Have You Tried The Aurasma App?

I went to Edcamp Detroit last weekend and Erin Klein shared a free app that she has used in her classroom with a lot of success.  The app is called Aurasma.  The app allows individuals to create and publish their own augmented reality experiences they call "Auras."  I'm sure you are thinking the same thing I was thinking when Erin was talking about this app, "Sounds cool, but what does it do?"  Students and teachers can make lessons come alive with this platform.  It is difficult to explain so I will explain it step by step, then show you what it looks like in action.

This past Friday we had a Mother's Day Tea to show our appreciation for the special women in our lives.  My students made portraits of their mothers and posted them in our hallway at school.  We thought it would be fun for the moms to try to pick out their portraits when they came to visit.  This was the perfect opportunity to try this app.

After my students finished their portraits, I took a quick 5 second video of each one of them saying a special message to their moms.

1. I opened up the Aurasma app and pressed the plus sign.
2. I then chose device at the bottom,
3. Next, I pressed the plus sign and chose the photo album option.
4. I then chose the video of one of my students from the camera roll for the overlay.
5.  Then, I chose to create an Aura with the video.
6.  I then took a picture of the portrait that my student created.
7.  Finally, I gave it a name and made it public so other people could see it.

When our guests came to the tea they saw this message on the wall above the portraits:

I took a quick clip of one of my students using the app to show you what the final product looked like.

The parents thought this was amazing.  We had some parents with tears in their eyes, watching their little one appear in a video saying happy mother's day and that they love them!

This was our first attempt at this app.  I have so many other ideas of how to use this app.  I have made little stickers with the Aurasma app picture.  I plan on placing the stickers on things that we have augmented.  I am going to use this for my math  and literacy stations.  I am going to create videos for the directions for the station so all the students will have to do is scan a card and a video will pop up with the directions.  I am also planning on using this for book recommendations.  Students will create a video about their favourite book and why they think you should read it.  We will use the Aurasma app, so students can scan the book and watch their peers video recommendation!  This app has so many possibilities!  I am going to let my students brainstorm different ways we can use this app in the classroom this week.  I will let you know what they come up with.