Augmented Reality with Aurasma lite app

A few days ago I learned about one of the coolest apps I've seen in the last 2 years.  Aurasma Lite.  I'm sure I sound like a fanboy already, but let me quickly describe what it does and then I'll share some ideas I have to use this effectively in the classroom.

The Basics:
Take a picture of an object then assign a picture or a video from your device to the original object.  Or assign objects or animations from Aurasma's gallery to the orignal object.  The app walks you through this process flawlessly.

Then save your Aura.

After uploading to the Aurasma server and waiting 1-3 minutes, your aura is ready to be viewed.  Here is where it gets cool...

While in the Aurasma app (the camera will launch) hold your device up to the object you took a picture of earlier.  The app will sense the presence of an aura and will display the image or video that you assigned to that object.  It's a little like QR codes without the ugly black and white codes all over.

Lesson ideas:
It took me a day or two to wrap my brain around the app and what it can do.  Fortunately @LachHull shared with me her idea for an Aura wall.  The best part is that her 5-6 yr. old students helped to create it.

Then @TeacherTechnol sent me a tweet with her idea for a Shakespeare lesson.

So with help from other teachers my mind has taken off...

Foreign Language: Vocabulary spaces.  Start in any room and have your students augment the reality of that room.  Have them create virtual placards or quick 2-3 second videos that show the spelling of that object and someone pronouncing the word.  Now they are seeing & hearing vocabulary for all the objects in that particular space.  See below nice it works.



"Auracaching": As a big fan of geocaching lessons, I have loved the results of getting students up and moving around as they learn various subject matter.  For kinesthetic learners there is nothing better.  Auracaching brings elements of geocaching in from the outdoors.  Teachers or Students create auras about a particular unit or topic.  Each Aura (or station) should prompt an action from the participants. Then place the objects in various places around the room or building.  The teacher then gives the students hints about where each aura can be found.  Once each aura is found the student completes the activity prompted by the Aura.

Augmented Story: Students write a story.  They create videos, pictures, and perhaps QR codes linking to activities and websites that add value to the story.  Then aura markers and QR codes are added to the body of the story.  Now when the reader reads the story with a smartphone or tablet the auras and links are scanned to create a very unique reading experience.

School performance program: Band, Theatre, Choir, or Orchestra...While parents are waiting to get seated or during intermission, they could be viewing the night's program.  The program could have pictures of each student and when scanned it could bring up a video of each student introducing themselves.

One of the biggest advantages I see to this app, is that it is a creation tool.  Teachers don't need to do all the work, but should rather allow students the freedom to help create a great Aurasma experience.

Caveats:  

1. Aurasma is still in Beta, so just know that you are using a product that isn't quite finished.  But you may be helping to polish it, so take pride in that and help provide useful feedback.
2. For now, you must have one Aurasma account per device.  Meaning that you must save all auras to each device being used.  (Aurasma, if you're listening, please help educators make it easy to allow each student to have their own experience.)
3. Some districts may have firewalls and filters that block the content coming back from the Aurasma servers.  If this is the case see your district's IT team.

Do you have ideas/lessons for this app?  Please share by leaving a comment or a link.

Mythology eBook project...

A few weeks ago I shared an ePub project that I was working on where students wrote their on children's books.  Today, I wanted to share the latest project I worked on with a few 7th grade ILA teachers.

For this project the students were learning about writing styles and had write their own Greek Mythology-like myth.

