Word Wall 2.0

I'm making some headway on my list of new things to try this year. One of the techy ones was to create an interactive word wall using augmented reality. The idea is that when a word on the wall is scanned with the appropriate app, a video comes up with an explanation and/or demonstration of the term. I saw the idea at MACUL a couple of years ago and I've been dying to try it out. There were a few kinks to be worked out as I was learning some of the technology right along with the students, but most of them have it done now and I'm really happy with how it's looking!

While there are many augmented reality applications and sites out there, we used BlippAR. Within a couple days of requesting an educational account, I had an email invite to set it up. Once you're set up, you'll have to add your students under your umbrella account by choosing manage users, and then invite them to your project. It's important that students create within one project so that only one campaign code is needed to read all their Blipps.

Once my eighth graders set up their account through my invite and created a word card that would go on the wall, I shared these directions in Google Classroom.

Through trial and error and a few emails/chats with our extremely helpful Blippar representative here are some things we figured out:

• One challenge we encountered was that the image and video have to be pulled from the computer's storage. Most students did their image and video on their phones and sent them to their email to be downloaded to the computer, then uploaded into BlippAR (this whole process was actually more complicated than creating the actual Blipp!). If students had a cord to directly plug into the computer, it was much easier than trying to email large files.
• Another issue was that .MOV wasn't always cooperative to get into the program and edit correctly as .mp4. Once we figured that out, a lot of students used free file converters online and it fixed many issues.
• Students do not need to publish and make their Blipp live. As long as it works with the campaign code entered in the settings, others with the same code will be able to see their creation. If they publish it live, it will not work because one of the ways BlippAR keeps things secure for students is to keep things visible only to those that the codes are shared with.
• After adding the video to the Blipp, students should wait a minute or two before clicking Test/Publish to see if it works. If they do it too soon, sometimes the video hasn't finished processing.
• It doesn't just look cooler if the word is decorated and uses some color, it makes it easier for the app to distinguish between that and the other things it picks up in the background.

Our still under construction, but good looking "wall!"

The larger paper in the upper left includes instructions on what app to use and the campaign code that has to be entered so that the videos associated with the cards will work. You can see it closer here.

While I did miss the ease of instantly creating on a mobile device like I've done before with younger students in Aurasma, BlippAR's design studio provides the possibility of some really interesting student creation, as well as providing me a platform to assist students with their projects directly. Having our own representative for additional support was great too! Email feedback was responded to quickly, and I even did a Google Hangout with our rep because BlippAR is looking to learn and continue to improve their educational offerings. 

Now that I've finally gotten to try it, I'm looking forward to finding other ways to incorporate this into our classroom. Once we got past some of the initial frustrations, the students seemed to really enjoy it and I love the reactions of students and colleagues who have never used augmented reality! 

Do you use AR in your classes? Have some ideas on other ways to get students creating with it? Please share!