Augmented reality (AR) is an emerging form of experience in which the real world is enhanced by computer-generated content specific to a location and to an activity. Today, AR applications have become portable and available on mobile devices. AR is beginning to change news, entertainment, sports, e-commerce, travel, museums, architecture, and marketing in tangible, exciting ways. In education and training, AR has the potential to make ubiquitous learning a reality, allowing learners to gain immediate access to a wide range of location-specific information from various sources. The 2010 Horizon Report predicts that the use of simple AR in education will be widespread within 2 to 3 years on U.S. college campuses.
Although AR is not new, it is still in infancy especially applying in education. As an educator, I think AR has great potentials in teaching and learning. We should examine the impact of AR on society, evaluate the implications of AR for education, and explore the integration of AR applications into teaching and learning environments. To learn more about AR and its potentials and future in teaching and learning, I recommend the following videos.
Augmented Reality – Explained by Common Craft (Free Version)
Augmented Reality in the Classroom
Augmented Reality in the Classroom (2010 NMC Symposium)
Augmented Reality Encyclopedia
Augmented reality – Education
Augmented Reality – The Future of Education ( Ara Pacis ) – HD version
insideAR – The Future of Augmented Reality
Great posting Dr Yuen. At http://www.exploreengage.com we believe AR will not just be a part of the future but it will lead the future of education.
Real great posting!!!As an Environmental education graduate students, I take keen interest in AR teaching.
Reading Dr. Yuen’s blog and watching videos from YouTube about augmented reality (AR) make me think about many Sci-Fi movies or books that I have watched and read when I was young. It is really cool to see it comes through and even we may experience it in classroom. While I watching the YouTube videos, I got excited and wanted to have first hand experienced using AR.
AR can bring a traditional two dimension plane objects such as book and computer screen into three dimensional forms. I can see why AR makes news, entertainment, sports, e-commerce, travel, museums, architecture, and marketing in tangible, exciting ways. Also, I can picture how AR will change education. If people claim that they felt more excited and engaged while watching 3D movies then 2D movies, students can be more engage in reading AR class materials. AR visual representation can increase students understanding of class concept. In addition, with the help of advance AR technology such as object recognition and computer vision, AR’s users can interact and digitally manipulated the real world information.
When I picture how AR can change my class text book and how it will increase my student comprehension of class materials, I got excited. However, I realize that I still have limited knowledge about AR, especially how to integrate it in classroom. I would like to know more on how educators can produce the AR (if it possible), examples of others who use AR in their classroom, what challenges of using AR in classroom, roles responsibility for instructor to integrate AR in classroom, and where I can get or learn more about AR.
The quite new concept in this post attracts. As for me, AR still a quite strange area, especially for its application in education. As illustrated in this post, Augmented reality (AR) is “an emerging form of experience in which the real world is enhanced by computer-generated content specific to a location and to an activity.” Understanding “experience” and “content specific”are the key of understanding of AR.
Actually, AR emphasizes on a kind of learning experience, which help to “make ubiquitous learning a reality, allowing learners to gain immediate access to a wide range of location-specific information from various sources”. The videos shared in this post have shown several application of AR in different areas. The experience created through this technology is amazing! I like the video about AR and education. Supposing that sitting in classroom, but through AR, a real 3D world would appear in your textbook, what a surprising education experience learners would obtain! The content specific of AR guarantee its multiple usage in different areas. Once you decide what content to cover through AR, what you need to do with AR is just enjoy the course.
Admittedly, applying AR to education sounds great, but I think I do have several questions, because it is still a very new and untouchable technology for me. Will this application rely on what kind of paper for textbook? Since I have notice that another assistant tool has been used for AR in education. Different from camera, the process of education still need to connect with paper and words, not just view or pictures. If AR could change the learning modes in the future, will education become paperless? Another question is that, AR is content specific, but not all the education could be covered by AR, or to say, not all subjects are fit with AR. From the perspective of learning language, will AR distract learners’ attention when it apply to education?