Using the Aurasma App in the Classroom

Last week, I posted a couple of articles on how to use the free Aurasma app (Using the Aurasma App and Using the Aurasma App, Continued).  I also recently posted some Holiday Cards that I created with the app (and the help of a few other free apps).  I promised to gives some ideas about how Aurasma can be used in the classroom, but we are still not there quite yet…

First of all, let’s talk about sharing.  You can use the Aurasma app to create an “aura”, and the newest version of Aurasma actually allows you to make your aura public.  This means that you don’t have to use the actual device you created the aura with to see the aura when you scan a trigger image.  (If this all sounds uber-technical, you might want to scan my first article, Using the Aurasma App.)  There are three basic ways to share your auras:

• You can share by e-mailing the link to someone.  As long as they also have Aurasma and the trigger image, they will be able to view your aura.  You could also create a QR code with the link, and post it.  But that seems a bit redundant to me, seeing as the whole reason I want to use Aurasma is because I think it’s more aesthetically pleasing than QR codes.
• You can also share by making your aura public when you save it, and then making sure the other devices are logged in to the same Aurasma account.  This is a recent upgrade to the Aurasma app, which makes things much easier if you are using multiple devices in your own classroom, and you just want the students on those devices to see the aura.
• Another way that you can share is to create an Aurasma channel.  This is the way I chose to share the Holiday Cards referenced above.  With this method, anyone who is subscribed to your channel can view the auras you create.  This would be ideal for a school-wide setting.  You could have parents subscribe to the channel, so they can scan auras anywhere in the school with their own devices (as long as they have the Aurasma app).  FYI, even though my instructions are iOS-leaning, Aurasma is also available as an Android app.

Things may have changed with Aurasma’s recent upgrade, but the following instructions for obtaining a channel are from Aurasma’s Forum:

“I recommend that you use the Aurasma Developer Studio, which will enable you to put all Auras into a single channel. If you don’t have a login for the Developer Studio, please fill out and submit this form : 
http://www.aurasma.com/partners/advertiser

Please don’t be put off by “advertiser” – we have many users who work in education. Note that use of Developer Studio is 100% free, because our goal is to get as many people as possible using the Aurasma platform.

Once you have a channel with all your Auras in, you can share this with everyone you want to be able to see this. You can get a sharing link for your channel that you can post via email, on a web page etc. When opened on a device running Aurasma, this link will subscribe Aurasma to that channel, and all the Auras in that channel will be downloaded to, and start working on that device. Note that any Auras you subsequently add to that channel will also be received.”

Aurasma Developer Studio is web-based, so you would use your desktop computer to create auras if you go this route.  However, it looks like the recent upgrade allows you to add things to your channel through the app, so you may not need to use the Studio once you have gotten a channel assigned to you.

So, to recap, the easiest way for you to share your auras would be to go to the above Aurasma Partners link and request a channel.  Once you have the channel assigned, make sure you save the auras you create on your device to that channel.  Then, tell anyone who wants to see them to subscribe to your channel.  It sounds complicated, but once you do it once, it becomes quite easy to share the auras.