Augmented Education - Clough`s Corner

Augmented Education
Bringing Real and Virtual Learning
Together
Kieron Sheehy
Rebecca Ferguson
Gill Clough
Pre-­‐print Preface
T
his book was inspired by our interest in researching “extraordinary
education”—education that links new technologies with effective pedagogies in
order to inspire, motivate, and engage learners. We had originally worked together
researching education inside completely vir- tual 3D worlds, and we became
fascinated as technology increasingly allowed the virtual and physical worlds to
meet. Consequently, this book focuses on research into learning in the “real
world” that is augmented by use of the virtual—and on learning in virtual
environments that is augmented by use of the “real.” It explores the implications
of learning that takes place at the frontiers of reality where the virtual and the real
are currently being mashed up to create new learning possibilities, tools, and
environments.
This is an exciting time for both educational research and practice, with rapid
developments in technology that are changing the ways we interact with the world
around us. We believe that these developments have the potential to support new
forms of inclusive and collaborative learning and illustrate this through practical
examples relating both to informal learn- ing and to formal education in schools,
colleges, and universities. We hope that our discussion of these examples will be
informative and encouraging to educators who are working to develop their
practice and to make use of new technologies and networks within their teaching.
By analyzing the pos- sibilities and challenges that exist in augmented learning,
we also hope to support researchers to investigate and further develop the
possibilities that augmentation of “real life” offers for future education and
pedagogy.
Kieron, Rebecca, and Gill September 2013
Citation: Sheehy, K., Ferguson, R., & Clough, G. (2014). Augmented Education: Bringing Real and Virtual
Learning Together. Palgrave Macmillan.
1 Chapter 1 Augmenting learning Mars Phoenix The snow I see above (a couple kilometres above) is water snow. And yes, @S_in_washington, I’m having foggy mornings too Is there water on Mars? Today’s learners don’t need to check a book – they can receive the latest updates on their computer or handheld device. What’s more, they can query this data by chatting to a robot on another planet. ‘If there is water and snow, is there fog?’ enquires a curious reader in Washington. ‘Yes, there is’, replies Mars Phoenix from the other side of the Solar System. A remote world becomes more comprehensible, and thousands of people all over this world learn something new, something that inspires new questions, interest and enthusiasm that continue even when the robot falls silent, a victim of the Martian winter. Those interactions are examples of ‘augmented learning’. Augmented learning uses electronic devices to extend learners’ interaction with and perception of their current environment to include and bring to life different times, spaces, characters and possibilities. It offers possibilities for the transformation of learners and their learning contexts. Augmented learning makes use of many aspects of augmented reality, in which information, models or live action provide a useful or entertaining overlay on the real world. However, the assumption that such overlays are able to augment reality implies that we normally perceive an unmediated, objective reality that is independent of those who observe or augment it. This is an implicitly empiricist perspective that does not recognize many of the filters through which we already perceive and construct the world. Although ‘the real world’ is so embedded in our language that the term is often used in this book in preference to ‘the physical world’, we argue that augmentation of the human experience is not simply an incremental process involving the addition of extra data or sensory experience. Rather, 2 augmented learning involves the use of a wide variety of electronic devices to provide experiences and opportunities to spark a transformational process that has the potential to influence our identity and capabilities. This book explores the implications and challenges of this form of learning, which takes place at the frontiers of reality, and the ways in which we can understand it, structure it, develop it and employ it. It investigates what we can do now that we could not do before and asks whether these new possibilities could fundamentally affect how people approach and benefit from learning. For example, can augmented learning create the social, affective and cognitive conditions that will allow individuals and groups of people not only to approach learning in a meaningful way but also to engage with it more deeply? If so, the impact of these transformations on education and learners will be profound. This book explores the possible consequences of this change in different contexts, considering the learning experience of different groups and individuals who are already engaging in augmented learning. In order to do this, it focuses not only on research into learning in the ‘real world’ that is augmented by use of the virtual but also on learning in virtual environments that is augmented by use of the ‘real’. It combines this wide range of research with consideration of augmented learning taking place in a variety of formal and informal educational settings, including some of the possibilities currently being shared on the Internet. The book focuses on the multiple ways in which the virtual and the real are currently being mashed up, creating new learning possibilities, tools and environments. In order to do this, it provides a detailed overview of the newest possibilities in education and shows how technological developments can be harnessed to support inclusive and collaborative knowledge building through formal and informal learning. In order to set the scene, this introduction explores why augmented learning is possible, the emergence of this new set of 3 cultural tools, the implications of new technologies for learning and pedagogy and the affordances