App Smashing

App Smashing in Elementary School

I originally posted this last year on a now defunct blog, I still think I am prouder of this assignment than of most I've done:One of my favorite things to do in school using technology is "app-smash" What is it? Greg Koluwiec writes:

App Smashing is the process of using multiple apps to create projects or complete tasks. App Smashing can provide your students with creative and inspired ways to showcase their learning and allow you to assess their understanding and skills. 

Why app smash?

1. It requires creative and collaborative thinking.
2. It asks more from the technology. It maximizes the potential of digital tools by blending their features and functions.
3. It results in engaging learning.
4. Most critical to me, students have choices about demonstrating their learning, thus giving them ownership and intrinsic motivation.

  

How I did it? 

As a culminating project for our study of Maniac Magee, I asked students to capture the six most important moments in Maniac Magee and to make an interactive cube.  I was inspired by Greg Kulowiec's work and found the specific idea for the project form from +Wendy Goodwin's website.

I wrote to the students, “This project should include different photos or images either captured with a digital camera or located online. It should include narration of the pictures triggered by a qr code or by Aurasma.  Your “pictures” can be words in the form of a paragraph or a word cloud such as phoetic. You can write your reaction in a paragraph explaining an important scene.”

To find photos they didn’t take themselves, they used Creative Commons photos from:  Unsplash.com and commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Images.

To make the project interactive, students had to have at least two sides of the cube trigger an image via QR Code or Aurasma. Most students chose to make most sides of the cube interactive.

Apps Used: 

Students also used :

Phoetic, Aurasma, I-Nigma

Using QR Codes

Librarian Gwyneth Jones has created this now widely copied graphic for QR codes. QR codes allow for interactivity which previously was quite difficult to create in class. Imagine any poster project or paper you have kids produce. Teachers often display that work in hallways or within the classroom. Imagine that poster interactive! With a simple wave of the iPad over the qr code, one can see a video of a student explaining his or her work. A student can explain motivations for a story. Imagine an interactive periodic table in science class. Indeed, here is one by teacher, Brady Haren, who encourages folks to print it out and hang in a prominent place. https://www.flickr.com/photos/periodicvideos/5912075438/sizes/o/in/photostream/  

Here is a video of my student explaining how he uses Aurasma, a virtual reality app, to enhance the reader's experience. He uses this in the way I suggest above to make a paper interactive. http://wp.me/s5LnKA-82