Our Proctor eco tour is designed with a layout that we have put into a brochure. As a group we have designed the tour in a way that we follow the Admissions, Green Key tour route. The route starts at Maxwell Savage (the administration building) and flows clockwise throughout campus, traveling on the South side of the pond to start and looping around to the North side.
Here shows a look at the
brochure that the class has put together.
On the left is the cover,
on the right is the back,
and below is the inside
of the brochure
In order to tell Proctor's story, we have included the use of a free app called Aurasma. Aurasma is an app available for both apple and android and it allows the maker to embed an informational video, picture, or idea into a background image that can be scanned using just the camera on your phone.
As the Proctor story began taking place, our class was given the opportunity to present our idea, our tour, and the brochure to the community for the first time at Innovation night. We started the night off with an open science fair type setting where students, parents and faculty could try out the product, ask questions and give us feedback. The next part of the night was a formal presentation where we presented our tour and a presentation. I believe that this part was very beneficial. It allowed for the community to see the process of creating the tour and how the app Aurasma truly functions.
After the presentations were completed we were back in the classroom organizing and creating a full working and flowing tour that contained these key buildings on campus that we had chosen.
Maxwell Savage
Shirley Hall
Carr House
Eco Dorm
Fowler Learning Center
Dinning Hall (New)
Hockey Rink
Peabody
Sugar House
Sally B
Meeting House
Biomass
Once the tour was finalized with the Aurasma trigger images, the brochure and the images put up on the selected buildings, it was time to show what we had been working on for the last 3 weeks. It was time to put our work to the test and to face the criticism, suggestions and reactions of people who we took on the tour as a class as well as friends and classmates on our own time.
The first "outsiders" to take the tour after final revisions were Alan's two daughters. After Alan had picked them up from school, we had set off on our journey. We visited both Carr House and the Fowler Learning Center.
The Girls reacting to the Carr House Aura
But... We did have to stop for a little break of fun!
Last stop of the day was the Fowler Learning Center.
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| The girls are finding what the FLC trigger image is. |
On Tuesday, it was our last class day before the long exam block which we decided to use for blog revisions. As a class we set off again to find some faculty and peers to take on parts of the tour to capture their reactions. As we traveled through the wise center we found a few peers that were willing to come check out the project that we were working on.
The reactions were very pleasing. We got many, "Wow's" and "Thats really cool". Which was a good sign. As the project designers we had to figure out how the app worked and get feedback on both the tour and the app itself.
My second interview of the day was with Daisy Bewley after I took her to the Sugarhouse.
I asked her, What was your first reaction?
She answered, "Since I have taken APES before, I somewhat knew what was going to happen, but I didn't expect a video to pop up! That was really cool!"
My next question was, Can you think of a setting where we can use this app around campus?
She responded, "Maybe admissions, On open house days they can send families out to take the tour and lean the campus and the people in an interactive way."
My final question was, What building do You believe will be interesting to see in the tour?
Daisy said, "Maybe Maxwell Savage, I know there is a lot of history in that building, and it was a big part of Andover."
Next we met David Netburn at the Hockey rink. Netburn in a boys varsity hockey player who volunteered to check out the hockey rink Aurasma. David showed us the best reaction we had gotten all week.
He said, "I had no idea there were even solar panels on the roof, are you serious?"
Netburns feedback and reactions... You can say he was a little camera shy.
With the reactions and feedback that we had gained the last two days, we were confident that all of the 11 Auras that we had created, not only worked, but were effective to the viewer. I noticed that all of the tours participants were engaged and were willing to take part, and give feedback as our "guinea pigs".
As a class we took a total of about 20 peers to view the tour and a visit multiple Auras around campus. Out of that 20 people, we had experienced 3 complications with either the app or the Auras. With the three people having trouble we were able to asses the problems and get them fixed.
As seen in this video, Ryan is having trouble loading the Aura, as Annie and Avery are having no trouble at all. As we figured out, Ryan's wifi was slow, so after shutting his wifi off, the video loaded without problems.
Some constructive criticism that we got today during the exam block tours from Scott and Dan included, sound being too dull (maybe bring headphones), text is too small or too fast, arms get tired, and only have one piece of information at a time.
This criticism can be introduced into the tour, and hopefully a class will pick up next year where we left off.
Proctor is such an amazing place, Each place and each building tell a different story. We do not want that story to slip through the cracks and be forgotten about.
Come visit us for a tour, or email myself at bonewalder@proctoracademy.org for a copy of the tours brochure and for more information.
We look forward to your input and feedback.
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| Annie loves the tour, why wouldn't you!? |
Have a great summer!
All videos and photos by myself: Eric Bonewald
