Aurasma Part 2: Bulletin Board

Alrighty... so in my last post I showed you how awesome the Aurasma app is, and so today I want to show you how you can use it to create your own Augmented Reality Bulletin Board.

If you remember, the task I gave the 5th graders at Harrison Hill (and you if you were playing along at home) was:

• Draw a picture of something having to do with the Civil War. It could be a general, a battle, or any person who was a significant figure during the Civil War. 
• Record a short video of yourself talking about your picture and the significance it holds to the Civil War. 

In the video below, I walk you through the steps of taking that picture and video and putting them together to create one AMAZING "Aura" where your picture comes to life! It really is a pretty simple process, and I think you'll catch on quickly. In the video, I also show you how to create a simple login that you can share with your class so that all of your work can be shared under the same "Channel". This will make viewing of your students' projects much easier for people when they see your beautiful bulletin board displayed.

So now all you have to do is put up your students' work and let others enjoy! It is also a good idea to post instructions on how to view your bulletin board for those who may not be familiar with Aurasma. Here is an example of what that might look like:

Thanks again for checking out 54tech. Please subscribe if you haven't done so already and leave me any comments or questions that you might have. I hope you have a wonderful weekend!

Aurasma is Au-some!

Yes, I've heard of Aurasma for a few years now, but it wasn't until recently that I really took the time to dive into this app to see how great it is... This week's 54tech post is Part 1 of a two-part series showing how Aurasma can be used in your classroom. The video below is just a quick overview of how Aurasma works. 

With Aurasma you can simply make boring pictures come to life using Augmented Reality. This technology isn't exactly new, but is becoming increasingly popular. With Aurasma, you can create your own "Auras" that can be shared with everyone in your class or even around the world.

Check out the video and let me know what you think. I'm doing a pretty simple (yet very cool) project with some 5th Graders at Harrison Hill on the Civil War. 

Feel free to participate in the project if you'd like. All you need to do is create a picture on regular (non-digital-tree-wasting paper) and a short video of yourself talking about your picture and save that video to the Camera Roll on your iPad. Your picture doesn't even have to be about the Civil War if you don't want it to be. 

Next week, I'll show you how to take that picture you drew and the video you made and link them together so others can view your Aura (your own Augmented Reality) using the Aurasma app. What fun!!

I'm Back!

It has been wayyyyyy too long since my last post. Call it a case of Spring Fever combined with a lot of other stuff going on. At any rate, I'm back and ready to give you a few thing that I hope you'll enjoy.

First of all, one of the reasons for my extended absence from the Blogosphere was due to Spring Break. If you are looking for a beautiful place to go next year, let me highly recommend Anna Maria Island in Florida! We went with my folks and my sister's family and had a great time. Between the beach and the pool, there wasn't a whole lot of time to work on my blog :)

Here's the fam "chillin" in the hot tub.

Ok, back to reality... So just a couple things I thought I'd share with you that I found really cool recently. First of all, check out this awesome Venn Diagram that students in Shannon Harris' class created at Holland Elementary. They have been using both Kahoot and Socrative this year in her classroom and decided to compare and contrast the benefits of each of these amazing "clicker apps".

Such a great idea and the students did an excellent job of capturing the most important features of these apps. If you are not familiar with either Kahoot or Socrative, check out the links below... and if you'd ever like me to do a 54tech post about either of them, let me know in the comment section below!
Kahoot: https://getkahoot.com/
Socrative: http://www.socrative.com/

Here is the other thing I'd encourage you to check out... Once a month several of us have been doing a "Hangout" in the evening to discuss some of the things we've been learning about related to technology in education. Here is the latest installment from March:

These videos are typically about 20 minutes long but packed full of information, including ideas from teachers and coaches from around the district. If you would be interested in participating in one of these Hangouts, please let me know ASAP. We will be doing another one in the next week or so and would love for you to join us!

Well, that's all I've got for now. Look for another post by the end of the week. I've got an app that I'm really excited about diving a little deeper into and hope to have a new tutorial for you soon.

