In 2012, MacICT conducted a small, innovative school based AR project with a group of Year 8 – 10 students from St Ives High School. The project involved students from a local High School coming to Macquarie University to learn about Augmented Reality and tour the Sculpture Park in the university grounds. The students were invited to select a sculpture of their choice and then, using an Augmented Reality platform, Aurasma, design and create an aura that would be triggered by the sculpture.
The students involved in the project found that learning with Augmented Reality has the potential to provide:
- Learning opportunities that are both individual and personal
- Learning experiences that aren’t offered (or are readily available) in reality
- Challenging and authentic design based learning tasks
You can read more about the project here.
As a result of the findings from this project, MacICT are now offering one day AR student boot camps from Stage 3 to Stage 6. During the boot camp, students, in groups, design an aura that will become part of a school tour. During the boot camps students may:
- Discuss reality and how our brains construct reality
- Be introduced to Augmented Reality (AR)
- Play with commercially produce AR examples
- Design aura for their school location
- Create digital elements including videos, comics, posters, buttons, images etc using iPad apps and Web 2.0 tools. These elements will be used as overlays in Aurasma Studio.
- Build sequenced auras with multiple overlays in Aurasma Studio
Year 5 and 6 students from two different schools were involved in the successful trial of these boot camps. Student boot camps can also be adapted to meet specific school projects/needs on negotiation.
In 2014 MacICT will also be running a one-day teacher professional learning workshop (Accredited with the NSW Institute of Teachers) on Augmenting Reality. Click here to find out more.
