The Aura in the Graveyard

Capturing the Aura(ghost) of Vicente Ybor

The sheer amount of technology is wonderful and also a bit overwhelming.  Every day there is something new and exciting so I have to sort of stop myself at times and just concentrate on a few tech treasures and try to master them before stumbling into app overload.

Aurasma has been an exciting one that I will be using with my classes this year.  It is sort of like a QR code on steroids where you can link an object to an Aura.  Basically it can make the inanimate object come to life.

Yup, I love to dress up

This past week, I wanted to start out the year by letting the students learn about local history by using Aurasma at Oaklawn Cemetery in downtown Tampa.  The previous day I had gone out there myself to create the Auras linking the selected gravestones to archival pictures and information about the person buried there. 

After having spent time creating them and also experiencing the nightmare of actually falling into an open grave, the only thing left was to see if it worked with the students.  In my gravedigger outfit, I led them out to the cemetery and gave them written clues about who they needed to find.  Despite the insane heat, the kids loved it and got very excited when the auras would appear.  Admittedly, some of the auras did not work, perhaps due to shading at that time of day, but all in all, it was a successful ghost hunt.

As a class we plan on creating auras to make our class an aura filled interactive classroom linking projects to students explanations and making our bulletin boards alive. 

Aurasma has a lot of possibilities and I look forward to hearing what other teachers are using it for.