that these new cultural tools offer to both learners and educators. Augmented learning and cultural tools We are familiar with the idea of using tools to shape our interactions with the world. Physical tools such as hammers, tractors, pencils and computers are taken for granted and online tools such as search engines, email applications and cloud computing sites are now seen as commonplace within our everyday lives. However, the ubiquity of such tools acts to mask the influence of the use of such tools on ourselves. At the start of the 20th century, the influential educational psychologist Lev Vygotsky identified the ways in which our thinking about the world – cognition – and our emotional responses to the world – affect – are shaped and influenced by ‘psychological’ or ‘cultural’ tools. These are social devices that are ‘directed toward the mastery of [mental] processes – one’s own or someone else's – just as technical devices are directed toward the mastery of processes of nature’ (Vygotsky, 1997, p85). These ‘helping means’ (Holland & Valsiner, 1988) include concrete artifacts but also such as intangibles as scientific concepts, types of activity and use of language. To illustrate the impact of such tools, we can consider the culturally mundane practice of learning to read, and the way in which this skill acts to change how individuals understand and hear speech (Olson, 1994). Since the time when writing was first used, its influence has been noted, including the concern that it might ‘create forgetfulness in the learners’ souls, because they will not use their memories; they will trust to the external written characters and not remember of themselves’ (Socrates, 327BCE) Humans learn to speak without learning to read. Their subsequent acquisition of the cultural tool of reading provides them with a model for reflecting on their speech (Lucariello, Hudson, Fivush, & Bauer, 2004). Consequently, readers and non-­‐readers identify different 4 numbers of sounds, and different sounds, in the words that they say. This is the case with people who use different writing systems, even where all groups share a common language (Olson, 1994). A writing system is therefore not a simple transcription of speech sounds. It is an augmentation that provides new ways of reflecting on and perceiving the natural world. At the same time, it is clear that writing makes it possible to engage in abstractly sequential, classificatory, explanatory examination of phenomena or stated truth and thus ‘enlarges the potentiality of language almost beyond measure, restructures thought’ (Ong, 1982, p7). In the Vygotskian paradigm, this type of transformation only occurs in ‘technologically advanced societies’ (Crain, 2005, p199) in which learners have access to new ways of representing and reflecting on the world around them. Cultural tools do not help learners to capture an objective, independent reality; rather they help to construct learners’ perception and understanding of reality. Tools such as language, numbers, maps and diagrams modify the entire course and structure of mental functions by determining the structure of the new instrumental act, just as the technical tool modifies the process of natural adaptation by determining the form of labour operations (Vygotsky, 1997, p85). Vygotsky’s visionary psychology argues that humans are able to use culturally constructed tools to control their psychological processes because they cannot only modify the environment physically, but they can also modify its stimulus value for their own mental states (Holland & Valsiner, 1988, p288) At one level, this sociocultural stance is useful when considering electronic devices, including traditional augmented-­‐reality technologies, and thinking about how these can transform our experience of the world. These technologies provide new ways of reading the ‘natural world’ and consequently provide new influences on, and opportunities for control of, human development. At another level, this stance also informs discussion of the circumstances under which reality can be considered to be augmented, and suggests that a wide view of 5 augmentation is needed in order to understand human experiences and human interactions in this new technological context. Cultural tools can be considered at different levels of granularity. The possibilities of writing, for example, can be broken down into different subsets such as different languages, grammar, fonts, handwriting or poetic structure. They can also be examined as a whole, presenting the wider cognitive changes offered by the medium With writing, the mind is forced into a slowed-­‐down pattern that affords it the opportunity to interfere with and reorganize its more normal, redundant processes (Ong, 1982, p40). In this introduction, we set out an overview of the set of tools that can be used to support augmented learning, before focusing on specific tools and instances of their use in subsequent chapters. This set of tools includes some, such as the Internet, that are already ubiquitous, and others that are still under development. It includes the various forms of augmented reality, virtual reality, augmented virtuality and diminished reality that apply to all our senses, including touch, hearing and smell (Azuma, 1997; Azuma et al., 2001). This set of previously disparate tools is potentially important for learning because of the extended interaction with and perception of our environment that these tools open up together. In many cases, though, we can currently see the potential but not strong evidence of practice, so why not simply wait to see how this area develops before considering their possibilities for learning? Why consider augmented learning now? Vygotsky noted that the processes and psychological methods used to control human thinking and experience can become ‘fossilized’. Once this has occurred, we use them automatically and are no longer aware either that we are using these tools to moderate the ways in which we think, or that they mediate our experience of the world. It is only before 6 this fossilization takes place that we have the opportunity to examine cultural tools