Augmented Reality in the Classroom

Augmented Reality in the Classroom

Augmented Reality. AR, is used in the classroom to enhance a student's learning and increase engagement in the classroom setting.  I have found that the use of Augmented Reality can motivate, excite, and give equity of a lesson to the students. Here are a few ways I have encouraged my students and staff to incorporate AR into school activities.

Aurasma Projects:

I love Aurasmas ability to allow the teacher and or student to overlay a multimedia aspect on top of a selected target image. Because of this I have used aurasma in a variety of different ways throughout the year in and outside the walls of my classroom.

• Interactive Classroom\Lab Rules

• In class I find that over time the walls of my classroom become static. The pictures and classroom rules which seemed to be placed in the perfect place at the beginning of the year, become white noise as the months progress. Because of this I decided to allow students to create short videos which represent what the poster or rule is trying to convey. These short videos can be something as simple as a motivational pep talk from one student to another, or a “do and don’t” set of rules for the laboratory setting. I take these student created videos and overlay them with Aurasma on to the posters on the classroom wall. Throughout the year i change the videos based on student submission, creating a changing classroom environment throughout the year. With this process I have student coming into my class at lunch with their Aurasma phone app to see if the posters have been changed.

• AR Digital Yearbook

• A few years back I noticed that our student yearbook team had a lot of free time in class once the yearbook went off to the publisher. This left one to two months of free time for the normally busy crew. As an Idea I introduced our team and their advisor, Sheryl Milhous, to the idea of “Aurasmatizing” our yearbook. I explained that since the yearbook was already done we can get with our videography team and match already made videos to their pictures in the yearbook. After a short explanation the team was off and running, “Aurasmatizing” as many pictures they could. The result was an amazing journey, in both print and digital, our our students amazing year. It was such a success that we brought back the “Aurasmatized” for our most recent yearbook. The yearbook advisor, Mrs. Milhous said “This makes our yearbook unique and special, as well, because students love connecting technology and digital devices to everything around them. I realized that using Aurasma helps get even more students “in” the yearbook.  While a photo may feature one, two, or even a group of, students, the video covers several seconds of the event or the context of the photo, and shows even more student faces as they enjoy that moment of the school year experience.”

• AR Digital Sports Program

• Last year after seeing that the Alta Sierra yearbook had be augmented with Aurasma, our High School (Buchanan High School) asked if I could create an Augmented sports program for their football games. I assured them it could be done with some help and planning in advance. We got together and planned to get our Senior Football players to do a short 1 minute interview on the same days they were getting their team and individual photos taken. Doing the photos and interviews on the same day ensured the photos would transition well into the videos. We asked the seniors to tell us about their position, where they were headed to college, and any message they wanted to tell their parents and/or coaches. Once this was completed I “Aurasmatized” the senior photos with their one minute interview to allow the parents and fans to see their favorite athletes come to life. We also augmented our program dedication page, producing a short video on the life and accomplishments of our districts founder Dr. Floyd “Doc” Buchanan.

• Back to School Digital Gallery Walk

• Last year one of my teachers, Brooke Valenzuela, mentioned to me that she wanted to do something amazing for her parents for open house. She wanted to have her parents experience her students work rather than just seeing it. After a few discussions, the idea of using Aurasma to bring the work to life was decided on. Mrs. Valenzuela had her students create a video of their work, the experience of creating it, and why they were proud of it. Once the video was created they used a picture of their work as a “Target” image, then overlaid their video on top of their work. The night of open house her parents took a digital gallery walk through their students work, experience their work first hand in their student’s own words. After the night was over Mrs. Valenzuela said “Both the students and their parents were amazed with how the auras worked. They loved being able to hover their smartphones over the pictures and see them come to life.  It was a really unique and memorable showcase of all the students work.”

• Personal Tutor at Home

• Early on in my teaching career, I used to handout paper worksheet to assess my students growth on a particular topic. A problem with this practice was what I asked of those kids who did not finish the work in class. I told them that if they did not finish the worksheet in class it would have to be finished at home as homework. Looking back I know this was not a good practice because one of the many reasons the students did not finish the work in class was because they didn’t know how to do the work in the first place. If they didn’t understand the work while in class, why did I expect them finish and understand the work at home. As a remedy to this problem I would video myself using a DocCam, completing and explaining how to successfully complete the various problems asked in the worksheet. I then used the worksheet as a trigger and overlaid the recorded help video onto the worksheet in Aurasma. Now when my students got stuck on a portion of the worksheet, they would use their aurasma app to a personal step by step guide on how to complete the problems. I became a digital on demand tutor.

