This episode of the 10-Minute Teacher interviews instructional design expert Dr. Tim Green about Aurasma and Augmented reality in the classroom.
See the show notes here: Aurasma and Augmented Reality in the Classroom
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[Recording starts 0:00:00]
“How cool would it be if you had a pair of glasses that you could look at a student and those glasses could look at the face and automatically bring up, in real-time, data about your student?”
The Ten-minute Teacher podcast with Vicki Davis. Every week day you’ll learn powerful practical ways to be a more remarkable teacher today.
VICKI: So let’s talk about augmented reality and designing it into our instruction. A few weeks back we had Steven Anderson https://www.coolcatteacher.com/augmented-reality-virtual-reality-classroom/ talking about augmented reality/virtual reality. But today we want to get kind of practical. So we have instructional design expert, Dr. Tim Green @theedtechdoctor with us. Tim, how are you seeing people design augmented reality into their lesson plan?
TIM: First of all, I’m going to say hi, thanks Vicki for having me on your show, I appreciate it. So in the classroom that I go and see and even in my own, play around with the tools for augmented reality, one of the favorite apps I see for teachers is Aurasma. And Aurasma https://www.aurasma.com/ , I see it used a lot on iPads, so iOS devices. And I see two major ways. I see teachers using it for things like open house where parents come in and they could if they have the app and they can click on different things within the room and get explanations of it. But the other one I see is, which I see a lot of potential for are students using it to show what they know.
So they’re not just consuming content, but they’re creating it and they’re using Aurasma to – let’s say they designed a report, so it’s text-based or it’s imagine-based, they will actually us the app, they’ll create media, it could be Garage Band, it could be a number of media creation apps. But then they will create what’s called an aura in Aurasma https://aurasma.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/205584109-Creating-Auras-in-the-Aurasma-appso when someone uses the app to look at part of that project that they created, some type of media will play.
[00:02:00]
And I’ve seen it where students have audio where they’re talking about their project, it’s actually a video that’s playing it can pop up imagines they’ve created. So that’s one of the things that I see in the classroom that I think has quite a bit of promise.
VICKI: So how old are the kids that you’re seeing create these Aurasma auras?
TIM: I have seen kindergarteners create it, I have even had my master’s students in educational technology create it. So I have seen a wide range of students use this tool.
VICKI: Okay. So what’s the response? When you put on your instructional design, hat, what value is being added by having students use Aurasma? Some technology is so hard to use, it’s kind of like why use it? But I’ve used Aurasma actually quite some time ago, it’s been around for quite a while and I’ve found it’s not that hard to use. But do you find it difficult?
TIM: No, I don’t think so. It’s always easy to say something is not difficult when you can use it? But, no, I think it’s a pretty easy process to go through, I think one of the most difficult things to do within Aurasma is actually, one you create what’s called an Aura, using the app to – you know, when you create something and you put the app over it, the media plays for you, is deciding whether that’s public or you have it on your own channel. I mean, it’s with a lot of media we share is how are you going to access it? Who has access to it? That typically is the most difficult part.
[00:04:00]
I mean, the steps to it, not out of this world and I think once you step through it once or twice with your students they get the process. And Aurasma has some great tutorials about it and there’s a lot of other tutorials out there about how to do it. But it’s not an extremely difficult process to go through.
VICKI: Okay. But we’ve started with Aurasma and that’s awesome.
TIM: Right.
VICKI: So it seems like there’s so much more that could be done with augmented reality in the classroom. And as you put on your visionary hat, where do you think this is going to take us, in your wildest dreams?
TIM: So in my wildest dreams I see a lot of potential, especially if you think about augmented reality and how it’s being used in business and industry. http://www.hongkiat.com/blog/augmented-reality-smart-glasses/ They have those glasses that you walk around the business they’re manufacturing and they have all the information that they can just pop up at an instance. They have this information and as they’re looking at a part, they have data that talks about that part and they can do different things right here.
So if we take kind of a cue from the business and industry world, they’re using virtual reality. A lot with if you think about Google Glass, how that was, there’s several companies that have these technologies where employees can walk around and have access to data that’s right there in their environment. https://developers.google.com/glass/distribute/glass-at-workSo it’s almost like bringing that computer right there but they’re actually looking at the real world and getting data at the same time. I look at it from a teacher perspective, how cool would it be if you had a pair of glasses that you could look at a student and those glasses could look at the face and automatically bring up, in real-time, data about your student, and having that just-in-time instruction of that person – that personalized data about that student.
Or even let’s say you have a substitute teacher come into the classroom, hand out teacher [pair of glasses] and he or she knows everyone’s name, information about those kids and where they need to be when and all at a touch of maybe a swipe, maybe a gesturing on your figure or you could swipe and manipulate data and have it available to your right there.
[00:06:00]
That’s one way that excites me and that technology exists right now whether it goes in that direction or not is another question. But that technology exists, how cool would that be?
VICKI: That would you be awesome, of course, for me since it’s so much about relationships. I would even like things like, you know, what were the stats in the baseball game yesterday or how soon is their birthday or is there something big going on in their life? If I could pull other data in that’s more relational as well as they bombed a test yesterday. It’s like the whole thing because I would love to know what to ask.
TIM: I agree with you. And think about it this way too. I’ve been using IBM Watson https://www.ibm.com/watson/ at my university, we have subscription to it. One of the things that you can do in IBM Watson is its natural language. So if you’re talking to a student, it can recognize – and there’s Microsoft’s doing this too with their software https://www.microsoft.com/cognitive-services/en-us/emotion-apiwhere you can recognize facial expressions. And so as you’re talking to a student you can see how a student is feeling or the computer can look and see, “Hey, maybe you may want to that student right there” because it’s picking up a sense of how that student is feeling.
You can use all of these tools together to – like you said – have that personal relationship and catch the things and clue you in on, “Hey, last week something happened to this student, do you remember that?” Like you said, I love the idea of the birthday, “Hey, birthday is coming up tomorrow.” All this information that’s there. So I know it seems a little futuristic but how cool would that be?
VICKI: Well, you know, and the teachers who have so many students. I have a lot and it does take me a week or so to learn everybody’s name. But I think of the teachers how truly have 500 or 600 students because they just go through.
[00:08:00]
I mean, cows give more milk if they have a name. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/earth/agriculture/farming/4358115/Cows-with-names-produce-more-milk-scientists-say.htmlSo something about biology is we want out names to be said, you know?
TIM: Exactly. I look at it futuristically, how cool would that be? As far as students, I mean, how great would it be if you could create as an instructor – and you could do this now, of course, with Aurasma. But how cool if your students had it and if they went to an assignment or they went to some place in the room and instructions were already there? They could pop up the instructions and have some just-in-time instruction about what to do? If you have centers and you pop it up and here’s what you need to do, the teachers comes on and says, “Hey, here’s what you guys need to do.” And it’s just there on-demand. I love that idea.
VICKI: Okay. Teachers, so we’ve had a lot to think about. Remember that augmented reality takes the real world and it puts data in the internet and all these resources on top of it. And here now, I definitely would expose your students to augmented reality through a tool like Aurasma but also be thinking about and envision with your kids. You know, where is this heading because so many exciting things are getting ready to happen?
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Thank you for listening to the Ten-minute Teacher Podcast. You can download the show notes and see the archive at coolcatteacher.com/podcast. Never stop learning.
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[Transcription created by tranzify.com. Some additional editing has been done to add grammatical, spelling, and punctuation errors. Every attempt has been made to correct spelling. For permissions, please email lisa@coolcatteacher.com]
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