and understand their influence without having first to struggle to perceive them. Groups take up new mediating devices, some of which become central to shaping the information and the processing of information in the society […] There is a period in development and in history when the task or activity and the mediating device are not amalgamated and the dialectic between the mediating device and the task may be studied (Holland & Valsiner, 1988) This book examines emerging practices that employ a new set of tools. The relationship of these tools to human learning has not yet become fossilized; the practices associated with them are only just beginning, but their implications are already understood to be enormous. In 1993, Papert observed Already, children are made increasingly restive by the contrast between the slowness of School and the more exciting pace they experience in videogames and television. But the restiveness is only a pale precursor to what will come when they can freely enter virtual realities of animals in Africa or wars in ancient Greece… reading will no longer be the unique primary access road to knowledge and learning, and it should therefore no longer be the dominant consideration in the design of School. (Papert, 1993) And, more recently, Castronova predicted I see a hurricane coming. It’s called practical virtual reality… Practical virtual reality emerged unannounced from the dark Imagineering labs of the video games industry, got powered by high-­‐
speed Internet connections, and exploded across the globe, catching us all by surprise (Castronova, 2007) It is at this point, as these tools and practices first appear in our educational landscape, that we can examine them, exploring the dialectic that is developing between them and our learning practices. In future, technologies that augment our perceived realities are likely to become ubiquitous and unnoticed, no more extraordinary than the ability to affix a lens to 7 our eye to aid our sight, or to listen to a string quartet play Mozart while we are standing in a bus queue in the rain. Already, early augmented changes in the learning landscape are everywhere. Through Twitter, Gunpowder Plotters reenact in real time their conspiracy to blow up the Houses of Parliament in 17th-­‐century London; within an open book a three-­‐dimensional Juliet bends down from a balcony to share a sonnet with her Romeo; a group of teenagers who have never met in real life sit in the virtual caves of Lascaux to discuss art and archaeology. From this perspective, books, pens and paper appear to be destined for the scrapheap, forced aside by a deluge of new possibilities and technologies. And yet, by and large, new technologies for learning fail to stand the test of time. Some, such as the reading accelerator or the Skinnerian teaching machine, make little long-­‐term impression; others, including the slide rule and the videotape, experience a dramatic fall in popularity, being replaced by newer technologies. New technologies and learning While new technologies come and go, the conventional image of learning remains that of children sitting at furniture designed for the individual use of writing materials, aligned for a clear view of a board at the front of the classroom. Large boards and individual writing materials were widely available when compulsory schooling was introduced, and variants of these technologies continue to shape our learning environments and our understanding of what learning could and should involve. Large parts of our curricula are devoted to developing expertise in the reading and writing skills necessary for their use, public examinations for young children focus on their expertise in these skills, and schools are judged on the extent to which they develop this expertise. A child who reaches the age of 11 unable to form letters to a good standard is conventionally judged to be a failing child, the 8 product of a failing school. A child who reaches the age of 11 unable to type to a good standard is still the norm. Figure 1: A young girl’s vision of the future of educational technology These limitations arise from our tendency to see new things in terms of old paradigms. Figure 1.1 shows a young girl’s view of an ideal educational future (Sheehy & Bucknall, 2008). In this vision, technology allows the girl to change her learning environment, making it a beautiful and relaxing place, but her view of education is limited to direct transmission and individualized testing, with the results of her tests beamed immediately to the government. Her image highlights the risk that learners and educators will unthinkingly assimilate the possibilities for augmented learning and changes to the learning environment into existing practices, thereby perpetuating pedagogies and political practices from the industrialized age of information transmission via the blackboard. 9 There are several other factors at work here. As every educational practitioner knows, financial constraints, outside pressures and classroom management all have a part to play when it comes to choice and use of technology. Educators are constrained by a lack of time to understand the potential of new technologies, a lack of resources to acquire and make full use of new technologies, and a lack of ways in which to decide which technology will prove to be crucial and which will be outmoded within months or years. In the case of augmented learning, individual learners and educators find inspirational, exciting ways to engage with it, but have difficulty sharing their expertise widely because the ground rules and practices of augmented learning are still being created and negotiated. Another important reason for the rapid rise and fall of new technologies in education is that any technology only remains new and exciting for a short period of time. After that, learners and teachers are unlikely to use it unless it clearly offers some genuine improvement in the transmission or construction of knowledge. Without a strong pedagogical backbone, new technologies are unlikely to stand firm for long. New technologies and pedagogy Salomon (2000) identified a series of problems