• Science Fair AR

• This past year we toyed with the idea of augmenting our students science fair boards for our county and state science fair participants. We decided it would be a good idea to have our students record and document the trials, experiment, and data explanations. On the board our students placed pictures in the necessary locations and augmented them with their hypothesis, data/graph explanations, and results. The result was a board they dug deeper into the results than a normal type and printed project would have done. This coming year we will dig deeper into how AR can transform our boards like no board has ever been put together.

• Student created Book Review AR videos

• Our library has lots of posters to encourage kids to read. These poster were like movie posters to me, which got me thinking about movie trailers and movie reviews. I thought, wouldn’t it be great if a student could see a review of the book by a student or a trailer of the book to decided if they should read it or not? So we decided to ask students to record reviews, which we would then Augment over the poster so students would be able to listen to the advice of one of their fellow students about the book. Once the poster was taken down, the poster was removed as the trigger image of the review and replaced by the book cover image. This way over time our books will have more and more reviews attached to them right off the shells. This coming year I plan on working with our teacher librarian to introduce green screen videos to see if we can get students to create creative trailers for the books as well.

Elements 4D

• AR Element Bonding Lab

• Elements 4D is an AR app from Daqri that brings elemental blocks to life right in the hands of the students. Because of the power this app has to inspire awe and amazement in my students eyes, I was trying to figure out a way to convert its use from a demonstration into an actual lab. After trial and error I decided to put together a bonding lab that incorporated covalent/ionic bonding, equation balancing, and the students favorite digital device. I asked my students the night before to download the Element 4D app from the play/app store while they were at home. When they came in I randomly handed out the the element block templates, there are six different templates with six different elements on each one, to each of my students printed on card stock. I asked my students to lightly shade in the elements which would have a positive ionic charge one color and also shade in the elements that would have a negative ionic charge another color. Student would then walk the classroom with their blocks placing them next to another students block. If the elements were able to bond the app would transform them into the compound they would create in real life along with the compounds balanced equation. For example, if a student had the element sodium (Na+) and touched it with another student with the element chlorine (Cl-) they would see that it makes the compound salt (NaCl). The student would record their bonding results on their lab sheet, and then find another element to bond with. Soon the students started to see that elements with opposite ionic charges formed ionic bonds. This was a fun and exciting lab for both my students and myself.

Quiver

• About me ARt

• On the opening week of class I like to get to know my students through a little art project called :About Me Art. In this project my students would be given a blank piece of paper and asked to draw five things that represent them. I thought it would be fun to use this project as a way to introduce my students to augmented reality by instead of handing them blank paper I gave them a choice of a Quiver Flag, Starbucks cup or Dot Day target. In the targets blank space they would draw in color five things that represented them. For the flag I said to imagine that they were a country, what five things would represent you as a country. For the Starbucks cup I said what if instead of your name the barista had to list five things that represent you and that what they would call out to give you your drink. My students had a blast finding the quiver app and watching their drawings come to life. What great ARt!

Hacking Remind

Ok, before you start reading let me let you in on the idea of hacking and educational tool. I am not referring to the tactic of breaking into a digital location and lurking around. I would never want any of my favorite edu-tools to be hacked by you or anyone. When I use the work "Hack" here I am referring to a practice of turning the tool on its head, and begin utilizing it in a way that it was not original attended. I believe ALL of our educational tools can and should be "Hacked" in this fashion to best benefit our kids each and every year. Below I will layout some of the ways I have used remind in the past to increase student engagement even when they are not in my class.

Lunch Time Scramble

I love keeping my student on their toes, both in and outside my classroom. Because of this I am know to throw out lunchtime questions via remind to keep my students thinking. These questions can be as simple as "What is Newtons 3rd Law" or as complicated as "What is the balance equation of Photosynthesis?" Regardless, I throw these questions out to my students during lunchtime. My students are instructed that if they know the answer and are the first to write the correct answer on the board in my room, they will win a prize. It is hilarious to see the door burst open with 5 to 10 students rushing to the board to answer a science question with a white board pen in one hand and a burrito in the other. 

