Techie Tuesday: Featured App - Aurasma

Since it seemed like last week's Techie Tuesday post received some good feedback, I decided to stick with featuring an app for the iPad/iPhone/iPod again this week.  In fact, I might just do this every Tuesday until I can't think of anything else to feature!  Today I will feature the app for Augmented Reality called "Aurasma".  If you haven't heard of it, you better hold on... b/c it's pretty CRAZY!!!

The Aurasma App for Augmented Reality

I wanted to start with Aurasma, because Augmented Reality is all the rave right now in technology.  I first heard about AR at eTech last February, and the idea just blew my mind.  If you don't know what it is, I will do my best to paint a picture, but I would encourage you to watch this video to see Aurasma in action. 

Aurasma is an app that allows you to focus in on a picture of something and see far behind that image.  What do I mean by that?  Once you get the app downloaded, take out a twenty dollar bill, and focus your iPad/iPhone over it with the app open.  You will see that the bill turns from a piece of green paper to a multidimensional video/music/moving image.  It's unreal and terribly hard to explain on a blog.  Trust me - it's something you have to see to believe. There are TONS of images you can focus in on in order to "see beyond" its flatness.  In fact, the coolest thing about Aurasma is that you can actually make your OWN versions of augmented reality.  I have done this twice... the first with a guitar and the second with a Wizard of Oz book.  On the guitar I was able to link a video and a picture of a guy playing the guitar and the Wizard of Oz book turned into Dorothy stepping into Munchkinland after landing on the Wicked Witch of the East.  Don't get too excited; neither of these were that cool and neither provided anything worth using in the future other than simply figuring out a LITTLE about how to make my own augmented reality.  Why would this be good to know?  Well, I wouldn't mind setting up a system in my English/Theatre/Speech classroom where the students could take pics of posters in my room that would lead them to instructional videos/music/etc about that topic.  Currently that isn't really possible because my kids don't have iPads and are not allowed to use iPods in the room.  Yet maybe in a few years this will all change.  Regardless, I want to stay on top of technology so it doesn't run me over!  Seriously, before February if I would have been told about this app I would have thought the person speaking about it was from the future.  Actually, it's kind of like that.  There is so much "from the future" that is available today, it's virtually unreal! PUN INTENDED!

When I was first introduced to Augmented Reality, I was informed that people are using it everywhere for tons of different purposes.  The most interesting thing I heard about was that there were specific t-shirts being made for augmented reality.  I heard that some people are wearing them at college sporting events and you can walk up to the t-shirt wearer and zoom in on their shirt and their school mascot will come alive and their fight song will play.  To me that seems a bit intrusive.  I mean, think of it... complete strangers are walking up to you and zooming in on an image that is plastered across your chest.  Yet I guess if you bought the shirt, you want people to do that... so it's your choice!  Anyway, I haven't been able to find anything like that to show you but I did find this video on marketing with Aurasma. Pretty crazy stuff, eh?

This Techie Teacher Recommends Aurasma for:

• Teachers! Play around with creating your own augmented reality for a more inner-active classroom.
• People who are interested in new marketing techniques.  This is like the next "QR Code" phase.
• People who are creative and want to tell stories within stories within stories.
• People who want to stay on top of what's next in technology.

This Techie Teacher does NOT Recommend Aurasma for:

• No one really!

Main Downfall of the App (if any):

• Augmented Reality is new and expanding every day.  I wouldn't say that there is a DOWNFALL to this app, it's just that you might not use it all of the time unless you create your own.
  

If you think that Augmented Reality is just a fad that will be leaving soon, think again.  In my opinion, this is just the tip of the iceberg of the future.  Here is one final video on the possibilities for Augmented Reality within the new few years.  In fact, I bet that this video becomes truth in less than a year's time.

What are your thoughts?

Techie Tuesdays: iPad Training Session and Featured App Review: TourWrist

As many of you know, Dom and I invested in an iPad last Black Friday.  (We didn't open it until Christmas though... isn't THAT impressive?)  Since getting an iPad, I have been working on improving my understanding of its countless functions and capabilities.  I was fortunate enough to represent my school district for a second time at the eTech conference in Columbus back in February.  It was there that I learned a little more than I knew before.  Yet understandably, technology is an ongoing and ever-chaning process.  I have made it my goal to try to keep up with its changes, because if I don't I (like many other frustrated people) will get run over.  Therefore, I knew I wanted to schedule and attend regular trainings for my new gadget.

In the spring, I arranged for our staff to go through two voluntary after-school iPad trainings given by our NWOET representative. Both of these were big successes.  The teachers who attended one (or both) sessions walked away with a handful of new apps they could use in their lives and classrooms right away. In addition to learning a ton about the iPad, I loved the fact that the training was done by a person who is open to learning from his students as much as teaching them.  Technology allows students to become the teachers at times, and I believe that is a big step to engaging learners in today's classrooms, so I felt that our instructor modeling this was an excellent move on his part.

Below is the link to the presentation for the iPad training I hosted at school.  I promised a lot of people on Facebook that I would post it, so here it is. WARNING:  This is an "INTERMEDIATE" training.  If you are looking for the basics of iPads, then this is not where to look.  It is also not advanced, so don't expect that either!  Before you click on the link, here are some directions you will need once you get to that site:

- Click on the link to the training

- Look for the QR code on the right side of the screen

- Below that code there is a link that says, "iPad Intermediate Presentation" 

- Click on that to open the training session
- There you have it!  Read through at your own pace, some of this will be new and some will probably be review for you! 

- NOTE: You might even want to save it to your iBooks account so you will have it indefinitely!

- ok, NOW you can may begin here: Intermediate iPad Training 

I will be identifying some of my favorite apps in later "Tech Tuesday" blog posts, but I will leave you with one today.  I am really digging TourWrist right now because it takes your iPad or iPhone and turns it into a viewfinder.  You can search anything from the London Bridge to a cafe in San Fransisco where you would like to eat brunch.  Once you find what you are looking for (say a hotel in New York) you simply check the "tour" out by moving your iPad or iPhone up, down, and around like a pair of glasses and you can see a 360 degree image of the place!  Try looking off a cliff!!! It's so trippy!

This Techie Teacher Recommends TourWrist for:

• Teachers!  You can take kids ANYWHERE with technology. Our district cut field trips out of its budget YEARS ago, but even then we could never take a kid to the Great Wall of China!
• People who are about to go on a vacation and want to check out hot spots, resorts, clubs, diners, hotels, etc.
• People who are interested in geography and landmarks.
• People who want to look silly moving their iPads or iPhones up, down, and around while waiting in the doctor's office.

This Techie Teacher does NOT Recommend TourWrist for:

• People who get motion sickness.

Main Downfall of the App (if any):

• Like most apps, it is still fairly new, so there aren't as many "tours" as I would like to see.  Yet keep TourWrist on your radar;  I am fairly certain it is going to do some amazing things very soon.
  

Please feel free to share your favorite apps with me as well.  Like I said before, technology is amazing in that the students can actually become the teachers and then learning can become the circular activity that I believe it was always designed to be.  I love learning, so PLEASE ... teach me! :)