Augmented TOO-REALity?

 

Hello y'all!

Today we're going to create an augmented reality material for our classes. Believe me when I say the reality is not the only augmented thing is this task.

Augmented Reality is a technology that allows us to visualize 2D materials in a 3D environment. They can be created and viewed with the help of AR apps. It sounds amazing, right? Well, it sure is amazing to enjoy. Yet the creating the material part is not as enjoyable if you are new at it. But don't worry, your girl is here to help as always.

I worked on this project with my dear friend Ayşenur, who you may remember from many projects of mine. You can click on her name to visit her beautiful blog.

For this task, we first needed to choose a city abroad and guide our students to explore it. When I first read the instructions and saw the word "festival", I told Ayşenur we had to do New Delhi, India. India is a magnificent country that unfortunately doesn't get enough recognition so we wanted to introduce this beautiful city and the country to our students.

Once we had done our research and chose the landmarks we wanted to introduce, it was time to do the real work. 

There are hundreds of apps online for AR. It may seem a little overwhelming trying to find the best one. But don't worry, Ayşenur and I tried over a dozen of them and proudly present you the best one. We give our 5 stars to Assemblr. It is very easy to use and it provides many free 3D models. Unfortunately we couldn't find any Indian landmarks on it. But you may be luckier trying to find other things.

We chose 5 videos to introduce our landmarks and turned them into qr codes. Our students will download the app and just scan them. In case it sounds too confusing, we created a video to show how to do it as well. 

Then we created our handouts. The students will answer the questions on them after watching the video about the landmark on it. We wanted them to learn a little about the landmark and share their ideas about it. Here's our handouts.

New Delhi by Sude Kılıç

After the handouts, we want our students to imagine they have actually traveled to the city and write a postcard to their friend from the place. To make it feel even more real, we created a New Delhi themed postcard with a real New Delhi stamp on it. We put the instruction where the receiver adress would be. Here's our postcard. 

Postcard New Delhi by Sude Kılıç

I am really proud of the work we've done. It may have taken a little too long, but in the end it was worth it. Also, now that we now what we'll face, it will be much easier.

Augmented Reality is really interesting. It gives the students motivation and excitement that we need in our classes. More teachers should learn how to create it and I am so glad I know how.

That's it from me today. I hope you liked our work. Do you see yourself using it in your classrooms? Feel free to leave your comments.

'Till next time!