What Teachers Need to

Know About Augmented

Reality Enhanced Learning
Environments
By Christopher Wasko, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University

Abstract
Augmented reality (AR) enhanced learning environments have been designed to teach
a variety of subjects by having learners act like
professionals in the field as opposed to students
in a classroom. The environments, grounded in
constructivist and situated learning theories,
place students in a meaningful, non-classroom
environment and force them to collaborate with
each other in order to solve an ill-defined problem. AR content, accessed via a mobile broadband device (MBD) such as a phone or tablet, is
used to guide the learning experiences. Student
participants have reported an increased interest
in the settings of the experiences and have expressed a positive attitude towards this innovative form of instructional delivery. Using newly
available software loaded on MBDs, teachers
and/or students can design and share AR enhanced learning environments that are tied to
unique places in their communities.
Keywords: Augmented Reality, Design,
Mobile Broadband Devices, Problem-Based
Learning, Practice Fields, Teachers

What is AR?

ugmented reality (AR) is defined by Carmigniani and Furht (2011) as, a real-time
direct or indirect view of a physical realworld environment that has been enhanced/
augmented by adding virtual computer gener-

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ated information to it (p.1). Hughes, Fuchs and

Nannipieri (2011) explain that AR can be used
to encourage understanding and mastery of the
real world therefore resulting in an augmented
perception of reality as it exists in the present or
AR can propose an artificial environment that
represents some past or future reality or even an
impossible reality.
In the early 1990s, AR was experienced on a
cumbersome head-mounted display attached to
a laptop computer. Presently, AR is almost exclusively experienced on mobile broadband devices
(MBDs). Hardware and software on the devices
allow for digital content to be overlaid on any
physical area that can be reached by the user.
In the near future, AR glasses such as the kind
being produced by Google (Bilton, 2011) are
expected to reach the marketplace. The global
market for such wearable devices is estimated to
jump to $1.5 billion annually by 2014 (Shalvey,
2012). Such glasses hold the potential to make
AR an infinitely more common experience for
the general public.
In some cases, the delivery of digital AR content can be triggered by WMD features that pinpoint a specific location using the WMDs GPS
system and accelerometer. In other instances,
content delivery can be triggered by the WMDs
computer vision software and camera. Presently,
AR content triggered by location is the more
common of the two entry points but this may
change as computer vision software continues

TechTrends July/August 2013

17

to improve. Once triggered, typical augmentations include digital enhancements in the form
of text, images, videos, and 3d models.
Frequently, AR is used to provide information that can help the user better understand
their current environment. For example, the application Google Sky Map can specify the name
and location of a specific planet, star, or constellation in the night sky. Similarly, the application
Word Lens can overlay a digital translation on
real world text. AR browsers such as Layar and
Wikitude allow users to create basic arrangements of digital content that can be overlaid on
the physical world. Typical applications of such
browsers direct users to the location of notable
attractions in their immediate environment.
From an instructional design perspective, a
more notable use of AR can be found in the collection of AR enhanced learning environments
that have been described in recent literature by a
small group of researchers.

AR Enhanced Learning
Environments
Overview
Using an innovative instructional approach, designers (Dunleavy, Dede & Mitchell,
2009; Klopfer, 2008; Squire & Jan, 2007; Squire
& Jenkins, 2011; Squire & Klopfer, 2007) have
recently created and tested several AR enhanced
learning environments. The environments are
grounded in constructivist and situated learning
theories and typically require students, working
in teams, to leave classroom and navigate a relevant real world location while working to solve
an ill-defined problem. While participating in
the experience, students use a MBD to access
AR content in the form of virtual characters
and objects. This digital content enhances the
learning environment and provides students
with relevant information that can be used to
devise a solution to the problem.
The influence of constructivist theory is
evident in the AR enhanced learning environments. Students are free to explore wide open
spaces, to learn through success and failure,
and can arrive at multiple possible outcomes.
The influence of situated learning theory can be
found in the problem-based nature of the learning environments and the fact that they attempt
to minimize the gap between learning and doing. Essentially, students must work together to
identify the problem, access digital content, and
use the information to solve a problem while instructors provide necessary support and monitor student learning.

