What is Augmented Reality?

Guest post by Kelsey Randall, Student in EDU 222-2, Murray State University

Augmented Reality

Augmented reality is a technology that imposes a computer generated image on a user's view of real world, which provides a composite view. It uses the existing environment and overlaps new information on top of it. The term "augmented reality" was coined by Thomas Caudell in 1990, he used it to describe how head-mounted displays that were used by electricians when assembling complicated harnesses worked. For example, a yellow "first down" line that show up during football games are augmented reality. 

Augmented Reality is even being used in the classroom, many educators are using an app called Aurasma Studio where you can create your own "aura" and use them to engage students in creative ways. There are numerous ways in which the app helps, it can spice up any subject and students can trigger an aura by pointing their smartphones at a particular place. Using augmented reality apps in a classroom can not only be fun but be a really good way in which you get more students to interact, it especially helps those who learn better visually. Augmented Reality can be as easy or as hard as you want, you can make your own in a matter of minutes. 

Augmented Reality helps teachers add digital contents with a lot of information as well as geographic locations about objects and places. Many different ways in which teachers can use augmented reality in the classroom are through: Homework (students can scan homework pages and they can see videos of their teachers assisting them in solving a problem), Photo Walls (they can display photographs of faculty or teachers at the display board and students can scan the image and get all the info related to their teachers), Book Reviews (By scanning the cover image of books, students can get overviews of that book), Deaf Students (AR technology can allow students who are deaf to see the video that demonstrates how to sign a phrase or word.) As you can see there are many different ways in which augmented reality can be used in the classroom and you should consider using it.