1. Students wrote, revised, and edited their myths in Google docs
2. Students drew pictures that depicted their myth
3. For homework students were required to scan their drawings to convert to .jpg format
1. The next steps used Pages on the Macbooks
4. Students created a title on their document & assigned the paragraph style as "Title"
5. Students inserted a picture to use as their book's cover
6. Students put their names below the pictures (leaving the paragraph style as "Title"
7. Students inserted a page break below the author name
8. Students inserted a Table of Contents
1. In the inspector the Table of Content Included only Title and Heading 1
9. Students inserted a page break below the TOC
10. Students created chapter 1 & assigned the paragraph style as "Heading 1"
11. Students pasted the body of the text from the their Google doc into the pages document below Chapter 1 & assigned the paragraph style as "Body"
12. Students inserted a page break below the body of chapter 1
1. Students repeated steps 10, 11, & 12 for each chapter
2. The students ran with this and started creating chapters for 'About the Author', dedication,  prologue & epilogue.  It was great to see them get so excited!
13. Students saved the pages document.
14. Then they exported the document as an ePub, and saved it to their desktops.
15. Then they emailed the epub file to themselves or whatever device they were using.
1. Many found errors by reading it on their own devices.  Then went back to the macbook and edited the document further to later export the epub again.
16. The ePub files were loaded onto one iPad and then shared over the projector.  Students who wanted were able to read their stories to their peers.
17. Students were encouraged to email the epub file to parents and grandparents as well.

Results:

Students: The students came alive when they got to see their book on the iPad.  They began asking questions about how they could write their own eBooks at home, if they could share their books, and if they could sell their books.  (although I will add that some students did not like having to draw their own pictures. They could've used sketchup or other software to create images for their books)

Parents:  The teachers involved with this project sent home emails to the parents explaining what the project was about.  After the books were completed many parents replied to the teachers explaining how much they and their students loved this activity.  They went on to tell about how they found typos or gramatical errors together while reading their eBooks at home.

Teachers: The teachers expressed how much they loved the engagement from the students.  They were blown away by the amount of parental involvement in the revising and editing process.  (I think this was facilitated by the ease of having the students email the file right to their parents in class.

We will definitely be doing more projects like this!

BYOD Jam Session...

Jam Session, Appy Hour, Show & Tell, Pair & Share, or whatever you want to call it...



Objective: Students share with you and their peers their favorite tech tools, website, apps, etc, that help them be more productive with your content. Students discuss how each tool helps them learn more and perform better in your class.

1. Invite your students to share their favorite tools, apps, or websites that help them in your class.
2. Give them a day or so to prepare.
3. Have the students, one at a time, show off their tool and explain how it has or is helping them with your class.
4. Keep a Google doc, today's meet, or some other way to document and share all of the tools shared in class. Make this available to students outside of class.
5. Allow students time to discuss the tools and download any apps that are shared in class.
6. Allow the activity enough freedom to explore different angles and perspectives of your course content, while steering toward tools that are productive, add value, and/or make your class fun.

This is a fantastic way to have your students find and discover great tools for learning about your classroom content.  If done properly, this activity will be engaging, fun, & informative.  You'll be surprised at some of the neat tools your students are using and how many of them you can probably use yourself.

We did this lesson with the 7th grade teachers and let them share any technology they used for work or play & it was a blast!  We'll probably do it again a few more times after the Christmas holiday. Our future jam sessions will will probably have specific themes creativity, communication, productivity, etc.

Children's eBooks with ePub

ePub is the standard file format for ebooks.  The software used to create ePub files is popping up everywhere and might soon be as simple as word processing.  (If you're a mac user it already is.)  ePub supports text, pictures and some ePub readers even support video (iBooks for example).
________________________________________________________________________________

OK, this is quickly becoming one of my favorite tech projects of the year.  Students write short stories and/or children's books.  We use simple software and epub templates to help the students paste their text into the document.  They find public domain photos to use as illustrations (could also team up with the art classes). Then publish them as ePub files so that they can be read, shared, or even sold digitally. Once the books are published, they can be shared with the elementary age classes in your district, parents, grandparents, etc.  Providing your students with an instant target audience that could be reading the stories hours or even minutes later.

Why have your students create ePub files?

1. Being able to produce and distribute your own book is a paradigm shift as influential as the invention of the printing press.
2. Teach students they don't need a publisher to become a published author.
3. Teach the importance of authors and writing (producing vs. consuming).
4. Give students a large audience for their work.  The pressure of knowing the audience is more than just their teacher should be enough to dramatically improve their work.
5. Teach students that digital text is and should be much more than texting.

