If there’s a theme to my Cool Tools year, besides library centers, it seems to be revisiting things I haven’t done in years. This tool was no exception, to either of those themes!
Years ago, I did a class on flipped classrooms and I used Aurasma to create Augmented Reality centers for poetry month (I made videos explaining the center directions/poetry terms and they scanned a poster at the table to activate the video with Aurasma). But, it has been years since I’ve used Aurasma (so long that I forgot it was now HP Reveal until I tried to login to my Aurasma account and was redirected to the other site), so now seemed like a good time to get reacquainted with the process!
What I looked at: For this tool, I spent the majority of my exploration time familiarizing myself with the app again, how to use it and, making sure the app was still on our school iPads.
What I would like to do with it: I am beyond excited about this idea I saw on another’s librarian’s Instagram a few months ago! They did biography reports and turned them into a AR gallery walk!! I’ve talked to my 4th grade team and they seem excited to try this project with me as well.
As far as I can tell, it would involve the following steps:
- Students research a person for their biography report
- Students use this site to create an avatar for their person (bummer, you have to do it in one shot, no save option)
- Students use their printed avatar to create a ChatterPix recording of their person listing their accomplishments/highlights of their life
- Students use HP Reveal to turn their avatar picture into the trigger that will launch their ChatterPix video
Did I mention how much I love this idea!!! A colleague of mine also did biography projects this year but she had the kids use the green screen to create their informative video. The 4th grade team and I were thinking we could give our students the option of either using ChatterPix or the green screen to create their informative video. This way, they still have something to create their AR experience with and students who are less comfortable being on camera will have an alternative that can be used for the AR gallery walk.
Additional ideas for AR:
- Of course, using it to create AR centers again like I use to do
- Creating interactive expectation posters for library orientations
- Creating interactive genre posters
- I’ve always wanted to try using Google Street view/360 photos to make an interactive tour of the library but, I don’t think there’s a way to do that without making the photos all public on Google Street View and I’m not sure that’s a great idea? Seems like it could be a safety issue. Does anyone know if there’s a way to create something like that but control who can see it, like we do with Google Docs etc?
And oh yeah, that awesome librarian’s Instagram account? It’s chrystalburkes- definitely check her out sometime!
Librarian On The Loose 