5 Exciting Applications of Augmented Reality in Education

These days, Augmented Reality (AR) has changed a lot about how people study. By putting digital information on top of the real world, AR helps kids learn better, remember more, and be more interested. Both teachers and students are using AR apps to study and teach. For instance, science lessons use 3D models that you can touch, and virtual field trips make history come alive. HolonIQ’s 2024 projection estimates that the global AR in education business would be worth $5.3 billion by 2028, with a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 32.9% (HolonIQ, 2024).

These writers have been using AR in K–12 and higher education for more than ten years. The facts and case studies all come from reputable industry magazines, peer-reviewed journals, and government papers. You may check facts, find out about various methods to do things, and identify the best ways to put things into action by clicking on links.

We’ll talk about five entertaining ways to use AR in the classroom in the next few sections. We’ll talk about real-life examples, proof that it helps students learn, how to use it, and the best places to do so. This book has all the information you need to know and do to be successful, whether you are a teacher who wants to use AR in your classroom or an ed-tech decision-maker who wants to make big deployments.

1. A look at 3D models that are interactive in STEM Going to school

It could be hard for students in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) subjects to think about space since the ideas are too complicated. AR fills this gap by introducing 3D models of things like chemical structures, anatomical systems, or mechanical assemblies into the real world around students. This lets students look at the models from different angles and move them around.

• A study in Computers & Education found that students who used AR molecular models instead of still pictures were 23% better at understanding molecular geometry [1].
• When students move about and interact with virtual items, their sense of touch, sight, and hearing are all stimulated, which helps them learn and remember more [2].
• Immediate Feedback: Many AR apps let you take quizzes or write notes immediately away. For example, prompts can tell students to explain how blood flows and how the parts of a 3D heart model work.

A Study of How to Teach Anatomy

The AiR (Anatomy in Reality) platform at Stanford University’s School of Medicine lets students see high-resolution anatomical characteristics on their own bodies while they are working in dissection labs. A controlled study found that students who learned with AR for one semester made 30% fewer mistakes on identification tests than students who only learned with cadavers [3].

How to Pick Hardware for Implementation

• Entry-level: smartphones and tablets that can run ARCore (for Android) or ARKit (for iOS).
• Advanced: AR headsets like the Microsoft HoloLens 2 and the Magic Leap 2 let you have immersive experiences without having to touch anything.

Places for content

• You can use zSpace’s ready-made lecture modules and STEM simulations.
• You can move 3D science models around with cubes in Merge EDU.
• You may make your own 3D content and share it on the cloud with the EON Reality AVR Platform.

Putting together lessons

• Make sure that the AR activities fit with the rules for grading and the learning goals.
• Before the AR, have the kids talk about the terms and then think about them again.

2. A brief overview of virtual field trips and recreating the past

Students can see places and times that are far away without leaving the classroom with augmented reality. By putting historical relics, architectural reconstructions, or immersive narratives on top of the real world, students can “walk” around Ancient Rome, visit the Great Barrier Reef, or look at ancient locations in situ.

The Good Things About Learning

• According to the idea of situated cognition, people learn better when they show what they know in a way that makes sense in the real world. You can use what you learn in AR field trips [4].
• Emotional Engagement: People are more interested and compassionate when they see things from a first-person point of view. A study published in the Journal of Educational Technology & Society indicated that AR historical tours made students 40% more interested in what they were learning.
• Accessibility: Students who have trouble getting about can take part in immersive experiences that they wouldn’t be able to accomplish otherwise.

An Examination of the Titanic Expedition

The Titanic AR Experience was made by the National Geographic Society. It presents 3D scans of the shipwreck on top of classrooms. Students learn how to safeguard marine life and see damage to the hull in 3D. They also do guided tasks that are based on problems. Tests showed that students were 15% better at thinking critically about history after the event (National Geographic, 2023).

How to get things done: Picking places

• Put UNESCO World Heritage Sites or other culturally important places with high-quality 3D photos at the top of your list.
• You can get free assets by downloading them from open-source sites like Sketchfab and CyArk.

Writing a story

• Make storyboards that help kids learn important things.
• Add questions that assist people decide, like “What would you do if you were there?”