Resources for creating ePub files:

• Create ePub files using Pages for Mac.
• How to Make an ePub file...
• Convert Word Documents to ePub
• Convert pdf to ePub

*Sidebar: One of our students wrote her book in Spanish.  It was an ABC book.  I happen to have a 1st grader learning to read in the bilingual program at school.  So I took the book home to her and her read it that evening.  She loved it and I loved being able to show her a book that another student just a few years older had created.

Future epub lessons I'm working on:

• Mythology projects - students are creating their own myths
• Student created campus cookbook, complete with pictures and videos taken in class and at home.

Radio Morning Show

Today I have a guest blog post by one of my favorite teachers, Mrs. Patterson.  Mrs. Patterson is the Theatre Arts teacher at one of our middle schools.  I hope that one day my own children get to be in her class or have the opportunity to know a teacher like her.  Her project below is a great idea and if I can convince the kids and parents, I'll post some samples of their finished projects in the next week or so.  Thank you Mrs. Patterson for sharing.

My beginning and intermediate theatre students were introduced to radio vocabulary and advertisement on Day 1 of this assignment. We listened to a few short morning show clips and after the notes were taken students were assigned a group (3-4 students). They then brainstormed ideas for call and frequency numbers (96.7 Kiss FM).  The students must also have radio “names” (Lunch Box, Susie Q,) and research current news stories to include in their show. Here is a quick summary of the lesson:

Objective: Students will create a 8- 10 minute morning show with current events, commercials, and sound effects through the use of SoundzaBound, IPOD’s, Sound Bible, Garage Band, and any device of their choice. They will present to the class and will follow the rubric handed out to them at the beginning of the project. Students must have 2 local news stories, 2 US news, 1 world, 2 sports, 2 entertainment, weather, 3 songs (no longer than 30 seconds) and 2 sound effects.

Procedure:

• Students will take notes over radio terminology.
• Pair students up and distribute radio worksheet and devices
• Students will brainstorm radio show name, call sign, character names, genera of music
• Students will research current events and write out 3 sentences on each story
• Students will write their commercial
• Students will put all information into a script and can type it up in Google Docs.
• Students will ding sound effects using Sound Bible, SoundzaBound, or IPOD free sound effects.
• Students will rehearse their show
• Performance day!! (Students will be in front of the classroom while the others turn around. Students will just hear the radio show. They will not see it as you can “see” on the radio.

Check out some of the best radio shows below:

This is one of my most favorite projects. Not only does it integrate current events and history into theatre, but it allows the students to use technology, be creative, write a script, and perform. Students are learning to work effectively in groups, monitor time, all while putting together a finished product. In the middle of their presentation I hand them a Breaking News article that they must add into the program. I love to listen to them when they are complete! My students have a lot of fun with this project!

Mrs. Patterson's website

Library Gallery Walks...

About a year ago, a technology facilitator and a librarian in our district got together to create a type of Super Lesson/Project.  Their idea was to pool the combined efforts & resources of the course teacher, the librarian, & the technology facilitator to create a lesson that provides students with hand-picked/rich content, tasks to accomplish with that content, & opportunities to engage in discussions/projects with the content.  These gallery walks are examples of good instruction and learning.  100% engagement, higher order thinking,

Their idea was so successful that they took it to the $100,000 Follett Challenge.  Check out their video below:

Contest details

Now that you've had a a good look at the concept here are some of the lessons we've prepared so far.

