Augmenting a Child’s Reality: Using Educational Tablet Technology

Abstract

This study investigates the classroom integration of an innovative technology, augmented reality. Although the process of adding new technologies into a classroom setting can be daunting, the concept of augmented reality has demonstrated the ability to educate students and to assist with their comprehension of a procedural task. One half of the students of a sixth grade class were exposed to augmented reality technology when they were assigned the procedural task of building Lego™ robots. As a control group, the other half of the class learned how to construct their robots using only the static paper manual that was provided by the manufacturer of the robot kit. The students who experienced the augmented reality technology did so by interacting with an animated version of the same static manual where they observed video tutorials that were overlaid onto the static manual to provide an augmented representation of each step. This technology solution was developed using the Aurasma™ augmented reality application which ran on Apple {iPads}™. Results have indicated that the students who used the animated manual to learn the procedural task showcased significantly higher comprehension scores when compared to those who only used the static manual. Our findings support the claims that the integration of augmented reality into a classroom setting may be beneficial to student learning.