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Allowing students experience an augmented

version of reality (in the real world) as opposed
to a virtual reality (on a computer, in their classroom) is key distinguishing characteristic of
this instructional approach. Instead of controlling an avatar while exploring a virtual world,
students essentially become the avatars and the
physical world becomes the navigation space.
According to Klopfer (2008), unique sights,
sounds, and smells of the physical world provide
a strong potential for authenticity and a close
connection between the experience and the real
world. Compared to virtual reality simulations,
AR enhanced learning environments that target
such unique physical elements may seem more
realistic and meaningful to student participants.
The AR enhanced learning environments
being designed and tested by a small group of
researchers are essentially what Barab and Duffy
(2000) call practice fields. Pedagogically, Barab
and Duffy (2000) argued that in a practice field,
the goal shifts from the teaching of concepts to
engaging the learner in authentic tasks that are
likely to require the use of those skills or concepts. (p. 30). Practice fields attempt to replicate
many of the demands that would be present if a
given task were performed in real life.
This begs the question, Why not have students perform the actual tasks instead of the
practice tasks? When advocating for their
designs, the creators of AR environments frequently cite the constraints of the school environment and the inherent safety and financial issues associated with truly authentic experiences.
Dunleavy et al.,(2009) explained that classrooms
often lack the complexity to engage students
in authentic practices and that the alternative
of bringing students to a local hospital to work
with epidemiologists and doctors to study an
outbreak of a disease would be impractical due
to prohibitive safety, and financial costs. Squire
and Klopfer (2007) claimed that AR enhanced
learning environments allow students to investigate phenomena, such as a chemical spill or a
disease outbreak, that would be too dangerous
or logistically impossible to investigate in the
real world.
Notable Example
Environmental Detectives (Squire & Klopfer, 2007) is an example of an AR learning environment that exhibits all of the key identifying characteristics. Environmental Detectives is
grounded in constructivist and situated learning
theories, employs a PBL pedagogical approach,
emphasizes intentional use of the physical world,
and uses digital content to enhance the learn-

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Table 1. Notable Examples

AR Environment

Description

Alien Contact!

Aliens crash land near a school and students are responsible for determining
the purpose of the visit.

Dow Day

Students take on the role of a news reporter covering the Dow Chemical protests in Madison,
Wisconsin and investigate interests and perspectives of students, police and others.

Environmental Detectives

A toxin is discovered in the local water supply and students must work to identify the
cause of the spill, design a remediation plan, and present their solution.

Hip Hop Tycoon

Students act as specialists in business finance, sales, and human resources in an

attempt to build and run a successful store.

Mad City Mystery

Students act as doctors, environmental scientists and government officials to investigate

the cause of a death at a nearby lake.

Mentria
The Mystery Trip
Mystery at the Museum
Saving Lake Wingra
South Shore Beach

While using their Spanish speaking skills, learners investigate clues and gather evidence
to absolve themselves from a crime.
Over the course of a four day camping trip, students learn how to enjoy the outdoors responsibly.
Acting as either a biologist, technologist or a detective, students must work
together to investigate a theft.
Students must learn more about a local lake and prepare a presentation for their city council.
Students role-play as water chemists, doctors, or wildlife ecologists who must investigate
an illness linked to a local beach.

ing environment. Squire & Klopfer intended

the experience to be, a nonlinear open-ended
dilemma with no clear boundaries( p. 372).
While navigating the environment, students
had to develop sampling strategies, analyze and
interpret data, interpret scientific texts to understand a problem, and design a viable remediation plan. Students worked in teams and took
simulated sample readings, interviewed virtual
people and gathered local geographic information while visiting a watershed area near their
school. Ultimately, the designers aimed to engage students in a complex problem solving environment where they could experiment with
new identities and new ideas.
Associated Learning Outcomes
Researchers have reported a variety of
learning outcomes associated with AR enhanced
environments. Students that experienced Alien
Contact! (Dunleavy et al., 2009) reported feeling motivated to learn on handheld devices outside of the classroom. Students responded well
to the collaborative structure of the experience.
One learner claimed, I like this project because
in normal projects, we dont have special roles
and we need each other and that makes us know
each other more and have better teamwork
(Dunleavy et al., 2009, p.15).