• The Count of Monte Cristo
• The Grapes of Wrath
• C2G Rhymes with Technology
• Shipwreck at the bottom of the world
• Aliens and Extra-Terrestrials
• Crispin
• Middle Ages
• Review- Number the Stars and Hatchett
• Black History Study
• Civil Rights Movement

The Count of Monte Cristo was our most recent project.  Here is a sampling of the resources we used to introduce the French Revolution and the Count of Monte Cristo to our students:

• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WczbEyx5J74
• http://historywiz.com/oldregime.htm
• http://historywiz.com/execution.htm
• http://library.thinkquest.org/C006257/revolution/tennis_court_oath.shtml
• (book) Aftermath of the French Revolution
• (book) You Wouldn't Want To Be...
• (book) Aftermath of the French Revolution
• http://www.readwritethink.org/files/resources/lesson_images/lesson404/HistoricalFictionDefn.pdf
• http://www.youtube.com/user/historyteachers#p/u/8/wXsZbkt0yqo
• http://www.youtube.com/user/historyteachers#p/u/3/fOki3qAZe4g
• http://www.qwiki.com/q/#!/Alexandre_Dumas
• http://www.qwiki.com/q/#!/Napoleon
• http://library.thinkquest.org/C006257/timeline/default.shtml

Tools used:
Webtools & software:

• http://www.a.freshbrain.com/solvr/ - Discussion threads
• www.youtube.com
• Qwiki app (iPad & Web)

Hardware:

• 6 Digital Photo frames
• 22 Laptops
• 12 Desktops
• 4 iPads
• Books

Infographics with Students

Infographics are quickly becoming very popular, especially in schools.  It makes sense since there is more data, in more accessible formats than ever before.  Infographics can help us make sense from all this data.  But, what if your students had the opportunity to make an infographic?  In what ways could creating an infographic help my students learn course material?

• Creating an infographic requires the student to collect infomation (research)
• Then they must understand the data themselves,
• Analyze how the data could be organized to help others understand
• Then create a visual scheme to put all the elements together and teach others.

Hey!  Look at that....It's Bloom's Taxonomy!

Getting Started - 

• 10 Awesome Free Tools To Make Infographics - includes some great tips and tricks for researching, planning, and creating infographics.
• The Anatomy of an Infographic: 5 Steps to Create a Powerful Visual - includes rules and suggestions for creating a successful infographic.
• 5 Unbeatable Types of Infograpic & Free Tools to Create Them - 
• 5 Amazing Tools to Create Your Own Infographics
• Teaching with Infographics: A Student Project Model
• The 7 1/2 Steps to Successful Infographics

Free creation tools (programs/websites):

• Google docs Drawings
• Wordle.net
• Tagxedo.com/
• Gliffy.com
• Creately.com
• Gimp.org
• Visual.ly

Visual.ly - Has the potential to be the best site on infographics, and it will be when it's online creation tools become available in the next few months.

1. Search engine for web-based infographics.  See all the best infographics on the web in one place.
2. Infographic hosting
3. Create infographics no special software needed. (coming soon)

Resources for finding quality infographics:

• http://awesomeinfographics.com/
• http://www.coolinfographics.com/
• 40 Useful and Creative Infographics

Historical Event News Broadcast Project...

Tired of having students do the same old reports or PowerPoints? This lesson still requires the same research, but ignites engagement, higher order thinking skills, as well as technology skills.

Objectives:

• Students research an event
• Students compile research in order to write a television/radio broadcast
• Students create a storyboard or somekind of paper draft of their show
• Students create a broadcast (radio/TV) as if they had gone back in time
• Students add credits to the end of their broadcast to site their sources

Tech options:

• iPods - Built-in camera, iMovie
• iPads - Built-in camera, iMovie, Garageband
• Any voice recorder will do
• Pocket Camcorder
• PC - Audacity, Aviary.com, MovieMaker, Photostory
• Mac - Garageband, iMovie

Adaptations:

• Students could create the show from different points of view (ex. Civil War - North/South)
• Have students use era appropriate music or pictures
• Have students place themselves in the time of the event. (ex. WWII most media was only radio, there was no video and pictures were rare.)
• Students could re-create propaganda from the era
• Audio/video could be shared on the web (blog, youtube, shooltube, teachertube, etc.)
• Allow students to choose the tool they use.
• Have students research using the tools of the era (books, newspapers, encyclopedias, etc...)

Do you have other ideas that could make this lesson better? Please share them.

