Get to Know Your Students with Halo AR

The ‘About Me’ project is a great way to get to know your students at the beginning of the year. It is also something done every year and as a result it can become a stale activity, especially if the student is doing it for the 6th time.

There are many ways for a teacher to mix it up and make it engaging for the students and with this post I am suggesting another way to deliver this activity.

This is using the app Halo AR. Similar to a QR code, Halo uses a trigger to introduce an interactive element. It could be an image, video, text or a 3D object (via Sketchfab, though you can import your own through a Google link). I would suggest having one Sketchfab account for the class and once the students have chosen their 3D model the teacher can download them into a Google Drive Folder for them to access.

Below is a sample using a cube 

To make the cube I used Pages and the shapes feature. I left the images black and white because I didn’t have a colour printer available at the time. I ended up liking this though, as it makes the interactive elements pop a bit more. Here is a tutorial on how I made the net….

And how I added the shapes.

To add the elements into Halo is relatively straightforward, here is a tutorial….

Once finished students can record straight from Halo, export the file or do a screen recording to share their work.

I like the idea of combining something tangible with the digital to make it more interactive.

This approach also has many applications beyond this activity, it can be used for any type of task, from a retell of a story, presenting facts or showcasing learning of a topic or term.

Have fun:)