Getting Ready Technically

• To put digital things in the right place, use printed QR codes as markers.
• Check that there is enough light and that the surfaces are rough enough for tracking to work without markers.

3. A look at learning languages with AR overlays

You need to know the words, how to say them, and the differences between cultures when you learn a new language. Augmented reality (AR) apps can use immersive multimedia overlays to add translations to real-world objects, teach you how to say words, and provide you cultural context.

Benefits of Learning

• Immediate Contextualization: Putting labels on everyday things, such “refrigerator” and “puerta,” connects words to things immediately away, which helps memory through context [6].
• When you use voice recognition engines that are incorporated into other programs, you get a quick answer. This helps you learn a language faster by stopping the plateau effect.
• Cultural immersion: AR storytelling modules help you learn more about other cultures by putting you in situations like ordering food in a Parisian café or figuring out how to get around a Japanese train station.

A Peek at Mondly AR

The Mondly AR app has holographic characters who converse to users in the language they want to learn. A randomized controlled study found that participants who used Mondly AR learned a language 20% faster over four weeks than people who used regular flashcards [7].

How to Make It Happen: Putting the Curriculum in Order

• Include AR sessions in language sections that are already there, such “At Home” or “Travel.”
• Use AR to add to, not replace, elements that help students talk to each other in class.

Ideas for Platforms

• Google Lens is a free app that can translate and do OCR right away.
• With AR Lingua, you may apply your own overlays to word lists that other people have made.

How to Give a Score

• Tests before and after to see how well you remember words.
• AR apps recorded oral proficiency exams that the people who were grading them could watch.

4. AR for studying and enjoying games with other people

A short look at

People may talk to each other, work through problems, and get along better when they learn together. AR makes these benefits even better by adding shared virtual workspaces, puzzles that people can work on together, and game-based challenges that people have to work together to solve.

Benefits of Learning

• According to Vygotsky’s social constructivism theory, people learn best when they talk to and work with other people. People chat to and teach each other when they finish AR group projects [8].
• Leaderboards, badges, and story-based missions are all ways to make things more fun for kids and keep them on track [9].
• Skill Development: By doing AR homework, students learn 21st-century skills like digital literacy, creativity, and critical thinking.

A Look at CoSpaces Edu

With CoSpaces Edu, students may work together to build AR worlds and situations. As part of a pilot initiative at a middle school in New York, teams produced AR-based simulations of environmental science. This made scores on standardized rubrics for working together to solve problems go up by 25%.

How to get things done: Team Structure

• Make groups with people who have different jobs, like navigator, coder, and presenter.
• You need to work together to accomplish well on AR projects.

How to play the game

• Add quests that include a time limit, a point system, and levels that you can reach.
• Make scaffold tasks that are appropriate for each student’s level.

Bringing together platforms

• Groups can utilize Merge Cube and CoSpaces in the real world as AR tools.
• Holo-Light is an augmented reality (AR) service that works in the cloud and can handle up to 20 users at once.

5. More aid with and access to special education

An Overview

AR helps kids with different needs, like those with dyslexia, ADHD, or trouble moving around, learn better by giving them personalized learning paths and assistance for all of their senses.

Learning Benefits:

• AR uses visual, auditory, and kinesthetic cues, which helps kids who learn in different ways [10].
• Adaptive Content Delivery: Each learner benefits from changes in difficulty in real time and different means of getting information, like text-to-speech overlays.
• More Freedom: Students can choose the order and speed of AR activities, which helps them learn to be more self-disciplined and autonomous.

A ReadAnywhere AR Study

Read Anywhere AR is for kids who have problems reading. It reads the text out loud and highlights the words as they are said. A controlled study in UK primary schools showed that reading fluency scores went up by 35% after eight weeks of reading sessions with AR.

How to Use a Needs Assessment

• Talk to people who work in special education to find out what help you need.
• Make small modifications and see what people think.

Things that are useful

• Changing the contrast between colors, zooming in on text, and using avatars that use sign language.
• Integrations that enable you change text into speech and speech into text.

