Creating successful twenty-first century creative leaders is no easy task. Artists, designers, makers, and creatives of the current and future world need not only understand the traditional methods of art, design, and media technology but also, the newest emerging apps, social media, and methods of designing and marketing to consumers. Unfortunately, most schools, classrooms, and education professionals don’t support the use of these emerging tools of creativity, communication and marketing. As art educators we need to be advocates for the academic and purposeful use of these relevant tools and technologies of the working artists we hope to create.
One such resource that I have recently begun using in the art classroom is the app, Aurasma. This app is available for all operating systems, devices and cell phones; and the potential for application in the art classroom is infinite. Aurasma has much to offer both the student and teacher. Aurasma is also a great way to meet state and national art standards relating to performance, creation, and display of art reaching an audience of your choice or the entire Aurasma global community.
Aurasma is a real world social media marketing tool. I recently bought a jacket at a local Target Store and found the label had an Aura. I triggered the Aura to find it linked to a video about the performance qualities of the fabric. This app is a relevant twenty-first century tool used for marketing and advertising. Aurasma is on-demand, instantaneous, information triggered by images and the audience.
What Is Aurasma
Aurasma is HP Autonomy's augmented reality platform. It is available as an SDK or as a free app for iOS and Android mobile devices. Aurasma's image recognition technology uses a smartphone or tablet's camera to recognize real world images and then overlay rich media on top of them in the form of animations, videos, or links to resources. Both businesses and individuals use Aurasma to create and share their own augmented reality experiences as well as to discover hidden digital content around them.
In #StefflsArtClass
In my classroom students use Aurasma to share their artist statements through gallery displays with peers, faculty, and parents. Students use our district’s artist statement worksheet to write a formal artist statement and print it. The printed statement is the image used as the “trigger”. The trigger image links to a pre-recorded video of the student reading the artist statement out loud and discussing their artworks. Having the recorded artist statements available allows for students to peer critique and the public to get a full understanding of the student’s work. Students do the work of recording, photographing triggers and putting the Aura together. We share all of our Auras on a public channel for the entire school to view named: Steffl’s Art Class.
For Education
In addition to student use there are many ways this app can be used by educators. One of my favorite uses of this app is to share demonstrations for students who are absent. I simply have a student record my demo with a classroom device and use their project rubric to “trigger” the video. This alleviates the need to reteach and allows me more one on one with students. This also allows students to revisit the demo if they forget the steps.
YOUR TURN
Visit the app or google play store and download the free app Aurasma. You may follow various channels. You may also complete an Aurasma created tutorial here. To experience one of my Aura’s in action, search for and follow the public channel: Steffl’s Art Class. Next, open and print out my classroom's Artist Statement worksheet . Open the Aurasma app and with the home screen open view the document… And experience the magic of Aurasma. I also recommend viewing this great TEDtalk on Aurasma and Augmented Reality: http://www.ted.com/talks/view/lang/en//id/1515
Share Your #AR Uses
We are slowly growing our Aurasma gallery and the uses for this app in the art room and education. To receive information about great art and education resources follow me on twitter @jamiesteffl, visit my blog www.allthingartanded.blogspot.com or email me at jsteffl@redwoodareaschool.com
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