Aurasma in the learning commons

I keep hearing how AR could be the next big thing in education.  I also hear people who say they have no clue what it is - other than for Pokémon Go!  Today I worked with a friend in my district who runs the Learning Commons in a High School on some AR and thought I would share.

Essentially she wanted to create videos students could view when they had question around the learning commons.  Videos would include instructions around how to load money onto their accounts, how to use the photocopier, how to access Overdrive, etc.  (Note: We both know that she could have certainly done this with a simple QR code, but she wanted to play with AR, so this was the path we chose.)

We decided, based on the work in another LC in the district, to use Aurasma.

Auramas is an Augmented Reality tool which uses a device's camera to recognize real world images and then overlay media on top of them in the form of animations, videos, 3D models and web pages. It is available on desktops, iOS and Android devices.

To achieve our goal, we first made little signs that we would hang up around the Learning Commons.  We took a screen shot of each slide and saved them locally to our computer.  These would become our triggers.

Scan me in Aurasma!!

Next, we made videos which became our overlays.  I used (the amazing tool) Camtasia but moving forward we will be using the Screencastify Chrome Extension to make the videos.  Again, we saved locally to our computer.

Then, we used the Aurasma Studio to create the Auras (that's what it is called when you link the picture and the video).  This video shows how:

In our final step we were stuck.  We could not see the auras I created in my account on her device.  Turns out, you need to follow someone to see the aura.  Sure enough...as soon as she followed me...there is was.  Want to check it out?  Download the app, follow "virtualgiff" and scan the picture above.

How do you use AR in eduction?