Augmented Reality

"Augmented reality is a technology that superimposes a computer -

generated image on a user's view of the real world, thus providing a
composite view."
K-12 Lesson Application
Scenario
Ms. Haraway's third grade class has been studying various kinds of trees and
their leaves in science. They looked at pictures of the leaves and trees while
doing the lesson, but Ms. Haraway wanted them to have a more authentic
experience. She planned a field trip for the students where they would do a
nature walk at a local state park to observe trees. 1:1 iPad integration had
recently been added to their classroom, and her school had also talked about
implementing augmented reality. This was a perfect opportunity to utilize both.
The students would each carry an iPad on the nature walk. As they progressed
along the walk, they could use the camera and an augmented reality program to
scan a tree or other item in nature to find out more about it.
The technology being used for the lesson is an app called Leaf ++, which can be
downloaded on the students' iPads. This app allows users to identify plants by
their leaves, and then generates information about the identified plant. It also
includes details about the anatomy of each plant scanned, and it's life cycle.
Source: http://leaf.artisopensource.net/

Pros and Cons

Social
Pro - Increases Student Engagement
Teachers often find it difficult to maintain productive engagement within the
classroom. With the virtual reality technology present in education,
engagement should increase, as most of the students will feel tempted to
talk about their experiences with virtual reality.
Emotional
Pro - Promotes Self-Confidence
Students who have previously lacked confidence in education or struggled
to become involved gain confidence through the use of augmented
reality. This can be extremely beneficial as emotional rewards are a huge
and invaluable incentive for students, which can encourage studying even
more.
Physical
Pro - Visual Aid
Augmented reality gives users the opportunity to receive visual assistance
in real-time while preforming a certain action.
Cognitive
Pro - Constructivism
As a cognitive tool or pedagogical approach, AR aligns well with situated
and constructivist learning theory as it positions the learner within a real-
world physical and social context, while guiding, scaffolding and facilitating
participatory and metacognitive learning processes such as authentic
inquiry, active observation, peer coaching, reciprocal teaching and
legitimate peripheral participation with multiple modes of representation.
Con - Cognitive Overload
The most frequently reported limitation of AR in its current state of
development is student cognitive overload. Across studies, researchers
report that students are often overwhelmed with the complexity of the
activities, the scientific inquiry process and navigation.

References:

https://elearningindustry.com/pros-cons-using-virtual-
reality-in-the-classroom

Higher Education College of Education Scenario

Augmented reality is being implemented in medical schools across the world. In
Dr. Snow's class, her students are using augmented reality to enhance their
learning of the human body. One way they are doing so is will visualizing human
anatomical structure with AR. They do this with what is called the magic mirror
('Miracle'). How does this work? According to the resource, 'the
trainee stands
in front of a TV screen that has a camera and the Kinect attached to
it. The camera image of the trainee is flipped horizontally and
shown on the TV screen, mimicking a mirror function (Fig. 2). Part
of an anonymous CT dataset is augmented to the users body and
shown on the TV screen. This creates the illusion that the trainee
can look inside his body. A gesture-based user interface allows real
time manipulation of the visualization of the CT data. The trainee
can scroll through the dataset in sagittal, transverse and coronal
slice mode, by using different hand gestures.' Another is by visualizing
3D lung dynamics with AR. They have developed a system that allows
real-time visualization of 3D lung dynamics superimposed directly
on a manikin or on a patient in the operating room. In that
visualization they combine a generic functional lung model with
patient-specific data extracted from high-resolution computed
tomography (HRCT). This results in a dynamic, real-time
visualization of virtual lungs that is overlaid onto the patients
body. They also train laparoscopy skills with AR. Augmented Reality provides
students with the opportunity to learn laparoscopy skills without performing on
an actual human. Although they are not performing on actual body, the AR
makes the experience as realistic as possible.

References:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4152469/