Geocaching Lesson: The Virtual Map

Virtual map - Imagine that one of your athletic practice fields is like a map. Plot points on the map that correspond with your unit. The Points could represent battles, countries, cities, or other points of interest (P.o.I.). Then choose one activity below:

• Give each group a different color pen have them add one or two key bits of info to a log book within the cache that pertain that P.o.I. (dates, battles, vocabulary, etc) Then make the info in the log books available for students to do other activities.
• Place information about the P.o.I. inside each cache. Then give the students a worksheet/quiz that has questions about each point. They can answer the question with the info inside of the cache.
• Give each student a camera & have each group take a picture/video of something that relates to the P.o.I.

USTREAM - taking your class to your parents...

Using a USTREAM channel could become an amazing tool for sharing the many wonderful things happening in your class with parents and families. Including parents in Education, more often than not, has very positive results.

Below is an idea that came about with an ELA teacher at one of my schools


Case #1 - Students debating each other

1. Ask parents to vote on a list of topics for students to debate. (I recommend using a Google form)
2. Set up a uStream.tv channel
3. Password protect your channel
4. Place a link to your channel on your blog/wiki/website
5. Advertise your bradcasting
6. Send password home to parents (email, letter, etc)

When you are ready to debate:

1. Turn your uStream channel on
2. Begin your broadcast
3. Record your broadcast
4. Post your recording to your channel

Have other ideas? Please share by leaving a comment.

Sewing machine, pocket camcorder, & a digital photo frame

This week I had a Life Skills teacher come up with a great idea for her sewing unit lessons. She checked out a pocket camcorder and created 4 or 5 video tutorials for the sewing tasks the students were assigned. Then we loaded the videos onto a few digital photo frames. We placed one frame on each sewing table (2-3 sewing machines/table). Throughout each phase of the sewing project, the students could then go back to the digital photo frame and watch a quick tutorial on how to perform the task they were working on. This enabled the students to help themselves, as well as freeing the teacher up to serve more students.

Without digital photo frames the teacher may not have been able to assist all the students in her classroom; we would've had to take laptops out of our mobile lab, leaving other classes short a computer or two.

For $50-60 a piece, these frames were a good addition to our school.

Facebook project & Template

We've had a lot of fun in my district doing a Facebook project. Teachers from almost every subject have jumped into this.

• Science - create a page for a certain type of rock.
• History - historical figure/group.
• Geography - Country page/profile.
• Foreign Language - country, author, historical figure, featured verb, fictional character.
• Math - formulas, theorems.
• English - Character (fictional/non-fictional), Author.

You can click here to download the Facebook project template.

Here is what it looks like:

The template is a .ppt that should have all the tabs linked to each slide. So it should act like a normal facebook page when you are viewing as a show.

Click on the image below to see a sample of instructions for this project.

Let me know how you like it.

Why your class should use Youblisher.com

In our district (like many others) we are trying to convince our teachers that there is more to technology integration than having the students create a PowerPoint. I found out about youblisher in tweets from @MrR0g3rs & @tomwhitby.

What it does:

• www.Youblisher.com will take your multi-page pdf and turn it into a flash-based book. Keep in mind that almost anything can be turned into a pdf using Cute PDF Writer, or a Mac.

Here is my first attempt (Took me 5 minutes to merge my pdfs, really fast after that.)

I used some workshop flyers I had on my laptop to create a workshop catalog.

Classroom Ideas:

As teachers we could use this with the projects we already do in our classes. Instead of having your students turn in a paper report or present a PPT, have them save it as a PDF and upload it to www.youblisher.com.

• Travel Brochure - Students create a brochure about a location that they are studying.
• Instruction Manual - For: life as a MS/HS/College student, Safe Driving, Electronic device, etc
• Any Report/Paper - Give the student the feeling of being a published author (great motivator)
• Photo flip-book - Create a photo journal from a field trip, science experiment, or other class activity.

Have some lesson suggestions of your own? Please leave me a comment.