Designing Augmented Reality for the Classroom

Augmented reality (AR) has recently received a lot of attention in education. Multiple AR systems for learning have been developed and tested through empirical studies often conducted in lab settings. While lab studies can be insightful, they leave out the complexity of a classroom environment. We developed three AR learning environments that have been used in genuine classroom contexts, some of them being now part of classroom regular practices. These systems and the learning activities they provide have been co-designed with teachers, for their own classrooms, through multiple cycles of prototyping and testing. We present here the features that emerged from these co-design cycles and abstract them into design principles. (C) 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved

Augmented reality mobile app development for all

Lack of programming skills is a barrier to the engagement of teachers in the development and customisation of their own applications. Visual Environment for Designing Interactive Learning Scenarios (VEDILS), a visual tool for designing, customising and deploying learning technologies, provides teachers with a development environment with a low entry threshold. Current mobile devices are equipped with sensors and have sufficient processing power to use augmented reality technologies. Despite the heavy use of mobile devices in students’ lives, the use of augmented reality mobile applications as learning tools is not widespread among teachers. The current work presents a framework comprising the development tool and a method for designing and deploying learning activities. It focuses on the augmented reality components of the authoring tools, which allow users to create their own mobile augmented reality learning apps. It also present the results of the evaluation of the framework with 47 third-level educators, and two case studies of classroom implementations of mobile augmented reality apps developed by these educators. The results illustrate the suitability of the framework and authoring tool for supporting users without programming skills in developing their own apps

A Review of XR Classrooms in Institutions of Higher Education

This talk will review the literature and examine existing physical spaces using virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR), often referred together as extended reality (XR), to teach learners in an academic setting. Attendees will better understand best practices and ways of addressing potential challenges when designing a physical XR classroom space for higher education. A physical XR classroom provides institutions with a dedicated space for educational courses and workshops, which utilize XR for both one- off sessions and an entire semester (Pirker, Holly, and Gütl 2020). The talk will help answer the question, why a dedicated XR classroom

“M-Auto” The Augmented Reality-Based (AR) Learning Media Application for the Finite-State Automata (FA) Reduction Subject of Language and Automata Theory Courses

AbstractA proper learning process should contain innovative, amusing, challenging, and motivating aspects. It should be able to provide an opportunity for the students to develop their creativity and independence based on their interests and talent. Less interesting and tedious classroom learning activity indicates the factor of the students’ learning interest degradation, for example as in the language and automata theory and finite-state automata reduction subject. The current research aims to aid language and automata theory in a learning activity to be easier to acquire. With the Augmented Reality-based learning media, the researcher hopes that the students can develop their understanding and their interest in a learning activity, especially for finite-state automata subjects. The subject of the current research is the Augmented Reality-based application as the learning media for language and automata theory and finite-state automata material. The researcher employs several research methodologies such as literature review, library research, and questionnaire to support the current research. The application is designed according to system development that consists of problem identification, appropriateness study, need analysis, concept designing, content designing, script designing, graphic designing, system production, and system examination. The result of the current research is the AR-based learning media application for the finite-state automata reduction subject of language and automata theory. Keywords: Learning Media, Finite-State Automata Reduction, Augmented Realit

Co-design of augmented reality book for collaborative learning experience in primary education

Through co-design of Augmented Reality (AR) based teaching material, this research aims to enhance collaborative learning experience in primary school education. It will introduce an interactive AR Book based on primary school textbook using tablets as the real time interface. The development of this AR Book employs co-design methods to involve children, teachers, educators and HCI experts from the early stages of the design process. Research insights from the co-design phase will be implemented in the AR Book design. The final outcome of the AR Book will be evaluated in the classroom to explore its effect on the collaborative experience of primary school students. The research aims to answer the question - Can Augmented Books be designed for primary school students in order to support collaboration? This main research question is divided into two sub-questions as follows - How can co-design methods be applied in designing Augmented Book with and for primary school children? And what is the effect of the proposed Augmented Book on primary school students' collaboration? This research will not only present a practical application of co-designing AR Book for and with primary school children, it will also clarify the benefit of AR for education in terms of collaborative experience

Augmented, Assessed, Addressed: Reframing the Curricula for First Year STEM Students.

