UD Logo
School of Education

Augmented Reality Modules

This course is a practicum that uses a new Apple Teacher curriculum built around 9 freely available AR apps for the iPhone and iPad. Students learn to design lessons incorporating AR across the full range of PK-16 content.

Module 1: Conceptualizing

As defined in the Wikipedia, augmented reality is "a system that incorporates three basic features: a combination of real and virtual worlds, real-time interaction, and accurate 3D registration of virtual and real objects. The overlaid sensory information can be constructive (i.e. additive to the natural environment), or destructive (i.e. masking of the natural environment). This experience is seamlessly interwoven with the physical world such that it is perceived as an immersive aspect of the real environment. In this way, augmented reality alters one's ongoing perception of a real-world environment, whereas virtual reality completely replaces the user's real-world environment with a simulated one. Augmented reality is related to two largely synonymous terms: mixed reality and computer-mediated reality."

The Apple Teacher overview of augmented reality at https://appleteacher.apple.com/#/home/rp/T034445A explains how AR enhances how students relate to, contextualize, and interact with the world around them through the following four dimensions:

  1. Movement. Activate student engagement through movement and physical exploration.
  2. Scale and Proximity. Provide opportunities to see objects that are life-size and lifelike, and from different perspectives that are often otherwise not possible.
  3. Context. Connect learning to the real world by enabling students to visualize abstract concepts in the context of their own surroundings.
  4. Interactivity. Create interactive experiences where virtual objects respond to real-world actions, and real-world objects can trigger virtual experiences.

The Apple Teacher AR curriculum features the following nine apps. All nine apps are freely available, and all of them work on both iPhones and iPads except for the AR Maker which is iPad only.

Evidence About AR Effectiveness in Education

How People Learn

How People Learn is the title of a book written by the National Research Council. Because it was funded by your tax dollars at work, this book is freely available here:

You will probably not have time to read this entire book right now, but all of you should endeavor to read its first chapter and reflect on its three guiding principles:

  1. People learn by connecting new information to concepts already learned.
  2. To learn how to reason, solve problems, and augment knowledge in a field of inquiry, people need to understand facts and ideas in the context of a conceptual framework that facilitates application to real-world problem solving.
  3. People are motivated to learn when they can set their own goals, reflect on their progress, and feel in control of their learning.

From these principles, it follows that learning environments will be effective when instructional designs:

  1. take into account the learner’s preexisting understandings and correct any faulty preconceptions in order to prevent future misunderstandings;
  2. enable students to study multiple examples of the concept at work in order to learn it in depth in authentic contexts; and
  3. include metacognitive supports that make visible the learner’s reflections and enable an instructor to provide scaffolding and guide revisions to improve student learning and reasoning.