But, better yet, no specific App is necessary to detect the beacon.

Details over on https://discussions.apple.com/thread/6028034#25277013

(warning!! ..a bit nerdy..so some IT speak will be encountered.."

- Thanks for sharing this Gary! 

Interesting student attendance use for iBeacons

BeHere is an iBeacon app exploring how the bluetooth location capabilities of such a deployment might be used to automate student attendance. An interesting idea, though as the commentators at this iDownload article point out, there are several issues need to be addressed also such as privacy, students swapping devices or deleting the app etc.

5 great iBeacon learning ideas

As we are still in the very early days of exploring the use of iBeacons, beacons and motes in education, I've been scouring the web for ideas and examples to share. Today I came across this short but valuable slidedeck from LearningLab - in it you will find the beginnings of 5 iBeacon learning ideas - enough to trigger some thinking in the right direction on where bluetooth proximity-triggered beacons might take us.

iBeacons - five learning concepts from LearnerLab