There is a particular challenge with engaging technically motivated STEM students with ‘softer skill’ development, despite clear evidence from employers that these skills are highly desirable. In the UK, Higher Education Institutes response has been to require undergraduate courses to contain an element of Personal Development Planning (PDP)[1]. Our paper directly addresses the issue of trying to engage students from Computer and Gaming courses with their PDP. Previous experiences of teaching these cohorts traditionally report low attendance and poor completion rates, impacting on first year/second year progression. This study reports on work reframing the curricula for this essential aspect of the student learning experience, by offering the students realistic and authentic tasks by ‘flipping’ the classroom. This requires them to work in small groups, selecting, designing and then creating an augmented reality artefact using ‘Aurasma’[2], a free software tool for developing augmented reality objects. We note that the co-design process of curriculum development has enhanced student engagement; student completion rates have significantly increased, and class attendance improved

Using Augmented Reality as a Medium to Assist Teaching in Higher Education

In this paper we describe the use of a high-level augmented reality (AR) interface for the construction of collaborative educational applications that can be used in practice to enhance current teaching methods. A combination of multimedia information including spatial three-dimensional models, images, textual information, video, animations and sound, can be superimposed in a student-friendly manner into the learning environment. In several case studies different learning scenarios have been carefully designed based on human-computer interaction principles so that meaningful virtual information is presented in an interactive and compelling way. Collaboration between the participants is achieved through use of a tangible AR interface that uses marker cards as well as an immersive AR environment which is based on software user interfaces (UIs) and hardware devices. The interactive AR interface has been piloted in the classroom at two UK universities in departments of Informatics and Information Science

Location-based technologies for learning

Emerging technologies for learning report - Article exploring location based technologies and their potential for educatio

Location-based and contextual mobile learning. A STELLAR Small-Scale Study

This study starts from several inputs that the partners have collected from previous and current running research projects and a workshop organised at the STELLAR Alpine Rendevous 2010. In the study, several steps have been taken, firstly a literature review and analysis of existing systems; secondly, mobile learning experts have been involved in a concept mapping study to identify the main challenges that can be solved via mobile learning; and thirdly, an identification of educational patterns based on these examples has been done. Out of this study the partners aim to develop an educational framework for contextual learning as a unifying approach in the field. Therefore one of our central research questions is: how can we investigate, theorise, model and support contextual learning

Proceedings of the International Workshop on EuroPLOT Persuasive Technology for Learning, Education and Teaching (IWEPLET 2013)

"This book contains the proceedings of the International Workshop on EuroPLOT Persuasive Technology for Learning, Education and Teaching (IWEPLET) 2013 which was held on 16.-17.September 2013 in Paphos (Cyprus) in conjunction with the EC-TEL conference. The workshop and hence the proceedings are divided in two parts: on Day 1 the EuroPLOT project and its results are introduced, with papers about the specific case studies and their evaluation. On Day 2, peer-reviewed papers are presented which address specific topics and issues going beyond the EuroPLOT scope. This workshop is one of the deliverables (D 2.6) of the EuroPLOT project, which has been funded from November 2010 – October 2013 by the Education, Audiovisual and Culture Executive Agency (EACEA) of the European Commission through the Lifelong Learning Programme (LLL) by grant #511633. The purpose of this project was to develop and evaluate Persuasive Learning Objects and Technologies (PLOTS), based on ideas of BJ Fogg. The purpose of this workshop is to summarize the findings obtained during this project and disseminate them to an interested audience. Furthermore, it shall foster discussions about the future of persuasive technology and design in the context of learning, education and teaching. The international community working in this area of research is relatively small. Nevertheless, we have received a number of high-quality submissions which went through a peer-review process before being selected for presentation and publication. We hope that the information found in this book is useful to the reader and that more interest in this novel approach of persuasive design for teaching/education/learning is stimulated. We are very grateful to the organisers of EC-TEL 2013 for allowing to host IWEPLET 2013 within their organisational facilities which helped us a lot in preparing this event. I am also very grateful to everyone in the EuroPLOT team for collaborating so effectively in these three years towards creating excellent outputs, and for being such a nice group with a very positive spirit also beyond work. And finally I would like to thank the EACEA for providing the financial resources for the EuroPLOT project and for being very helpful when needed. This funding made it possible to organise the IWEPLET workshop without charging a fee from the participants.