Don't forget to subscribe to my blog if you haven't done so already (top-left side of this page)... and as always, leave me a comment or question below if you so desire!

'Remind' Rocks!

I want to tell you today about a tool I recently saw a presentation on that I think EVERY teacher should use. It's called 'Remind'... now I had heard of it a few times over the past couple years (it was formerly called Remind 101) but it wasn't until recently that I saw it in action when one of our district's best 4th grade teachers, Derek Burgette, demonstrated it at one of our Technology Talks. I was blown away with how simple yet powerful it is.

In this 5-minute video, I'm going to cover the following things:

• Why you want need Remind as a teacher, principal, etc.
• Setting up an account on Remind (www.remind.com)
• How simple it is to have parents/students sign up
• Basic navigation of the site
• Ways you might use Remind

I hope you enjoy the video. Please leave a comment if you have a question or want to share other ways you've used Remind.

save a tree... go paperless! (or at least close to it)

For my first official 54tech post, I'd like to show you how you can take steps to becoming paperless. You'll see how simple it is to share a document with your class or another group of people using QR codes and/or a URL shortener. In this 5 minute video I'll walk you through the following steps:

• creating your document
• sharing your document so everyone can see it
• creating a QR code using qrstuff.com
• creating a short URL using bitly.com
• easy distribution for all-access

This video moves through the process pretty quickly, but feel free to pause it along the way so you can follow along and do it yourself!

I hope you found this video helpful. You can leave a comment below if you have any ideas, questions, or would like to see me cover something else next time. I'd love to hear from you! My goal is to do a new post at least once a week so check back soon. 

Thanks for stopping by and taking FIVE FOR TECH!

It's About Time...

...It's about time I started a blog. My wife blogs. I've blogged before. Coached golf- had a blog for my team. Taught 2nd grade-had a blog for my class. Taught 4th grade- had a blog for my class. We have a family blog that chronicles our journey through adoption and the lives of our four precious girls... But it's about time. About time I started a blog centered around the two things I spend the majority of my time with: Technology and Education. It's my job after all as an Elementary Technology Coordinator to help teachers in FWCS integrate those two enormous entities. So it's about time I started this blog.

A little background on me: I spent 8 years in the elementary classroom before taking the role that I am in now. I got into teaching because I love children and I love watching them learn new things. I also have had a strong interest in technology since I was a little kid. I'm pretty sure I got that from my dad. When this position became available, I couldn't have been more excited. My dream job! I might be a geek, but this job combined so many of my interests and gifts...

Here I am now, a couple years later, sitting in my office (cubicle) on a quiet Thursday afternoon. I think we hit another record low today. Yuck! I really do love my job, but in all honesty, I do miss the classroom. I miss interacting with the students. I miss seeing the joy on faces as they learn something new. Over the past couple years, I've learned so many new things about how to incorporate technology into education. I wish I would have had these tools and this knowledge back when I taught! But now my role is different, my role is to HELP TEACHERS realize the potentially AMAZING things they can do with technology. My hope is that this blog will serve as another way to help get that message out.

The title for this post is two-fold... It's also "about time" because your time as a teacher is limited. I get it- You're busy. We're all busy... you don't have the time to sift through the WWW to find a couple nuggets that you might use-let alone the time it will take to learn how to make it work. Well, that's where I come in. I want this blog to be your nuggets! I want to provide you with the coolest ideas, apps, web tools, etc. that are out there and do it in a format that is quick and easy.

The name of this blog is 54tech as in taking 5 minutes for Technology... because that's all it takes. In just 5 minutes you can learn something new and then use your incredible TEACHER BRAIN to figure out how you'll incorporate it in your classroom. I hope this blog also becomes a forum for others to share ideas or ask questions so that we can all learn from each other. I'll be doing lots of short tutorials, screencasts, and hands-on demonstrations to make learning something new as easy on you as possible.

Thanks for stopping by 54tech. Please be sure to subscribe so that you can be notified whenever there is a new post!