Guest Blog Post - My Student Mary Talking about Her experiences with Aurasma

    Hi my name is Mary, and I am in 6th grade.  The other day, Mrs. Malespina introduced the class to Aurasma through a video (watch it here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=frrZbq2LpwI) and in it there was a picture in the newspaper.  Inside the picture you could see a tennis player playing at Wimbledon.  The curator held up his phone and scanned the picture, and almost immediatley the woman started moving and you could hear her talking.  My first thought was that it was exactly the way J. K. Rowling described the wizard newspapers in Harry Potter.  I was so fascinated by this that I started experimenting with a smartphone.  It was so cool!  There were kinks, but most of them worked.  Mrs. Malespina even showed us how to make them!
    
    After class I came up to Mrs. Malespina and asked her about it.  I was upset because I did not own a smartphone or an ipad, which is required to use Aurasma.  Mrs. Malespina showed me the online version called Aurasma Studio, which allows you to do more detailed overlays and even adding more than one.  This morning I made my own Aura on the cover of a Harry Potter book.  For the overlay I added a video of J.K. Rowling talking about her new Harry Potter game called Pottermore. (See the video here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sEu6fNbjbO4) It was supposed to take you to her webpage when the video is finished, but since I don't have a smartphone, I could not test it.
   
    I got to school and told Mrs. Malespina.  She was very excited that I was making videos.  Then my friend Hanna asked me to show her how to do it.  So we set the trigger image as the first Harry Potter book, and added the overlay as a video on J.K. Rowling that Hanna made for an author study project.  Mrs. Malespina walked by and was so...happy that one student was teaching another, that she started taking photos.
   
    I think that Aurasma is an amazing way to get information quickly.  It is fun to use as a tool of learning, and as an activity to pass the time.

---