Chromville and Write About This

(Posted a day late)
Tomorrow is day one of a New Jersey Education Association's Annual Teacher Convetion. It's amazing. It also means NJ schools have had a 3 day week. Like many schools my school also held conferences on these days giving students 1/2 days. This turned my 45 minute classes into 30 minute classes. What to do, what to do...

We are lucky to have be getting a more iPads for the school. It puts us at a number that allows each grade level to have about 10. So I decided to spend my short time showing students new apps. 

Chromville- free
http://chromville.com/

This us an augmented reality app. It has different lands whith different characters and chapters that tell a begin to tell a story. 

First you print the pages and the students color them. After the open the Chromville app, choose the world, and aim the iPad at the page they colored. The iPad then brings their coloring page to life/shows a 3D animation of their coloring page. 

Students can move the iPad around to see different angles, hear music, and take screen shots of what they are looking at.

This app was a huge hit!

Students took 2-3 pictures of their favorite angles and opened the next app.

Write About This- free and $3.99

This app provides a variety of different ways to get students writing.
Students can create writing portfolios with a picture of themselves or any image to represent them.
There are different categories for students to find a prompt and write about.  Each prompt has a image and matching prompt.  Students can choose a subject and a prompt, search for one, or get a prompt at random.  Teachers can create their own prompts.  Quick Write allows students to add their own image using the camera or from the camera roll and write about anything.
Writings can be saved to the camera roll for emailing and printing.
The free versions gives a preview of each section.

During my short period students used one of their 2-3 pictures from Chromville and wrote a quick story about the character.  Here is an example.

Aurasma and Augmented Reality

(I started this post 3 weeks ago, just after the NJ Teacher's Convention and am finally finishing it. Sorry for the delay.)

Augmented Reality while not new is really starting to come into the classroom.  I could not be more excited.  Whenever I can I try and use QR codes or create them for the teachers in my school to use and  this is the next step.  Watch this great Common Craft video that describes what Augmented Reality is: http://youtu.be/D-A1l4Jn6EY

Thanks to the NJEA Teacher's Convention last week I was able to see some things I had been researching in action.

Aurasma, http://www.aurasma.com

Aurasma's saying is "every image, object and even place can have its own Aura".   After downloading the app made available in both the Apple App Store and the Google Play Store, you hold your device up to something that is set to have an Aura and watch the screen.  The result may be simple, like an image, text, or link to a webpage comes up, BUT, it can be so much more.  You may see an 3D lifelike image, a video, or an interactive menu appear. Aurasma has created a video that shows a series of examples:

There are educators already using this in their classroom and I cannot wait to join them.

Uses for the classroom

1. A student created a poster and now they can add a layer in which they describe information in more detail.

2. Video tutorials of how to use apps

3. Video tutorials of practically anything.

4. Interactive classroom posters allow your students to see and hear word, word sounds, writing rules, proper grammar, and much more.

5. An interactive Word Wall is great for students to understand the meaning and spelling of words.  You can put the students in control create the videos that put the words in a sentence or provide the definition.

6. Animate a mathematical problem being solved. Post the trigger image to your website and students can review at home.

AR Flash Cards: http://arflashcards.com/

AR Flash Cards is a free app for the alphabet and $.99 for Space.  

The alphabet has 26 animals that come to life, 1 for each animal. (Included are also 6 dinosaurs.) Tap on each animal to hear the Letter and the name of the animal.

Students can interact with the animal to see it from different angles and take screenshots of what they are seeing.

First you print the flashcards in color, cut them out, and open the app.  Aim the camera at the cards and it looks the images below.  Students can move the card or iPad around to get different angles.

I brought this into you prek 3 and 4 year olds and Kindergarten as well.