Lunch Time Photo Scavenger Hunt

No that remind allows students to message you back via the remind app, scavenger hunts are so much fun. At Lunch I will ask my students: "Science is all around us, look around. Try and find any instances of Newtons 1st, 2nd, and 3rd law in action right now. Take a picture and tell me how it represents one of the three laws. Best picture and description wins a prize." It is great to see our lunchtime photo journalists out in the field surveying the field of their fellow students trying to find science in action.

Vacation Photo Chasin': Random Acts of Science

Just because our students are on vacation doesn't mean they have to be away from learning with us. Charge your student to think back on what they have learned so far and take pictures during their vacation and post them through the remind messaging feature in the remind app. Its fun for the students to see science in their favorite vacation spot, and fun for you to get random acts of science from your students over vacation. And why just do this over vacation? Encourage Random Acts of Science throughout the whole year!!!

 I do not claim to be the only educator in the world utilizing Remind in the hacked fashions listed above, but I had not yet seen a blog post listing these learning opportunities. If you are an educator who uses remind as told in the descriptions above AWESOME! Let me know and share out with the community. If you use remind in a way I have not listed PLEASE share out and let us know, I will update this post with any new ideas and be sure to link your info along with the addition. Now Lets Get Hacking!!!

Pokemon Go Edu

I have seen a lot of blog posts and ideas about using Pokemon go in the educational setting, but many of the ideas have to do with conversation starters or a discussion on Augmented Reality or GPS. I think all of these are great examples of ways to bring in the phenomena into the classroom, but how can we actually utilize the platform and gaming aspect of PokemonGo during an actual lesson., The following are a list of my thoughts on how I can see an actual, practical, and factual way of using Pokemon Go in the classroom or Edu setting.

This of course is a fantastic way to answer the question on how technology and PE can be brought together. I am a huge fan of competitive scavenger hunts and have always believed technology could be used to add a digital component to an already competitive and gamified subject. I could see Pokemon Go being utilized as a tool to create a variety of activities to be run through PE.Now I am by no means a Pokemon Go expert so I would love to hear back whether these ideas are practical or impractical to be completed in a class period.

Also before I run down my ideas let me ask you who you think your Poke' experts will be. Will it be your star athletes? Maybe, but probably not. Most likely it will be your introverted students who would rather be in science class than PE. Wouldn't it be a phenomenal experience for you and the students to see those students who reluctantly follow in PE, become Team captains to train their hand selected group of Pokemon catchers? 

• PokeTrap Dash: I know that use of Poke' traps/lure  in the game are used to entice a Pokemon to head to the trap. How about utilizing this feature to allow teams to place traps all over the campus. Here would be the rules:
• Each group will have one leader with the Pokemon Go App at his disposal. His team will have 5 flags, of the teams color, at their disposal. 
• Each team will need to place 5 traps/lures around campus. Each trap must be placed at least 50 yards apart for their own and other teams traps. 
• The team will need to use the App to identify their next trap location and RUN to their next location before another team puts down their trap before another group does.
• After the team finishes they must run through the designated finish line.
• Once completed, each teams distances are vetted by other teams to ensure the 50 yard rule was obeyed.
• In this fashion on a few students, the captains, would need to being out a digital device.

• Pokemon Go (non-digital): I can see some reluctant PE teachers worried about students bringing an electronic device outside. Questions like "What if a kid loses it?" or "What if he drops it and I'm responsible?" Both are valid points, so why not create a non-digital form of this game. I could see using Hula Hoops as Poke stations, and small foam balls used by the participants to catch Pokemons. You could separate teams and designate students as Pokemon to be captured. You could use a large field to create an arena with possible areas of where a Pokemon will appear. Students as Pokemon can jump in a Hula hoop full of flags, if he stands in the hula hoop for longer than 10 sec without being tagged by the foam balls he grabs a flag and then runs out of the hoop. If you "catch" the Pokemon he joins your team and his flags get added to your group pints. This way the "Fastest" Pokemon Students end up collective more flags and become more valuable to the team who catches him. Think of this as a combination or capture the flag, freeze-tag, and dodge ball. 

