Thursday, October 31, 2013

Aurasma bulletin board



I was in charge of the hallway bulletin board for October. It funny to only have one bulletin board that I get access to once in the year, but I don't have time for anything more.  I really had only  one writing sample that was good enough from the kids to use early in the month.  It's still so early in the year. 
We read Growing Up Where Jesus Lived, which is an abeka book leftover from the old series.  I shared last month bit about having a end of reading celebration where we dressed up in bible costumes and tasted foods like olives, sheep milk cheese and figs. 


The kids wrote lovely personal narratives from the point of view of a child growing up in Jesus's time.  They were really pretty good, some sharing about the food they ate, clothes they wore, chores they had to do, what they did for fun, how they celebrated holidays, etc.


So, the coolest thing though is adding Aurasma to make the bulletin board interactive.  I took video of five of the students reading their papers in their costumes.   Pictures of the kids in their costumes are linked through the app Aurasma so when you hold a mobile device over the pictures (while being logged into Aurasma), the video plays right over the picture as if the picture has come to life.  It's sort of Harry Potter.  I've been playing around with Aurasma since the summer.  The potential for use in the classroom is immense.  This is the first time I've used it for school, but I have other ideas for other projects.

Aurasma is a free app and after creating a quick and easy (and free) account, you can create your own auras and follow other creators.  It does take a bit of practice but after that it is easy to use. This board was up during parent conference and I  was excited to show it to the parents.

Bee helped me create the video.  It always funny to hear your own voice on video.

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