with the use of new technologies in education. Apart from the tendency to assimilate these technologies into existing instructional practices, he found there was a widespread view that technology is an end in itself, with a consequent focus on the medium rather than on how and why it is employed. He linked these problems to three assumptions: the assumption that knowledge and information are identical, the assumption that knowledge is gained by transmission and the assumption that the role of new technologies in education is to help with this process. In the context of learning with information-­‐saturated new technologies, such as the Internet, the distinctions between information and knowledge identified by Salomon (2000) are crucial. Information is discrete, clear and can be transmitted without the need for 10 contextualization. It can be regarded as a series of facts, which can be transmitted, learned by rote and tested in multiple-­‐choice questionnaires without any need for understanding. Knowledge, on the other hand, requires interaction because it is constructed in meaningfully connected networks. The construction of knowledge requires not only sharing and collaboration, but also ambiguity, conflict and uncertainty. Those who view education as information transfer will use new technologies for storage, drilling, testing and accessing information; those who seek conceptual change will seek to make use of the interactive qualities that they offer. The assumptions about information and knowledge that were identified by Salomon make it clear that we cannot be technologically deterministic about the influence of new tools on learning. No matter how exciting, radical or carefully designed a tool is, it is unlikely to produce a significant shift in learning and teaching unless it is associated with a fresh understanding of how these take place. No single pedagogy has a monopoly on the use of new technologies, as Conole (2000) argued when she examined key pedagogic theories and their relationship to technology. Behaviorism is teacher controlled, and involves learning through association and reinforcement. It makes a positivist assumption of a common reality from which learning objectives can be abstracted. This approach employs multiple media to convey information, and provides feedback to learners through e-­‐assessment tools. Cognitive constructivism focuses on the processes by which learners build their own mental structures when interacting with an environment. It encourages hands-­‐on activities oriented towards design and discovery. This approach uses new technologies to develop active and authentic learning environments 11 Social constructivism emphasizes interpersonal relationships and the joint construction of knowledge within a context. This approach uses multiple forms of asynchronous and synchronous communication to promote diverse forms of dialogue and interaction. Situated learning (building on social constructivism) views learning as social participation, with a focus on communication and collaboration. This approach makes use of the networking capabilities of the web to support the formation and facilitation of a variety of learning communities. New technologies can support and inspire shifts towards new educational practices, such as networked learning, mobile learning and online social learning. However, in isolation, these new practices necessitate neither a shift in pedagogical stance, nor a shift in attitude towards teaching and learning. Educators and students can easily use the tools that might otherwise enable augmented learning to support existing pedagogical approaches, like the young girl on the beach in Figure 1.1, thus producing no significant shift in the learning landscape. Affordances of new technologies In order to understand how new technologies can be used to produce shifts in learning and teaching, it is important to identify the affordances of those technologies. Affordances are here taken to be the perceived and actual properties of a thing, ‘primarily those fundamental properties that determine just how [it] could possibly be used’ (Norman, 1998, p9). Affordances are not necessarily those intended by the designer, neither are they necessarily positive; they bring both opportunities and challenges. The affordances of a fire extinguisher, for example, include not only its designed utility in cases of conflagration but also its unintended utility as a heavy weight for wedging open fire doors. Conole and Dyke (2004) list ten affordances of information and communication technology (ICT), identifying both their advantages and their associated problems, with the aim of 12 understanding how these technologies can be most effectively used to support teaching and learning. These affordances are relevant to many learning situations, so let’s look at their advantages and problems in the context of a familiar technology-­‐enabled environment for informal learning, the family car. When driving, we benefit from the accessibility that ICT provides, and its multimodal and non-­‐linear aspects. Together these give us the ability to choose between a vast array of information options, including the dashboard, radio, media player, in-­‐car phone and GPS. So many information options, in fact, that we may choose to limit access when doing something difficult, for example by turning off a podcast as we approach a difficult junction. With the radio set to broadcast any travel news, we learn about the state of the main roads across the country and modify our behavior accordingly. Communication and collaboration help us judge the reliability of that travel information. A national station tells us that five people have rung in to report a serious jam on the motorway ahead; switching to a local station gives us the latest report from the local police. When collaborators are spread too thinly between communities, though, we have only limited access to collaboration, and nobody warns us about the flock of sheep that holds us up on the minor road that leads to our destination. We expect immediacy – hourly opportunities to learn about the international news, minute-­‐