• Pokemon Go Edu Expeditions: Now I know this does not exist, YET, but wouldn't it be fun if the creators of Pokemon Go created an Edu version where a teacher could place Pokemon's around campus and had their student run to each new character they find. This would allow teachers to create isolated games for their students and reset the characters or replace each character after each game is over. The instructor could see the whereabouts of each group via a dashboard view ala Google Expeditions.

• Pokemon Go Scavenger Hunts: Have the students the first few days of school travel around campus on a scavenger hunts to discover all the campus buildings and meet the support staff of each building. The could get to the building and screen shot that they are there. Bonus point if you capture and screenshot a Pokemon Character. 

No as I have said above, I am NOT a Pokemon Go expert and I have only casually played the game, so if there are suggestions on how to make the above work OR you have a better way to utilize this app in an Edu setting PLEASE let me know. I would love to revise and add to our Pokemon Go Edu list!!.

The "Inception" model of differentiation using Nearpod

In my class I have had great success in utilizing Google Classroom as our mission control. For this reason everyone of my students come right into class, get out their BYOD (Bring Your Own Device), log into their GAFE (Google Apps For Education) account and head right to Google Classroom to see what we have on the mission agenda. In this analogy of Google Classroom being mission control, all of our activities can be considered missions, and in a mission you need a powerful ship to get you there. For me one of the most powerful ships I have many in my dock, is Nearpod. With Nearpod I am a Captain with complete control of the mission, using the ship to help steer my crew (students) though a great expedition of discovery. 

Nearpod is a great ship for discovery because of the extensive student interaction capabilities and the malleability of the teacher (captain) to take the lesson in any direction based on student interest. With the included "on the fly" features within the Nearpod console, a teacher can take control of the mission and send the students to a selected website, where students can gather more information on the topic being explored. After a selected amount of time a the teacher can bring all the students back into the mission, leaving no man behind, and discuss what was discovered on the website. This discussion can be completed though a short answer question posed trough the Nearpod platform, through a pair share with group members, or both. The biggest benefit to this "on the fly" capability is that the teacher sends the students to the website and brings them all back with the push of a button. This prevents any student from hanging back on the website and missing out in the class discussion. The ability to prevent leaving anyone behind is a huge benefit to the class, the teacher, and the discussion.

The true power of Nearpod comes when you begin to utilize the "Inception" model of Nearpod. I have labeled this the "Inception" model because of the ability of the teacher to send students on a mission within the mission in the Nearpod console. So what is the "Inception" model and what is its benefit in the classroom. Well, lets go back to analogy of Nearpod being a ship, the lesson is the mission, the teacher is the captain, and the students are the crew. Lets say that in the middle of a mission our captain notices our crew does not have all the necessary information or tools to successfully complete a mission. Does the captain move along anyway and hope all the crew will successfully complete the mission, or will he pause the mission to train the staff in ways that will give them a better chance to complete the mission. This is DIFFERENTIATION at its best! Instantly having a way to enhance the learning opportunities of those students who are falling behind, and enhancing the learning opportunities who learned the information the first time. 

The get the most out of the "Inception" model you will have to plan ahead by creating three Nearpods for your students for each lesson. You will need to create the class lesson which everyone participates, a smaller Nearpod with a reteach of important concepts for those students who do not understand the material the first time, and finally another smaller Nearpod with higher level explanation of the material for those student who DO get it the first time. To execute the "Inception" split you just need to include one slide with the following text "If you understand the material so far please input the following code on the next slide: ######. If you DO NOT understand the material so far please input the following code on the next slide: ######"

This split will help to those who do not understand the material the first time, while enhancing the instruction for those who did understand the material the first time. After the students have worked through these Nearpod lessons within the Nearpod lesson, the teacher with a simple click of a button on the Nearpod dashboard, can bring ALL the students back together. The students now have a better chance of understanding the lesson now all to the end. The mission now has a greater chance at succeeding. 

Incorporate VR Field Trips and Explorations into your Formative Assignments!!

Virtual Reality (VR) is all the rage right now, but did you know you can easily incorporate it into your everyday Formative Assignments? Let's take a government class for example, how do you teach “How a bill becomes a law?” Maybe a School House Rocks song or a Crash Course Government Video off YouTube, Which are both great by the way. But also why not TAKE them to see our nation's capital where it all happens! Well a real trip is out of the question, and budget, but a VR trip is easy to use in a Formative assignment.

