By Sara Price
Cottonwood Elementary Third grade teacher Lori Labrum wanted to make writing fun for her students.
She saw the solution in new technology called Aurasma. It works similarly to QR codes, which can be scanned by any smart phone device. QR code looks like a square barcode.
With the Aurasma app, students are able to create their own colored pictures. They are then recorded reading their stories with the image associated with the video they just created. When a picture is scanned, it converts it into a child reading their story.
This technology, though, is still emerging. Essentially, the app would allow customers to scan in an image and hear the author of an article talk about the subject or an advertisement to play, which is paired with the item in question.
Aurasma uses colored pictures instead of black and white codes for pattern recognition software. Anyone who has the app can scan in pictures that have been recorded by the Aurasma app and enjoy the paired video.
Nathan Wilson from the Southeast Utah Education Center in Price worked with the class, recording and pairing their stories with their pictures so that parents who have the app would be able to listen to their children’s stories on appropriate devices.
Labrum’s class is no stranger to technology. Her classroom has a smartboard and projector, as well as a document camera, which can show written pieces on the smartboard. Cottonwood Elementary currently owns 25 iPads, which are shared around the school. They are working on a grant that will bring more technology to the school to help make learning fun.
Labrum also has a Facebook page where students created and uploaded Monster Talks. They picked the monster to tell their story and the child’s mouth talks for the monster, bringing the monster and their stories to life.
