NOW Classrooms, Grades 6-8. Meg Ormiston

changes after they put the audio in place may throw off the necessary alignment between audio and video elements.

      4. Have students edit their movie by sequencing their imported content in a meaningful way. This can include trimming unwanted material from clips and adding text, special effects, and transitions between video elements.

      5. Tell students to preview their final product. If they feel happy with it, they can save and export it or share it with the class. After students share their work to a classroom LMS or social media account, you can use this final project as a summative assessment to gauge student learning.

       Connections

      You can apply this lesson to different content areas in the following suggested ways.

      • English language arts: After reading The Diary of a Young Girl (Frank, 2012) and Number the Stars (Lowry, 1989), have students compare and contrast the historical and fictional portrayal of time, place, and characters. They should create a movie demonstrating the similarities and differences between historical and fictional content. For example, students might include transitions, title pages, and music in their final project.

      • Mathematics: Have students learn about statistical sampling by writing a survey question and choosing classmates to answer it. Students should select a moviemaking app to detail and present an interpretation of the results, explaining why their sample is representative of the entire school population.

      • Social science: Ask students to make an eyewitness news report about an event in recent history, using information gained from interviewing someone who lived through the event (such as a war, 9/11, or a natural disaster). We find TouchCast (www.touchcast.com) very useful for this kind of project. Students should incorporate videos, images, text, and voiceovers to explain the event.

      • Science: Instruct sudents to create a stop-motion video of Earth’s 4.6-billion-year history, citing evidence from rock strata. Students should put the stop-motion pictures together using a moviemaking app and include a voiceover in the movie to explain their learning.

      • Health: Have students study the negative effects of drug and tobacco use and make a public service announcement (PSA) using a moviemaking app they select. Students should include images of the health consequences, in addition to text and voiceovers.

      Learning goal:

      I can use and create augmented-reality projects.

       Wow: Creating an Augmented Reality

      The goal of this lesson is for students to learn about augmented reality and create projects that use augmented reality to demonstrate learning. Augmented reality occurs when a creator layers computer-generated images onto a real environment. It is different from virtual reality, which is when students are immersed in a fully artificial experience. Not only do augmented-reality projects give students a fun and engaging way to see their work come to life, these projects require students to look at content from a different perspective when determining how to use the technology to showcase learning.

      For this lesson, we recommend Aurasma (www.aurasma.com), an augmented-reality app that allows users to turn images or everyday objects into interactive experiences. Through this app, images and objects act as triggers to reveal embedded content (similar to QR codes). Aurasma is available as a free iOS and Android app and requires students to create an account via its website. You can also explore and use apps like Google Tango (http://get.google.com/tango), Daqri apps (https://daqri.com), and Pokémon Go (www.pokemongo.com).

       Process: Creating an Augmented-Reality Project

      Use the following four steps to have students create an augmented-reality project.

       TECH TIP

      In addition to using augmented-reality apps in your classroom, consider using virtual-reality apps, such as Google Expeditions (https://edu.google.com/expeditions), that allow students to better see different people and places from their local communities. Starting students out with these tools allows them to gain a better understanding of how these technologies work before creating it themselves.

      1. Have students select an augmented-reality app and start a new project. (In Aurasma, new projects are called Auras.)

      2. Ask students to take a photo or upload a photo to use as their trigger image. The trigger image is the icon that causes the augmented-reality content to appear. The icon could be a picture, a photograph, a landmark, and so on.

      3. Students should select an overlay or create their own. The overlay is what appears when the someone scans the trigger image. For example, when a user scans a picture of a human heart with an augmented-reality app, a 3-D model of a heart could appear.

      4. Have students save and share their work. Teachers or students can then print the trigger image or share links to their creations on the classroom LMS.

       Connections

      You can apply this lesson to different content areas in the following suggested ways.

      • Social science: Have students find a picture that represents the various programs related to President Roosevelt’s New Deal and use it as a trigger image. They should then input information into the overlay about a specific New Deal program. Their classmates then scan their peers’ triggers to learn more about each part of the New Deal.

      • Science: Have students view chemical interactions using Daqri’s Elements 4D (http://elements4d.daqri.com) to watch various elements as they interact. They should scan printed-out cubes to see what an element looks like in real life. They can then scan cubes together to see the elements form molecules.

      • Health: Have students use Daqri’s Anatomy 4D app (http://anatomy4d.daqri.com) to take a trip through the human heart. They should scan the trigger image of a heart, and then view a model that includes veins, arteries, and chambers.

Engaging the Ear Using Audio

      In this NOW lesson series, students will learn how to use, create, and publish audio recordings. They can use these recordings in any content area as evidence of what they learn. At this age, students should be able to use audio tools to clearly and concisely vocalize their message to convey a cohesive idea (see figure 1.2). Their speaking should be fluent and show appropriate prosody. Practicing, recording, and rerecording audio will strengthen their reading and speaking skills.

       Figure 1.2: A student adds audio to a presentation.

      Learning goal:

      I can add audio to a visual presentation.

       Novice: Creating a Presentation With Audio

      This lesson’s goal is for students to learn how to create an audio soundtrack. Audio tracks can make a project more interesting, and creating an audio soundtrack can help teach students skills for integrating various types of media and mashing the media pieces together into projects. Not only does audio give students