AR for Truth-TElling

Exploring Innovative Educational Uses for Augmented reality | 12.20.2022

From "Preserving The Art Of Black Lives Matter Using AR" by Kyle Melnick

Augmented reality (AR) has gained popularity in educational and activist contexts due to its ability to enhance engagement and truth-telling. In this paper, I explore the reasons behind AR's success in these areas and examine how it can be effectively utilized in educational environments. Additionally, I investigate how the design of activism-oriented AR applications can offer insights into the future of AR for education. The examples of AR applications for activism and advocacy demonstrate how AR sustains discourse, adapts to current conditions, and expands the reach of social campaigns. I propose three principles for the future of educational AR, focusing on the extension of real-life objects and places, the revelation of unseen truths, and equity-centered design. By adhering to these principles, AR can continue to evolve as a powerful tool for learning, fostering interdisciplinary examination, truth-telling, intentional anchoring, and inclusive design. Click through and on the images below to learn more about AR, specific applications, and AR’s value for education.

Mainstreaming of AR

AR in mobile technology precipitated its mainstreaming. Click the image to learn more about how Pokémon Go mainstreamed AR.

AR in Education

The core traits of AR, complementary to constructivism and teaching strategies rooted in learner-centered pedagogy, produce dynamic, hands-on learning opportunities. Click on the image to read a broad overview of AR in education.

AR and Activism

AR has the ability to sustain discourse around important social issues, adapt to present conditions, and increase the reach of activism. Click on the image to learn more about “We Rise Above,” Vince Fraser’s AR experience in Black Lives Matter Plazas across the country.

The Future of AR x Education

AR can continue to be a powerful tool for learning if it evolves through interdisciplinary examination, truth-telling, intentional place-based anchoring, and inclusive design. Click on the image to learn more about “Before the Bulldozers: Historic Southwest DC Exposed,” an AR walking tour created by the Smithsonian’s Anacostia Community Museum.

Paper Excerpts

• What is AR?

  AR is defined as any system that has the following characteristics: 1) a combination of real and virtual worlds, 2) real time interaction, and 3) three-dimensional registration of virtual and real objects (Azuma, 1997).  The technology enhances users’ physical surroundings with virtual objects and data, then creates opportunities for interaction, thereby changing the way the user sees their real world environment. Originally invented in scientific and military laboratories, AR’s features make it useful in a myriad of industries and fields where it is used for everything from immersive marketing to flight simulations. 

• Diffusion oF AR

  The existence of AR in mobile technology starting in 2016 precipitated its mainstreaming through easily accessible communication channels - social media, gaming, and marketing. When Pokémon Go emerged as a wildly popular mobile gaming application, users were playing the game in their homes, outside of their homes, and in public spaces. The function of the game - players moving in the real world to interact with virtual animals - made it a visible, social phenomena for most, if not all, demographics (Chamary, 2018). AR filters on social media, which are now inherent to the social media experience, were once a nascent addition to the social media landscape. By embedding into the massive communication channel of social media and tapping into its influence, AR diffused at a rapid rate.

• AR in Education

  AR is uniquely suited to support the evolution of learning and the experiences of learners. It has also seen growing popularity in both formal and informal education, flourishing as a tool working in conjunction with constructivist learning theories. According to educational psychologists, constructivism is a philosophical and psychological approach based on the assumption that persons, behaviors, and environments interact in reciprocal fashion (Schunk, 2012). Learning happens in context, constructivists contend, and learners form what they learn as “a function of their experiences in a situation” (Pourhosein Gilakjani et al., 2013).

  The core traits of AR, complementary to constructivism and teaching strategies rooted in learner-centered pedagogy, produce dynamic, hands-on learning opportunities. With more learners growing up as “digital natives” with access to mobile devices and vast information in a digitized world, technology-enhanced learning has the ability to tap into student motivation and interest (Lampropoulos et al., 2022).

  Several studies on the educational uses of AR have found that the immersive and interactive experience of AR creates more inclusive, collaborative, situated, and continuous learning (Lampropoulos et al., 2022; Martín-Gutiérrez et al., 2015). Studies also found that students benefited from using AR. As students enjoyed the overall experience of learning through AR and grew more engaged, their learning achievements, knowledge acquisition, long-term retention, and cognitive development improved (Lampropoulos et al., 2022; Walker et al., 2017).

• AR and Activism

  AR has been used for activism since the early 2010s. AR activism, like any other form of activism or advocacy, involves vigorous campaigning to bring about political or social change (Oxford English Dictionary, 2022). Teaching people something new or bringing attention to an issue through dialogue are also key functions of AR activism. Artist and author Mark Skwarek wrote about the intersection of art, activism and AR, arguing that AR takes “the visibility of… protests and actions, and extends it into the digital world” by tapping into digital networks, the accessibility of mobile phones, and creating community action in a public square that cannot be regulated or censored (Skwarek, 2018). …AR has the ability to sustain discourse around important social issues, adapt to present conditions, and increase the reach of activism.

• Three Principles for Learning with AR

  Acknowledging a new era of traits and design principles for AR - specifically for the purposes of learning and advocacy - could enhance the possibilities of the technology now and into the future. Below are a few proposed principles.

  1) Focusing on the extension of real-life objects and places, 2) the revelation of unseen truths, and 3) equity-centered design. By adhering to these principles, AR can continue to evolve as a powerful tool for learning, fostering interdisciplinary examination, truth-telling, intentional anchoring, and inclusive design.