Augmented Reality in education – cases, places and potentials

Augmented Reality is poised to profoundly transform Education as we know it. The capacity to overlay rich media onto the real world for viewing through web-enabled devices such as phones and tablet devices means that information can be made available to students at the exact time and place of need. This has the potential to reduce cognitive overload by providing students with “perfectly situated scaffolding”, as well as enable learning in a range of other ways. This paper will review uses of Augmented Reality both in mainstream society and in education, and discuss the pedagogical potentials afforded by the technology. Based on the prevalence of information delivery uses of Augmented Reality in Education, we argue the merit of having students design Augmented Reality experiences in order to develop their higher order thinking capabilities. A case study of “learning by design” using Augmented Reality in high school Visual Art is presented, with samples of student work and their feedback indicating that the approach resulted in high levels of independent thinking, creativity and critical analysis. The paper concludes by establishing a future outlook for Augmented Reality and setting a research agenda going forward.