ColAR App!

I recently presented at the technology conference that my district put on in June and it was amazing. I presented two sessions about how to use the app nearpod in the secondary classroom, but before that, I went to three other sessions as a conference attendee and they were all amazing! I am going to have a few blog posts to write about my findings :)

The first session I went to was about how to integrate augmented reality into the classroom. I have used the app Aurasma before, but that was the extent of augmented reality that had ever entered my classroom! For those of you who are wondering what augmented reality is, it is where you use a "marker" or target of some sort and it can be anything. The easiest way to explain it is to think of a qr code and what happens when you scan it. With augmented reality, when you use an app that supports AR, it will make something show on your device that really isn't there in reality. I did a really bad job of explaining that but it is super cool and your kids will love it so you should look into it. 

Ok, so because I don't have kids, and we have been out of school for a month, I had to find someone that was like a child to try this out. My did is still a six year old at heart, so I brought the crayons to color in this picture. 

You can see the website on the picture where I went to print these out. They have tons! But, in the holiday spirit, I went with the July 4th themed picture. They obviously come out blank, but I got way too excited and didn't snap a pic! 

So, basically, you print and color. Then comes the real fun...

You download the ColAR app on your iPad or other device. Get it? Color but the AR comes from augmented reality?? I thought it was clever. Moving on...

When you open the app to scan the picture and make it come to life, you have to make sure the whole page can be seen. Then, you will see yours look something like this:

That means it is getting ready to work and is taking notice of all of the colors and patterns that you used to color. It doesn't matter if you use crayons, colored pencils, markers, pens, or any other art supply. It should still work. 

Then, the magic happens!

Isn't that fantastic! I couldn't quite get the camera to cooperate, but if you touch the firecrackers, they will actually shoot off and make a pretty fireworks display right on the iPad! It was so fun! Apparently in each picture, there is a way to interact with what you see.

I am not sure how I can use this in the classroom, but it would be good to have these on hand for after tests or exams at the end of the year. All I know is that the first time your kids tell you that they are bored this summer, pull out one of these sheets and they will be busy for hours!