How to: App-smash Touchcast with Aurasma

Green screen fun: embed yourself in a book cover

It’s super-fun to make book trailers to embed in book covers with Aurasma, but how much cooler would it be to see your friend explain *in person* why they liked that book?

You know this would rock! And be time-effective for getting a bunch of different students’ opinions embedded in your newest library display.

Absolutely doable. App-smash Touchcast with Aurasma and boom! Hear from actual, real-live people made tiny in book covers.

Let’s do this!

Step 1! Make your own green screen

Eight dollars and a dream

Behold! It’s the US$8.00 do-it-yourself green screen option:

• using packing tape, we taped plain green cotton over our Smart Board,
• downloaded the free Touchcast app onto an iPad,
• then salvaged a giant empty cardboard box from the recycling pile so the iPad was a) at the right height, and filming steadily, since our camera operator drinks way too much coffee to be hanging onto equipment steadily.

It was easy to find a couple of willing green screen participants being that everyone at the Tarrant Institute is always down for experimenting with tech and having a blast doing it.

(Having read the book in question really turned out to be optional. 🙂

Step 2! Build a regular Aurasma aura with the book cover

Hop into Aurasma Studio and upload a photo of the book cover for your trigger.

But for the overlays…

I whipped up two quick buttons in Preview as overlays, and added each video as its own separate overlay. Then, I used the Aurasma Studio’s Properties panel (lower left) to connect each button to the person’s review.  Check it out: