Blog Post 9: Augmented Reality in Education

 

In general, when people hear about virtual or augmented reality, they think about video games. However, virtual and augmented reality has been making major strides in education over the past few years (Young, 2020). Predominantly, patrons are most familiar with the term virtual reality (VR), which is the submersion into a completely new realm of reality. For example, when one puts on goggles and sees a completely different world, that is virtual reality (Massis, 2015). However, augmented reality (AR) has grown more in popularity over the past couple of years. Augmented reality is when digital or media layers are added to reality to serve an added purpose like descriptions, directions, game pieces, etc. (Massis, 2015). For visual examples, look below.

 

Virtual and Augmented Reality in Education

In education, virtual and augmented reality can completely change the scope of how children perceive learning, interact with new material, or are able to immerse into new cultures. Additionally, because students often associated virtual or augmented reality with games, it will inherently make students more excited about learning or interacting with the technology in class (Young, 2020).   Furthermore, students can be challenged through the use of virtual or augmented reality in ways that they have never been challenged before (Billinghurst & Duenser, 2012). For example, students can immersively swim with sharks to learn about them, rather than merely taking notes in class. By interacting in this immersive or augmented way, student learning is more independent and it gives them more opportunities to inquire for themselves. Overall, by adding virtual and augmented reality into the classroom, the future of education can completely change.

 Augmented Reality Tool Example

Quiver is an augmented reality tool that allows students to see their drawings come to life around them. The app itself is less than $10, and can be used to bring curriculum to life with many education resources available within the app. To use Quiver, students will have to draw on specific color packs created by Quiver. To use Quiver properly, the following steps will have to be taken:

1.    To locate these color packs, users should go to the Quiver website, and look for the turquoise button labeled “Color Packs” in the upper right hand corner.

2.    Once you are in the “color packs” section, users can look at the wide variety of different recreational and educational color sheets made available for children.

3.     Once the user has found a coloring pack they want to interact with, they should download and print it out.

4.    Then, the student is allowed to color all over the printed sheet just like they would a normal coloring book.

5.    Next, the adult should download the Quiver app to their mobile device and scan the document.

6.    Once students scan the document, the picture will come alive off the page (Quiver Augmented Reality, 2019).

Many of the images have interactive activities like hearing the animal noises, hearing sounds of the environment, watching animals move or swim like they would in real life, and the characters can interact with each other. Students are able to not only make a personal connection to what they are learning because they colored it, but they are able to see a completely different side of the subject matter by seeing it, quite literally, jump off the page. The video below shows users how easy it is to use Quiver (Quiver Augmented Reality, 2019).  

 

          It is important to note that, though all of the pages are free to print off line, some images do have to be purchased in the app to interact with the AR features.

 

Using Quiver in the Classroom

           In the elementary school setting, Quiver could be an amazing tool to use with a wide variety of different lessons. Specifically, Quiver would greatly enhance units about animals and animal biology. For example, there are multiple coloring sheets on different types of animals in their natural habitats with other animals or by themselves. Additionally, many of the different animal AR scans have interactive features where the students can see their animals interacting with other animals, they can hear what their animals sound like, and they can watch how their animals act. A fun project could be for students to each have different coloring sheets with different animals that they then have to show to the class. Students love interactive activities like show-and-tell, and Quiver brings that be a tool used to let students show off their work while still letting them interact with curriculum material in a useful way.

          To see Quiver being used in a real classroom, watch the video below.

References:

Billinghurst, M. & Duenser, A. (2012). Augmented reality in the classroom. Computer,

45 (7), 56-63. doi: 10.1109/MC.2012.111.

 

Engineersgarage [username]. (2020). What are the differences between VR and AR?

[Image]. Virtual Reality Pop. Retrieved from https://virtualrealitypop.com/virtual-reality-vs-augmented-reality-whats-the-difference-a650a4b3895f

 

The Franklin Institute. (2020). What’s the difference between AR, VR, and MR? [Image].

Retrieved from

https://www.fi.edu/difference-between-ar-vr-and-mr#:~:text=Augmented%20reality%20(AR)%20adds%20digital,shuts%20out%20the%20physical%20world.

 

Laredo I.S.D. Instructional Technology Department [username]. (2019, April 4). Quiver

augmented reality app part 3. [Video file]. Youtube. Retrieved from

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wP3uNSgUdUY

 

Massis, B. (2015), "Using virtual and augmented reality in the library", New Library

World, Vol. 116 No. 11/12, pp. 796-799. https://doi.org/10.1108/NLW-08-2015-

0054

 

Quiver Augmented Reality. (2019, May 5). How to use quiver 3D coloring app? [Video

file]. Youtube. Retrieved from

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9LpHUG5IO2c

 

Young, L. (2020). Get the most from AR/VR technology without breaking the budget.

[Web page]. The School Library Journal. Retrieved from

https://www.slj.com/?detailStory=get-the-most-from-ar-vr-technology-without-breaking-budget-library