This project anticipates the needs of learners in ten years by developing and testing two learning simulations that are immersive, interactive and participatory and use augmented reality in the outdoors. The students (each with a separate role to play) work in teams to investigate phenomena and solve problems in a gaming environment using wireless handheld GPS units. This model leverages devices that students already own and use in their extracurricular activities and gets students out of the classroom to play the game in their local environments, allowing for the construction of knowledge that is situated and tacit. Using a design-based, mixed methods approach, the researchers examine the relationships among augmented reality, learning in science, socio-emotional outcomes (engagement and self-efficacy) and the demographic characteristics of rural, underserved students in a few middle schools in southwest Virginia. Quantitative instrumentation is developed to clarify the conceptual foundations and identify contextual factors that could lead to general conditions for successful educational use of augmented reality. In addition, the researchers document teachers' and students' descriptions of how participating in a technology-mediated narrative in the outdoor Augmented reality simulation enhances or impedes teaching and learning science and mathematics concepts.
Intellectual Merit: The Radford Outdoor Augmented Reality (ROAR) project conducted a proof of concept project documenting the feasibility and practicality of using AR to effectively teach science to rural middle school students. As a result of a change in the technology, the ROAR team has also designed browser-based AR editor and engine software, which enables teachers to develop and implement their own AR games, simulations and assessment without the support of the ROAR team. The story-based, participatory AR games developed by the ROAR team are played on an Apple iPhone 3GS or Android-based phones and use GPS technology to correlate the students’ real world location to their virtual location in the game’s digital world. As the students walk and run around their school grounds, a map on their handheld displays virtual objects and people who exist in an AR layer superimposed on real space. When students come within approximately 10 feet of these digital artifacts, the AR and GPS software trigger video, audio, and text files, which provide academic and problem solving challenges as well as narrative, navigation, and collaboration cues. The first AR game developed by the ROAR project during year 1 of the grant that enabled the research team to explore the feasibility and practicality of using AR is called Outbreak. Outbreak is an epidemiology-based game based on Virginia Standards of Learning for middle school Life Science (LS 4, 5, 9, 10, and 12). In Outbreak, students are required to collect animal and plant specimens to create an antidote for a disease. The students take on different roles (i.e., Botanist, Zoologist, and Entomologist) with different areas of expertise. As the students explore the game space (e.g., school yard) they are required to find, analyze and collect digital specimens that might be part of a cure within four separate habitats. The unit could easily be adapted for secondary Biology students (Bio 1, 2, and 9). The unit is also based on science content standards for grades 5-8 from the National Science Education Standards. In addition, the game structure and content are designed to allow teachers the ability to make alterations based on different academic standards, different content areas, and different current events. The second AR game developed during year 2 of the grant is called Missing. Missing is a forensics-based game based on Virginia Standards of Learning for middle school Life and Physical Science (6.1c, e, h, i, k; PS 1b, c, f, k, m; LS 1c, d, i). In Missing, the students must determine why a faculty member is missing and who might be involved in his or her disappearance. The students take on different roles with different areas of expertise to collect and analyze evidence to support an assertion as to the location of the faculty member. Both of the designed units address specific national standards and Information and Communication Technology (ICT) Literacy objectives outlined by the National Research Council and the Partnership for 21st Century Skills. The essential structure for both units is active student participation in the scientific inquiry process. Furthermore, one of the objectives of this exploratory project will be to determine what science content is most amenable to the physical, location-aware affordances of augmented reality. Broader Impacts: The ROAR software is a platform that democratizes AR development by enabling average users without any technical or coding skills to create AR. In addition, the physical activity inherent within AR affords the users physiological exercise and the recent development of ‘exergaming’ or ‘exertainment’ products such as Dance Dance Revolution (Konami) signal a growing interest in combining children’s interest in gaming with physical activity, in part, as a result of a growing childhood obesity problem. The ROAR research and development explored how the current popular gaming phenomenon could possibly be harnessed and transferred into physically active simulations, which could have broad impacts in multiple fields, such as health sciences, cognitive sciences, STEM learning, and educational gaming. For more information, please email Matt Dunleavy at mdunleavy@radford.edu or visit our website at (http://gameslab.radford.edu/ROAR/).
