Augmented Reality (Aurasma)

One of my assignments this week was to read about augmented reality and how to use a free app named Aurasma. Wow, this class is really expanding my mind and teaching me a lot of new technology-based things. The most helpful reading I did was on this website: http://www.kleinspiration.com/2013/05/using-augmented-reality-via-aurasma-in.html It really broke it all down in easy to understand examples and explained words such as aura, trigger images, overlays, aurasma and augmented reality. It's all pretty neat and in really really simple terms it's basically where you have a picture (called your trigger image) that you apply another "level" to so that when people use the app, Aurasma, to focus on your image, an aura pops up and lets them see an overlay which is the thing that you applied to that trigger image. For example, if you had a picture of a book about the Titanic and then they used Aurasma to look at that picture, you could have an overlay of a video about the Titanic that would pop up to enhance the book picture. You could also use it in the classroom. For example, in my Science class I could have a picture of a volcano and then an overlay that has a short video of an exploding volcano. Or in a History class, I could have a picture of John F. Kennedy and then an overlay that comes up with the assassination of JFK. Imagine our textbooks having these types of experiences for the students? Wouldn't that just be so interactive and exciting for them? It's amazing what technology comes up with. I really enjoy playing around with this new stuff even though I do struggle with it sometimes!