by-­‐minute information from our GPS about the road we are on, the junctions ahead and the position of even the most recently erected speed cameras. At the same time, immediacy can mean intense pressure from work and friends to keep up to date with events happening elsewhere, via our mobile phone (also known as a cell phone or a smart phone) and recordings. It also produces risk, fragility and uncertainty due to the speed of change, because available information shifts and changes continually as new updates come in, making it difficult to develop a clear picture of the things we need to know. 13 Switching to a music channel may help us to escape a stream of information and provide opportunities for reflection about problems we are trying to solve and the information we have gathered. If we choose instead to switch to a podcast, we benefit from diversity, which gives us access to a wide range of different experiences from around the world. Despite these benefits and their possibilities for learning, we may feel depressed because our real-­‐world experience does not live up to the experiences of others that we learn about via the radio or podcasts. We may also feel that our choice of equipment on which to learn by listening to podcasts, or to access GPS, is unnecessarily constrained due to increasing monopolization. We may even have listened to recent news stories and to accounts of companies selling individual data, and be concerned about our GPS devices being used for surveillance, to regulate and control us (Arthur, 2011). Meanwhile, in the back of the car, our children are likely be in their own personal learning environments. Headphones allow them to experience a different soundscape and a different emotional state to others in the car, while the lack of a need to concentrate on the road ahead allows them to do a variety of things, such as developing their expertise in 3D games, or using 3G connectivity to program and control a robot on a different continent. They might even pick up an e-­‐reader to learn about the developments in in-­‐car technology that will soon extend the driver’s learning opportunities further: night vision, ability to see round corners, augmented reality heads-­‐up navigation systems, haptic devices and biofeedback. Many of these affordances have been available in our houses for some time, and apply to ICTs that are now obsolete, as well as those currently under development. The wireless telegraph, the gramophone and the crystal set offered them in a limited form and there has been plenty of time for such affordances to be incorporated within our educational systems. They can also be seen as affordances of Web 1.0 – the Internet that was primarily read only. When Web 2.0 replaced the read-­‐only web with a read-­‐write environment, spanning all 14 connected devices and linking multiple data sources, which can link users in an ‘architecture of participation’ (O'Reilly, 2007), new possibilities were opened up. Affordances of Web 2.0 These new possibilities have been identified by Knobel and Lankshear (2007) in the context of Web 2.0 and literacy. This research did not only focus on the affordances directly related to the use of new technologies but also drew on the ethos of Web 2.0: active collaboration and participation, leveraging collective intelligence via practices like eliciting user annotations, distributing and willfully sharing expertise, decentering authorship, mobilizing information for relatedness, hybridization, and the like (Knobel & Lankshear, 2007, p20) The affordances that Knobel and Lankshear identified as characteristics of new literacy practices are presented as a progression from, and a contrast with, those that went before •
Participation rather than publishing •
Distributed Expertise rather than centralized expertise •
Collective Intelligence rather than individual possessive intelligence •
Collaboration rather than individuated authorship •
Dispersion rather than scarcity •
Sharing rather than ownership •
Experimentation rather than normalization •
Innovation & Evolution rather than stability & fixity •
Creative Rule-­‐breaking rather than generic purity •
Relationships rather than information broadcast. Identifying the affordances of new technologies and of Web 2.0 helps us to see the new possibilities that they open up, and the new pitfalls that they put in our way. As educators and learners become aware of these affordances, they are able to change their practice. For example, asynchronous online discussion can seem both stilted and impersonal. Once we 15 are aware that it does not support the rapid change of ideas, but does provide time to reflect, to be more explicit and to order content and issues, we can target our use of it to support learning more effectively (Garrison & Anderson, 2003). To benefit fully from the affordances identified by Conole and Dyke would require shifts in our curricula to take into account the shift from a society in which information is scarce and learners need help in accessing it, to a society in which information is ubiquitous and learners need help in making sense of it. To benefit fully from the affordances of Web 2.0 identified by Knobel and Lankshear and others (see, for example, Gee, 2004 on the characteristics of 'affinity groups') requires shifts in power and structure and a move away from the traditional educational model in which the teacher is always the expert, towards a model in which the teacher is a facilitator and also a co-­‐learner. These affordances may sit more easily with informal learning, in which the goal, tools and methods of learning are defined or developed by the learner, than with formal learning in which the teacher controls these elements (Vavoula, 2004). In the absence of a formal, externally imposed learning framework, informal learners tend to use whatever techniques, resources and tools best suit their learning needs and personal preferences (Tough, 1979). New technologies and Web 2.0 offer novel ways for them to connect and interact with each other, to create and share knowledge and to learn. When they move into compulsory education environments, though, they are currently likely to find that many of the tools they use for collaboration and learning have been blocked or banned (Ferguson, Faulkner, Whitelock, & Sheehy, 2011). Current assessment structures, the need to maintain a duty of care, legal issues, and the need for staff development currently constitute real barriers to the effective employment of Web 2.0 affordances within K–12 (Crook, Fisher, Graber, Harrison, & Lewin, 2008). 