Moving up in your job

• Teach teachers how to use AR technologies and explain the ideas behind Universal Design for Learning (UDL).
• Talk about what works well with your peers and in groups of people who do the same thing.

Final Thoughts

Augmented Reality is changing the way we learn by making abstract ideas real, bringing distant places into the classroom, and meeting the needs of all kinds of students. There are many ways to use AR to make learning more fun, easier to understand, and easier to get to. Some of these are 3D STEM models that you can play with, language practice that makes you feel like you’re there, gamified projects that everyone can work on together, and tools for special education that everyone can utilize.

To get the most out of AR, companies should:

• Make sure that the AR activities are in line with what the kids are supposed to learn and the criteria for the curriculum.
• Pick the right hardware and software for your budget and the things you want to teach.
• Show teachers how to use technology and how to use it in their lessons (for example, UDL and backward design).
• Check things with good tests, comments from students, and research that is founded on facts.

Augmented reality (AR) is projected to become a common tool for teaching as gear becomes cheaper and content creation tools become easier to use. Teachers can use augmented reality (AR) to make learning more fun and beneficial by following the advice and examples in this article and using the E-E-A-T principles.

Many people ask these questions.

Q1: What do you need to use AR in class? ARKit for iOS and ARCore for Android let you use AR on most tablets and phones. You can utilize AR without using your hands with headsets like the Microsoft HoloLens 2 or the Magic Leap 2.

Q2: How can I be sure that the AR content meets the requirements set by the curriculum? First, write down the most important items you want your students to learn. After there, pick or create AR modules that will help you reach those goals. Do some exercises before and after AR lessons to help students remember what they learned.

Q3. Is there any concern about AR’s safety or privacy? Yes. You have to obey FERPA (U.S.) or GDPR (EU) rules when you handle student data like pictures and voice recordings. Choose platforms that have strong privacy policies that encrypt everything from start to finish.

Q4: What is the price of AR? Prices are all over the place. You might just need free or cheap apps if you’re new to BYOD cellphones and tablets. Headsets for whole classrooms can cost between $2,000 and $5,000 each. Make sure to include the costs of gear, software licenses, and professional development in your plans.

Q5: Can AR be used for testing? Of course. Many AR platforms provide analytics dashboards that show how well students are doing in real time, such as how many of them are finishing tasks and how well they are doing on tests.

Q6: Where can I find good 3D models to utilize in AR lessons? Some repositories that provide both free and paid content are Sketchfab, CyArk, and 3D Warehouse. Always read the terms of use before you use it.

Q7: What kind of training do teachers need to be able to use AR well? Workshops that show teachers how to use AR tools, instructional design frameworks like UDL and SAMR, and how to use data to grade students can be valuable for them. You can also get help on a regular basis by joining a peer mentoring group or an online community.

References

1. Garzón, J., & Acevedo, M. (2022). Effects of Augmented Reality on Science Education. Computers & Education. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.compedu.2022.104306
2. EDUCAUSE. (2021). Educause Annual Report 2021. https://er.educause.edu/articles/2021/12/educause-annual-report-2021
3. Stanford Medicine AiR Project. (2023). Anatomy in Reality. https://med.stanford.edu/anatomy/air-project.html
4. UNESCO. (2021). Augmented Reality in Education Policy Brief. https://unesdoc.unesco.org/ark:/48223/pf0000377432
5. Lee, S., & Wong, T. (2023). Emotional Engagement in AR Historical Tours. Journal of Educational Technology & Society. https://www.j-ets.net/
6. Li, X., et al. (2023). Contextual Vocabulary Learning with AR. Journal of Computer Assisted Learning. https://doi.org/10.1111/jcal.12645
7. Mondly. (2024). AR Language Learning Study. https://mondly.com/ar-research
8. Vygotsky, L. S. (1978). Mind in Society: The Development of Higher Psychological Processes. Harvard University Press. https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203840155
9. Santos, D. (2023). Gamification and AR in Collaborative Learning. Computers & Education. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.compedu.2023.104813
10. Smith, J., & Patel, R. (2022). AR for Inclusive Education. Research in Developmental Disabilities. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ridd.2022.104303