"APPSMASHEANDO": PUPPET PALS AND AURASMA

I realized I was doing "appsmashing" ( combining two or more apps in one activity) when I went to iPad summit in Boston in November 2013. Until then, I thought it was just playing with apps. But the plain truth is that combining apps to make a project is just a natural process when the goal is the project and not the technology. My students have been creating stories based on a leaf animal. Some chose to write in English, others chose to write it in Spanish. Then they created a digital version of the story using the Puppet Pals app. Their stories were displayed on a bulletin board but I wanted to share those digital stories with parents in the conferences, and here is where Augmented Reality comes to play. 

 We used Aurasma to create the AR. It was much easier than they thought it would be. The first thing they needed to create was the "overlay" and it was already done: the videos with the stories. They just needed then the trigger image. In this case, they just took a picture of their art . Therefore, just by putting the iPad facing the picture, the video with the puppet pals would come up. It took only one example and then they just kept creating more and more auras by themselves. They were so "hooked" that even demanded for instructions from edmodo to be able to recall from home. This is the tutorial I created for them in Spanish.

The most intriguing part is sharing the "aura" having only one account. I created a classroom with a common password within my account. I think it is the easiest way and students do not need to create their own accounts ( they are only grade 3/4). 

Parents were surprised when they were waiting outside of the classroom for the conferences and checking that their children's stories came to life. 

What I really like about aurasma is that I feel that this is only the beginning and that the possibilities are endless. Now I only have a question...what am I going to do for the next conferences that surprises even more .....

UPDATE: I have an important update about AURASMA. I just found out that when you have a video playing, if you double tap the screen, the video keeps going on although you move it away from the trigger image. This feature is really handy when it comes by having the image on a wall.