16 The challenges of utilizing Web 1.0 and Web 2.0 affordances to support learning are already great, but they will soon be increased by new possibilities. No sooner had Web 2.0 become a technological buzzphrase, than it was joined by ‘Web 3.0’ and ‘Web 4.0’. Web 3.0 is usually taken to refer to the Semantic Web, an extension of the current Web, in which information is given well-­‐defined meaning, better enabling computers and people to work in cooperation (Berners-­‐Lee, Hendler, & Lassila, 2001). Web 4.0, the Symbiotic Web, is a more hazy possibility, associated with humans and machines acting in symbiosis, the human body becoming part of the Internet, and people having the ability to ‘upload themselves’ in some way. More prosaically, we can understand this as referring to a time when we do not perceive ourselves as separate from these tools, just as we do not perceive ourselves as separated from language. It is possible to tentatively identify the affordances of these futuristic new tools and possibilities. Augmented mediation of our experience is relatively recent – however, earlier forms have been noted, studied in detail and conceptualized in terms of ‘social presence’. Social presence Social presence is ‘the perceptual illusion of non-­‐mediation’ – the feeling that a mediated experience is not mediated (Lombard & Ditton, 1997, p9). As a result, people respond as if the medium is not there. This may be because the medium appears to be transparent, providing a window on events, or because it is perceived as a social entity rather than as a technology. Presence is an illusion that results from the interaction between a medium and its user, and therefore varies between individuals and between contexts. Social presence thus helps us to understand the affordances of augmented learning, because it is the experience of social presence, delivered by electronic devices, that creates and will become a defining feature of the experience of augmented learning. 17 As we have indicated previously in our discussion of ‘fossilization’, these newly emerging technological lenses onto our world are only now shifting from being perceived as intrusive, to becoming transparent and near invisible. Language, numbers and images already mediate much of our learning, and this mediation is so pervasive that even when it is brought to our attention, as in the Magritte painting ‘Ceci n’est pas une pipe’, we have trouble in recognizing that we are seeing paint on canvas, or even a representation of paint upon canvas, rather than a pipe. Mediation also goes unnoticed when the medium is incorporated into our body – we recognize the lens in the telescope or the microscope, but not the lens we wear in our eye. Increasingly, technology is used to supplement our abilities and senses. Given the right technologies we can see in the dark, listen to bats, fly from the top of buildings or use computers to supplement aspects of our brain’s functioning. As we incorporate these technologies within our bodies, or extend our bodies to include these technologies, we shift from a human to a transhuman state. Augmented learning has the potential to employ our future transhuman abilities and capabilities. Let us consider the characteristics of social presence (Lombard and Ditton,1997) and set them alongside examples of augmented learning. This allows consideration of how these characteristics can be interpreted as the affordances of augmented learning – which uses electronic devices to extend learners’ interaction with and perception of their current environment to include and bring to life different times, spaces, characters and possibilities. Social richness Presence may be characterised by a medium that appears sociable, warm, sensitive, personal or immediate. Augmented learning can make use of our ability to talk synchronously with people on the other side of the world, to share the real-­‐time experience of an Edwardian holidaymaker as presented on Twitter or the daily diary of a soldier in the midst of the First World War as it plays out in the form of a blog. It can employ the teamwork and sense of purpose we share with others in virtual environments, or the feeling 18 of adventure and the joy of discovery that we share with others who are present in the same place, but at different times. Realism Accurate representations allow us to interact with increasingly realistic objects, events and people. In the virtual world of Second Life ™, avatar Aura Lily used information collated by one of Napoleon’s artist engineers to construct the ancient Egyptian Temple of Isis and other buildings on the island of Philae (Ferguson, Harrison, & Weinbren, 2010). The aim is to give visitors ‘the feeling of being on Philae back in the time when the paint was still wet on the Temple walls’. The builds do, indeed, look brand new. Visitors can walk around and explore these representations and understand them as spaces where real people lived their lives, rather than the crumbling remains of an ancient civilization. The representation thus offers, in some ways, a more authentic experience than the surviving ruins can do. Augmented-­‐reality GPS tours of the real town allow users to walk around and explore environments than have been given augmented visual historical overlays. Transportation Augmented learning can create the sense that you are here, or that I am there, or that we are together. This occurs when learning in virtual worlds, when versions of reality are combined in machinima, and when soundscapes or representations transport learner and educators to other places and new environments. Immersion is associated with perceptual immersion, which gives the learner the feeling they are in another place, and with social immersion, which provides