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Squire and Jan (2007) designed and tested

an experience called Mad City Mystery. Student
participants had to solve an environmental mystery at a local lake using hypothesis formation,
theory generation, evidence gathering, and scientific argumentation. Student participants reported feeling more like investigators in the field
rather than students in a classroom. Additionally, students exhibited an increased interest in the
physical setting and scientific content related to
the experience.
In Dow Day (Squire & Jenkins, 2011), students acted as a journalist covering the student
protests that occurred in Madison, Wisconsin
in 1967. Researchers wanted students to understand the complex events from multiple perspectives. Students interacted with digital content based on actual source material found in
local newspapers and watched video of a riot in
the exact location where it happened. Data collected by researchers indicated that participants
were able to understand the riots from multiple
perspectives, which led them to conclude that
the historical events of Dow Day were caused by
several interacting and complex forces (Squire
& Jenkins, 2011).
Notable examples of recent AR enhanced
learning environments are detailed in

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Why AR Enhanced Learning

Environments Matter
Using AR learning environments with students in schools seems to answer a call put forth
by the U.S. Department of Education in its National Education Technology Plan, titled Transforming American EducationLearning Powered by Technology. The section titled Learning;
Engage and Empower indicates,
The challenge for our education system is
to leverage technology to create relevant
learning experiences that mirror students daily lives and the reality of their
futures. We must bring 21st century technology into learning in meaningful ways
to engage, motivate, and inspire learners
of all ages to achieve. Whether the domain is English language arts, mathematics, sciences, social studies, history, art,
or music, 21st-century competencies and
expertise such as critical thinking, complex problem solving, collaboration, and
multimedia communication should be
woven into all content areas. (http://www.
ed.gov/technology/netp-2010/learningengage-and-empower)
Critical thinking, problem solving and collaboration are key characteristics of all of the recent
AR enhanced learning environments.
The ISTE NETS-S standards for students,
published by the International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE ) call for schools to
help students become creative and innovative, to
help the learn how to work collaboratively and
to answer the call that they should be able to define problems, plan and conduct research, and
identify solutions. Here again, the design and
use of AR learning environments may help.
AR learning environments may also help
address the lack of girls and minorities choosing
STEM careers. Hill, Corbett & Rode (2010) note
that as of 2009, only 5 percent of girls aged 8-17
claimed to be interested in such a career. Hill et
al. (2010) contend that a belief that one can succeed in a given occupation is an important factor that is considered when evaluating a career
choice. Kekelis, Ancheta & Heber, (2005) found
that children develop beliefs that they are unable
to pursue particular occupations because they
perceive them as inappropriate for their gender.
AR enhanced learning environments may
help address the the aforementioned issues.
When students play the role of a scientist, engineer, or technologist, they may begin to develop a belief that such fields are suitable for
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TechTrends July/August 2013

a future career. Also, the role-playing inherent

in the experiences may lead to an increased
sense of confidence and efficacy as related to
STEM disciplines.

Teachers as Designers
Kirkley and Kirkley (2005), while discussing
the next generation of learning environments,
stated, with advances in computer technologies and networked learning, we have exciting
opportunities to design learning environments
that are realistic, authentic, engaging and extremely fun (p.42). The authors implore readers
to imagine students exploring an environment,
gathering information using their handheld
computers, sharing data and making hypothesis.
Much has changed since 2005. At that time, only
a select group of experts was able to design AR
enhanced learning environments. The hardware
and software available in 2005 was dramatically
inferior to what is available today. Dell Axions,
while sufficient in 2005, are no match for the
high quality displays, quick processing speeds
and advanced location aware features of modern
MBDs. Previous designers often had to rely on
the human and physical resources of their institutions to construct design engines for their
experiences. Today, several user-friendly, open
source platforms for creating such experiences
are available for all to download and use. Essentially, advances in requisite hardware and software mean that practitioners and/or students
are now able to design and use AR enhanced
learning environments.

