iMovies on paper with Aurasma

One of my pet peeves is the traditional bulletin board. As a technology teacher I feel the traditional paper stapled to cork board is counter intuitive to what students do in the lab.

Paper bulletin board are fine for certain things, but if students are creating animations or layered presentations or movies how do you do their work justice by printing a still image and putting it on a board. How do you honor and celebrate their work beyond simply unloading to YouTube or blogging about it? How do you showcase their work in the hallway without losing any of their awesome?

Augmented reality...


Recently 5th graders used iMovie to create "book trailers" which are movie trailer style advertisements for their recently finished reading assignment.

In working with their teacher we wanted to find a way to make the book report more dynamic. More than just an essay. We settled on the book trailer because it allowed us to combine somewhat divergent mediums, print and video, in a way similar to what Hollywood does every day, turning a book into a movie.

But how do you share their final products? Aurasma.

Once the students completed their book trailers they used a class Aurasma account to upload their .mov files to serve as the "overlay." We took a photo of them holing their book and used that as the "trigger." Once the "aura" was created, combining the image trigger and overlay, we hung the Picts in the hallway with a brief printed tutorial on downloading the Aurasma app, following the class account, and watching the videos.

Here is what it looks like:

And here it is in action:

Now, anyone who come though the halls can download Aurasma and watch these videos as they were meant to be seen. We have turned the paper bulletin board on it's head and made it more than a piece of paper. The students love it and so do the parents and staff who stop to watch.

The plan going forward is to use Aurasma to "hang" all media projects on traditional bulletin boards around the building.

More blog posts to come...


For more on using augmented reality in education check out 2 Guys and Some iPads. Drew and Brad and pioneers and have done, and continue to do, amazing things.