You can do this all in three easy steps:

1) Go to the website: www.360cities.net, and look up the destination you want to go to. Click on your destination.

2) Once in your destination VR image go to the upper right and click on the “link icon”, an embed window screen will open up, then select copy, this will copy your HTML embed code. Do not worry, you don't need to know how to code, just copy and paste. View the steps above in animated gif below:

3) Now all you have to do is begin editing your formative document. Use the “Add Content” green button Then Choose “Add Text”. The first item choice in this tool is the embed button which looks like this “<>”. Click it and the text block will create a black screen. Click on the screen then “Paste” the embed code in this spot. Click on the “<>” embed button one more time and whala, you now have a VR tour of your location!!! View the animated gif below:

Here is a completed example for you to use )

goformative.com/code/accept/WHUJ267

Ziteboard a new way to collaborate using sketchnoting.

I love it when I come across a new tool that seem simple but has a chance to make a huge impact on education. Yesterday a friend of mine, Ed Campos, showed me a new chrome extension called Ziteboard. In simplicity it is a digital whiteboard which can be shared to a group through an email or a link. In the grander scale it has the chance to transform your classroom  by increasing collaboration on simple ideas and discussions like no other tool I have seen. By design, Ziteboard is an easy to use chrome extension (found HERE) which allows you to sign in directly with your pre-existing Google account. The extension itself gives you a clean white canvas, a simple pencil drawing tool, eraser tool, and undo button. The power of Ziteboard is not simply in its whiteboard function, but in its Prezi like format allowing users to zoom in and out of the canvas at will, giving you an unbounded space to collaborate and create on any subject and topic.

This unbounded canvas allows for you the educator or presenter to offer your students, staff, and participants a new way to take notes, REAL TIME COLLABORATIVE SKETCHNOTING! If you have not seen the power and creativity of sketchnoting please see the examples below and please read blogs by Kathy Schrock HERE and Matt Miller HERE. Sketchnoting allows your students to visualize their learning and create a digital mind map of their understanding of the topic or subject being taught.  Normally sketchnoting is a personal exercise, but with Ziteboard you open your ideas to others, allowing them to be built upon or extended by other participants. Ideas can be connected togethers and a bigger picture of the topic can take root.

Sketchnote by Doug Neil

I am only in the fantasy phases of using this tool, but I cannot wait to see if it can be used in a class of 8th graders and college students the same way. I envision this tool being used not only as a note taking tool, but also as a visual backchannel for my classes to share collaborate and create at any moment during class. I have big ideas planned for such a little tool!!

How Kahoot! helped me start and edtech explosion!

As an edtech leader on my campus I am always traveling and searching for the newest and best tools to use in my classroom. About a year and a half ago I came across a great little site called Kahoot!. The colors were bright, the site looked friendly, so I decided to investigate what this company was all about. What I discovered could only be described as EduFUN! The site and its game-like assessments were reminiscent of my favorite time sucking app, Trivia Crack. I have for years been playing "Trivia Crack" with my students to build relationships and have them learn at the same time. I had now found a way to bring the thrill of "Trivia Crack" into the classroom to replace my modern pen and paper assessments. I WAS HOOKED!

Being the tech guy on my campus, and an overly excited person, I went around my campus room to room praising the new web app Kahoot! as the next big thing in our classroom. I was awestruck when I discovered my fellow teachers were not as enthusiastic about my discovery as I was. I told them how fun it was to use and how easy the "Game/Quiz" was to make, but all I got was a shrug and a nod. As I later found out, I was known around campus as the "Too much of a Tech Guy" and the perception was whatever I said was easy, must still be complicated to the average teacher. Nothing I could say would goad any teacher into trying my new found discovery. 

I started to send out invitations to my fellow teachers, "Come one, come all, see the amazing Marquez and his Amazing students learning and having fun all at the same time!". No takers. Hmmm, what to do? I brought in my computer in to our PLC (Planed Learning Community) meetings to have them play one of my assessments, but there was no time for silly games when there is real data to be gone over. Hmmm, what to do? Finally, I went to a fellow teacher who never, I mean never used technology in his class. I sat him down a made him an offer he could not refuse "Please let me make you an assessment in Kahoot! for you to give in class. I will do all the work. I will collect and analyze all the data. I will even cover your duty for a whole week. Please, please, please, just try the Kahhot!" Reluctantly the teacher took me up on the deal. He tried the Kahoot! and all HELL-O technology broke out. The kids were hooked, and they could not stop talking about the quiz they just took and the fun they just had taking it.