Phones.
Most schools may not yet own sets of MBDs
that can be used for this type of instructional delivery. However, the Mobile Access 2010 by the
Pew Internet & American Life Project (Smith
2010) may suggest a reasonable alternative. The
report details how 82% of American adults currently own a cell phone and 38% of the owners report accessing the internet on the phone.
Accessing the internet on a MBD suggests the
type of device necessary experiencing an AR
enhanced learning environment. Younger adults
(age 30-49) access the internet on their phone at
a rate of 43%. 46% of black, non-Hispanic owners and 51% of Hispanic English speaking owners access the internet. The statistics suggest that
approximately 40-50% of owners, across a spectrum of age and ethnicity related demographics,
own the type of MBD device that practitioners
will need to design and use AR environments
with their students.
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If their school does not own the requisite

equipment, teachers may be able to source a set
of phones by calling upon parents to send their
internet enabled MBDs to school for a day. Additionally, teachers may be able to convince device owning colleagues to share their MBD for a
portion of the school day. Such creative sourcing
should provide a class set of devices or at least
enough to allow for a class to work in halves.

Development Platforms.
ARIS.
The free software ARIS allows practitioners
to design AR environments for or with their students. According to the ARIS design team, ARIS
is a user-friendly, open-source platform for creating and playing mobile games, tours and interactive stories. Using GPS and QR Codes, ARIS
players experience a hybrid world of virtual interactive characters, items, and media placed in
physical space. The ARIS editor, which is used
to design the AR environments, can be downloaded to a laptop or desktop machine while the
user interface can be downloaded to a MBD.
FreshAiR.
Additionally, a development platform called
FreshAiR is currently available for use by practitioners. AR content can be developed using a
browser based editor and can be accessed using
a mobile browser. The creators of the development platform suggest that it is ideal for campus
or city tours, injecting technology into educational curricula, and for creating AR games.

Conclusion
Given the potential benefits for students
and availability of hardware and software resources, the time has come for practitioners to
start designing and using AR enhanced learning
environments with their students. Practitioner
participation will allow for the instructional
design community to see how the experiences
can be tied to all manner of unique locations
such as historic districts, parks, battlefields,
and geographic landmarks. As practitioners
join the conversation, the instructional design
and technology community will learn more
about how students feel about learning in AR
environments, how practitioners feel about using the environments with their students, and
how effective the environments are at teaching
specific curriculum items. Practitioner involvement will also help the design community learn
more about how students feel about interacting
with virtual content, how designers can best tie
Volume 57, Number 4

digital content to a physical space, and the ideal amount of virtual content for such learning
environments. Acting on their own or perhaps
with a class in an after-school club, everything
is in place for practitioners and their students
to start designing, using, and sharing the results
from their experiences with AR enhanced learning environments.
Correspondence in regard to this paper should
be addressed to: Christopher Wasko, Virginia
Polytechnic Institute and State University, 401
East Fourth Street, Suite #308, Winston-Salem,
NC 27101, Phone: 336-970-0435, Email: cwasko@vt.edu

References
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http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/23/technology/
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r=1&ref=technology
Clark, R. E. (1983). Reconsidering research on learning
from media. Review of Educational Research, 53,445459.
Dunleavy, M., Dede, C., & Mitchell, R. (2009). Affordances and limitations of immersive participatory
augmented reality simulations for teaching and
learning. Journal of Science Education & Technology,
18(1), 7-22.
Hill, C., Corbett, C. & St. Rose, A. (2010). Why so few?
Women in science, technology, engineering and
mathematics. American Association of University
Women. Washington, DC:AAUW Research Report.
International Society for Technology in Education.(2012).
Iste.nets-s for students. Retrieved from http://www.
iste.org/standards.aspx
Kirkley, S. and Kirkley, J. (2005). Creating next generation
blended learning environments using mixed reality,
video games and simulations. TechTrends, 49(3).
Kekelis, L.; Ancheta, R.; & Heber, E. (2005). Hurdles
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Klopfer, E. (2008). Augmented learning: Research and design of mobile educational games . Cambridge, MA:
MIT Press.
Shalvey, K. (2012). Googles sci-fi glasses ordered by 1,200
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http://search.proquest.com/docview/1022505004?ac
countid=14541
Smith, A. (2010). Mobile access 2010. Pew Internet & American Life Project.
pewinternet.org/
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