Augmented reality

The nature of AR

Augmented reality, or AR, involves superimposing a dynamic digital overlay on real-world settings to supplement our perceptions and understandings of those settings. The name derives from the notion that the digital data ‘augments’ the ‘reality’ we see around us. With strong support for the development of AR from a number of major technology corporations including Apple, Facebook and Microsoft, important innovations have occurred in this area.

AR is distinct from virtual reality (VR), which involves a fully digitally simulated experience rather than a layering of digital information over our perceptions of reality. However, both AR and VR are part of the larger phenomenon of extended reality (XR), while the term mixed reality (MR) is sometimes used synonymously with XR, and sometimes synonymously with AR (for more detail, including a discussion of the augmented-virtual continuum, see the virtual reality page of this website).

AR has links with web 3.0, and specifically the concept of the geospatial web. Because AR is typically accessed on mobile devices, it also has links with mobile learning. Both AR and VR may have a place in the proposed notion of the Metaverse, promoted notably by Facebook (for more detail, see the web 3.0 page of this website).

AR may in fact be defined in a broad conceptual way, or a narrow technocentric way, as follows:

In a broad conceptual view, AR refers to the dynamic presentation, in a real-world setting, of digital information and communication channels which are contextually relevant (with certain non-contextualised exceptions such as some app-based 3D models); in a narrower technocentric view, AR refers to the “direct superimposition of digital information and communication channels on our perceptions of a real-world setting” (Pegrum, 2019, p. 57) … As AR is advancing, the conceptual and technocentric definitions are in the process of merging, with the direct superimposition of digital data
on our perceptions becoming the norm.

Source: Pegrum, M. (2021). Augmented reality learning: Education in real-world contexts. In T. Beaven & F. Rosell-Aguilar (Eds.), Innovative language pedagogy report (pp. 115-120). Research-publishing.net. https://doi.org/10.14705/rpnet.2021.50.1245.

As briefly noted above, today’s AR interfaces are most commonly accessed on mobile devices. These include smartphones or tablets, where AR browsers or apps overlay digital text, images, videos or objects on a user’s view of the real world, as seen through the viewfinder of the camera on the mobile device and displayed on its screen. A combination of geographical markers (which rely on GPS and geofencing) and visual markers (which rely on image/object recognition or, at the simplest, scanning of QR codes) may be used to trigger these digital displays.

Such displays can now also be accessed through XR headsets or head-mounted displays (HMDs) to provide a more immersive experience. Recent innovations in this area include the 2019 Microsoft Hololens 2 and the 2023/2024 Apple Vision Pro. The latter runs on what Apple calls a spatial operating system, which allows content to be represented in 3D in physical space, with the headset controlled by eye and hand movements and voice. We are also now seeing the emergence of XR headsets which can handle both AR and VR; these arguably include the Apple Vision Pro, as well as the 2023 Meta Quest 3.

Related hardware includes smart glasses such Google Glass (discontinued in 2023), Snapchat’s Spectacles and Meta’s Ray-Ban Meta Smart Glasses. We’ve also begun to see the fusing of AR with artificial intelligence (AI), for example in the Frame AI glasses from Brilliant Labs. In the future we may even see even augmented reality contact lenses.

Key software includes Google Lens and Pinterest Lens, which allow identification of real-world images and objects (as well as text translation in the former case). Software for creating AR experiences is available from companies such as BlippAR and Wikitude (see the Wikitude images above and below; and see more on creating AR below). This is an area of considerable ongoing experimentation, with companies appearing and disappearing: note that the formerly well-known Junaio app was discontinued in 2015, and the educationally popular Woices was discontinued in 2017.

It is increasingly possible for users to input information, interact with virtual objects or creatures, create texts or multimedia artefacts tagged to real-world geographical locations, and engage with other users through AR interfaces. The layering of many people’s comments and artefacts over a given location is sometimes called deep mapping.

Learning with AR

The simplest educational uses of AR involve superimposing rich digital data, artefacts and/or interactive objects on worksheets or books, which become visible once the worksheets or books are scanned with a smartphone or tablet. One of the first popular pieces of software used by teachers and students to do this was Aurasma, later renamed HP Reveal, and now discontinued. Other similar tools include Adobe’s Aero, Augment, BlippAR’s Blippbuilder and Zappar’s Zapworks, along with apps like AR Makr.

But AR can also take students outside the classroom into real-world environments, in which case it corresponds to contemporary trends in situated and informal learning. Where students co-operate and collaborate on learning trails or in games using mobile AR apps in their everyday settings, a social constructivist element is evident. Where students create multimedia artefacts to record, consolidate and share their learning, creativity and digital literacies come to the fore.

Educational companies which create learning trails, treasure hunts and games, and which increasingly offer educators and students user-friendly tools to create their own versions of these, include IMMRSIV (formerly LDR) and Rockmoon in Singapore. Platforms that can be used for the creation of such trails include Actionbound from Germany, and The Station, TaleBlazer and Twine from the US, as well as some tools mentioned above such as Aero (note that the formerly popular ARIS platform is no longer supported). The MASELTOV Project in Europe carried out interesting work in this area, resulting in the production of a language learning app. There is now also growing educational interest in commercial pervasive games enabled by AR, as detailed on the gaming page of this website.

For an overview of the promise of AR for education, work and other areas of life, you might like to check out some of the following links. Bear in mind that, in many ways, videos demonstrate AR better than still images because they can capture its dynamic, changing aspects; some of the recent articles below contain embedded videos:

• • Augmented Reality (video) (The Medical Futurist, 2019)
  • Dinosaur Digger Game – Augmented Reality Merge Cube (video) (AI Studio, 2019)
  • Empowering Educators to Create Immersive Learning Experiences (video) (Telstra Enterprise, 2019)
  • Hands-On Mixed Reality Anatomy Education from Home (video) (3D Organon, 2020)
  • 10 Best Examples of VR and AR in Education (Bernard Marr/Forbes, 2021)
  • Augmented Reality in Education: The Future of Learning (Metaverse VR Now, 2022)
  • How Augmented Reality Fosters Student Curiosity and Collaboration (Abbie Misha/EdSurge, 2023)
  • Powerful Learning Experiences with Augmented and Virtual Reality (video) (EdTech Teacher, 2023)
  • Augmented Reality in Education: The Future is Here (Neil Sahota, 2023)

For an up-to-date list of AR software, see Penn State’s Experience Catalogue. More references about augmented reality are available on the Publications on Mobile Learning page.

Last update: August 2024.