a feeling of involvement. It is this characteristic which keeps readers returning to the blog of two homeless Sims characters, that prompts them to leave flowers and mementoes on the virtual graves of avatars, and to compose epitaphs for robots. Parasocial interaction occurs when people respond socially to social cues presented by characters within a medium, even when this is not necessary and no response will be forthcoming. Talking to cartoon characters and shouting at televised soccer matches are 19 common examples. Virtual-­‐world avatars can prompt parasocial interaction even if they are bots guided by artificial intelligence rather than by individual humans, which makes them useful for training and simulation purposes. Games for handheld devices such as Nintendogs (first released by Nintendo in 2005) are designed to provoke parasocial responses, and this feature makes such games popular when they are introduced in classrooms. Emotional engagement prompts us to think about characters even when they are absent, and to learn to anticipate their needs, as children do in the case of electronic mini-­‐pets such as Tamagotchis (first released by Bandai in 1996). Medium prompts social response In the case of parasocial interaction, humans respond to cues from characters; we may also respond socially to mediated cues from things that are clearly not sentient. All over the world, plants are tweeting about their current status and happiness, and thus prompting people to water them. The spacecraft Voyager 2 has around 24,000 Twitter followers learning about our solar system via this medium, many of whom send it messages, despite the craft being 33 years travel from earth and having as its byline, ‘I can barely hear you, let alone see you…’ We view social richness, realism, transportation, immersion, interaction and social response as important affordances of augmented learning. They build on the affordances of ICT, and they work alongside, and extend, the affordances of Web 2.0 – participation, distributed expertise, collective intelligence, collaboration, dispersion, sharing, experimentation, creative rule-­‐breaking, relationships, innovation and evolution. The affordances that educators identify within augmented learning are constructed through their own discourses and aims, and in relation to the context of the augmentation. The affordances they create foreground the things that they value. For example, one might see the 10 affordances of ICT, from Conole and Dyke (2004), as foregrounding directions of influence and power relations between different forms of knowledge, therefore highlighting 20 relational affordances. In the Web 2.0 context of developing new literacy practices, Knobel and Lankshear’s (2007) affordances foreground ‘meaning making’ and we therefore see them as semantic affordances. The affordances that we identified, building on the ICT (Conole & Dyke, 2004) and Web 2.0 affordances (Knobel & Lankshear, 2007), highlight presence and subjective experience, and could therefore be seen as experiential affordances. Later in the book, we introduce a fourth set of affordances relevant to the contexts of learning curriculum topics through augmented-­‐reality technologies. Being able to draw on these different ‘sets’ of affordance allows us to create a more nuanced discussion of a diverse topic. In the chapters of this book, we explore the implications of these affordances for learners, schools, educators and communities, and for both formal and informal learning. In each chapter, we bring together theorized accounts, case studies, possibilities for the future, and the experiences of both learners and educators. Chapter 2: Augmenting schools In the next chapter, we consider what is meant by ‘augmented reality’ and explore the implications – both positive and negative – of its use within schools. Is this engagement mainly driven by the desire to use a cool new technology, or are educators employing the affordances of the medium in order to reap sustained pedagogical benefits? We examine issues and barriers to its use, and look at its affordances in this context Chapter 3: Augmenting teaching We then move on to consider how augmented learning – and particularly educational uses of augmented reality – is currently being embedded within schools and universities, and consider the educational merit of various developments. We introduce a method of assessing the affordances of augmented reality systems and applications in education and demonstrate how this can be applied in different cases. 21 Chapter 4: Augmentation with the virtual The focus in previous chapters was on the use of augmented reality within education. Here we examine a specific aspect of augmentation, the virtual, and look at how it is used in this context. Virtual environments, tools and communities are all used to support learning by bringing to life different times, spaces, characters and possibilities. Some of these uses appear new and unusual; others are already considered to be accepted practice in educational and professional settings. Chapter 5: Augmenting informal subject-­‐based learning The focus shifts here from formal to informal learning, with an emphasis on learners setting their own goals and choosing how to work towards those. This chapter focuses on two related subject areas, history and heritage, and shows that augmentation can be used to inspire, to provoke engagement, and to extend experience. At the same time, it offers opportunities to reflect on and re-­‐interpret our view of the past so that augmentation does not only change the nature of how we study; it also changes the nature of what we study. Chapter 6: Augmenting learning using social media Informal learning does not take place in a vacuum; learners need to have opportunities to access expert advice, to encounter challenges, to defend their views and to amend their ideas in the face of criticism. Here we move on to explore the role of social media in augmenting learning, showing how augmentation provides a nucleus around which learning opportunities can coalesce. Chapter 7: Augmenting collaborative informal learning 22 The development of mobile