Soon the word of Kahhot! spread across campus like a wild fire. Students were asking to be assessed almost everyday! Teachers across campus heard the "No Tech" teacher was using it, so it must be EASY to use. Soon every classroom was a Kahoot! classroom. Soon teachers were asking for more technology in the classroom. Soon teachers were willing to try all the tools I had been building up in my EdTech toolbox. Soon our classrooms became Google Classrooms, and our PowerPoints became Nearpod's, our videos became Zaption's, and our worksheets became Formative's. It was a tech revolution that is just now gearing us up to be a completely 1:1 campus. Kahoot! was the spark that ignited our educational firestorm. Thank you Kahoot! for being my match to start an explosion!!!

How Formative makes worksheets\assignments WORK again!

Formative Assessment tools are only useful if they are effective. How is effectiveness measured? Two folds:

1. The tools must be familiar in feel and easy to use for the teacher.
2. Yield instant results and feedback for the students.

The Problem with Worksheets

In the classroom, a worksheet is given to students to assess if they have grasped or understood a particular topic or concept learned in class. As a teacher, it is absolutely essential to assess a student after instruction to validate whether learning has in fact taken place. The problem with worksheets is the turnaround time from completion to comments to correction. With a traditional worksheet the turnaround time for a teacher with 120 students can be a week or even more. With so much time passing the effectiveness of the lesson and the correctness of the comments truly does not work for the student. Nor does it work for the teacher, who is is not given enough information as to which topics need to be readdressed for clarity.  Due to the limitations of worksheets to give meaningful feedback in a timely manner, they are no longer a meaningful form of student assessment in the classroom.  

So how can we make worksheets work again?

So how can we make worksheet work again? Worksheets will only work if teachers can, in real time, inspect student answers coming in. By inspecting these answers teachers can dramatically visualize if their instruction has truly translated into understanding. If the instructor notices a trend in the class answering the questions incorrectly, they can instantly direct the class towards what they are doing wrong and redirect them towards how to make their responses more meaningful. This redirect leads to the students making a correction to their answer to fully understand the material being taught. This process of “Inspection, Redirection, and Correction” truly brings meaning back to the worksheet, making the web based tool Formative an effective and invaluable tool for today's 21st century educational setting.

Formative turns “good” students into “GREAT” students.

As stated above, the only way a worksheet can be used in a meaningful way is if it allows the teacher and students to Inspect their answers, redirect their focus, and correct their mistakes instantly.The answer to the worksheet is Formative, which allows teachers to create interactive digital worksheets from scratch or utilize existing files already found on their computer or the internet. Through Formative’s innovative platform the teacher/student relationship has truly become a symbiotic relationship to acheive greatness from every lesson. This is realized in three very easy to see ways:

1) Teachers can see a student’s answers populate in real time so they can see if learning has actually taken place. If students are answering the questions incorrectly the teacher can redirect the class and reteach the topic, which Formative has shown was not truly understood.

 

2) The instant feedback teachers receive from students helps to demonstrate to the class the difference between an unacceptable, good, and great answer. This allows the teacher to push students to always be continuously working towards being GREAT.

3) Allowing students to view the difference between good and great answers allows students to redirect their attention towards what the teachers is truly asking from them and elevate their responses to a truly meaningful level. The redirection and correction can take place in a whole group discussion. The teacher can use real time answers from the class to show true examples of unacceptable, good and great work. The instructor can easily zoom in on any student's answer and instigate a meaningful class discussion on what needs to be changed in an answer to turn a good answer into a great answer. An real world example of this can be seen HERE.

The power of Formative allows for the instant inspection of student learning, instant redirection of teachers lessons, and elevates the correctness of student understanding. Formative helps us teachers understand that we no longer have to be complacent and accept just good work from our students. Now we the teachers have the power to expect great work and instantly model what that greatness should look like in real time instruction. Finally we have a formative assessment tool that works. Formative has truly made worksheets WORK again.