technologies that use Global Positioning System (GPS) data to pinpoint geographical location, together with the rapidly evolving Web 2.0 applications supporting the creation and consumption of content, offer great potential for people to engage in informal learning activities that are linked to location. Mobile technologies may support informal learning in a variety of ways. They can provide contextually relevant information; a user can explicitly search for information via online connectivity, or the device can sense its physical location and deliver appropriate information. Here we explore how location-­‐aware mobile technologies, augmented by Web 2.0 social spaces and making use of the affordance of social richness, have enabled the collaborative community activity of Geocaching and how this leisure pursuit has transformed a simple ‘walk in the countryside’ into a rich, collaborative informal learning experience for its participants. Chapter 8: Augmenting learners: educating the transhuman As augmenting technologies develop, they will increasingly form an integral part of our identity. This will affect us all, but is likely to have a particularly profound impact on those who are currently considered to be disabled or to have learning difficulties. We carry out a critical analysis of augmented environments and discuss the ways in which future inclusive education may be reconstructed both by and for transhumans. Chapter 9: Conclusions, and where to start We conclude with a consideration of the promise of augmented learning, and the ways in which it may develop in the future. The book ends with a framework for considering the affordances of augmented learning and with an opportunity to try out that framework and consider how it can be used to address learning challenges. 23 Chapter 2: Augmenting schools What is meant by ‘augmented reality’ In Chapter 1, we considered why it is important to examine augmented learning and the use of augmented reality in education at this point in our technological and cultural history. This is partly because our view of ‘augmented reality’ and its effects changes over time, as illustrated in our previous examples of written orthographies, road signs and recorded music. It is possible to see buildings, such as the 404-­‐foot high spire of Salisbury Cathedral, as augmenting our interactions with the landscape and each other. A fictional account of the construction of this landmark is given in ‘The Spire’ by William Golding (Golding, 1964). The building changes how people navigate the physical and social landscape of their local world. It enables them to take new paths and travel further without getting lost. The spire is also a location from which new views are possible. This new perspective, coupled with the awareness that it can be used for surveillance, changes town life and behaviour. The spire also has a profound affective and spiritual impact on those who interact with it, bringing a particular meaning into the natural environment. As with other technologies, the influence of the spire has become fossilised in our culture (Holland & Valsiner, 1988) and its augmentation of local lives passes largely unnoticed today. To begin this chapter, we therefore examine what is meant by augmented reality in education at this point in time, how we can understand the nature of augmented reality within education and what its potential is within formal educational settings. Without wishing to overstretch the metaphor, digital augmented reality has the potential to have a more profound effect on education than The Spire did on the life of its locality. However, this impact is not inevitable and we will also consider some of the constraints that exist regarding the successful educational use of these technologies. 24 Defining augmented reality in an educational context There is no formally agreed definition of augmented reality (Normand, Servières, & Moreau, 2012); the term has been used to refer to various forms of virtual environment and virtual reality. The significant difference between augmented and virtual realities is that people using augmented reality retain awareness of the physical world, albeit mapped or overlaid with digital data. This has led some to define it as the ‘middle ground’ between virtual environments (completely synthetic) and telepresence (completely real) (Azuma, 1997) p2 and as a form of ‘mixed reality’ (Milgram, Takemura, Utsumi, & Kishino, 1994) that blends the real with the virtual as illustrated in Figure 2.1 (For a review of taxonomies of augmented reality, see Normand et al, 2012 and Fitzgerald et al, 2012.) Our focus in this and the subsequent chapter is on augmented reality and we look explicitly at augmented virtuality in Chapters 4 and 5. Mixed Reality Virtual World Augmented Virtuality Augmented Reality Real World VW AV AR RW Figure 2.1 A continuum of reality and virtuality (adapted from Milgram et al., 1994). The digital information that augments these mixed-­‐reality environments may be updated in real time or may be relatively static and asynchronous. I am writing this chapter in the late evening and can look at the outside world through my window as well as at the iPad on my windowsill. As aeroplanes cross the night sky, this augmented window attaches flight numbers to these passing lights in the sky; I can tell which airlines they are and where they are headed. At the click of an icon I can see the names of the stars in the sky and have the constellations drawn for me. These real-­‐time augmentations are a now mundane technology available on any tablet or smart phone, mixing digital information with experiences of everyday life. The physical world that is augmented can include a hemisphere of the night sky, a city, part of a classroom, a board or table on which a game is played, a 25 particular group of objects or an aspect of our own physiology. These augmentations are delivered through everyday mobile technologies such as smart phones or through the use of specifically designed classroom equipment. Reviews of the potential of augmented reality within education research tend to present it as a purely visual phenomenon (Martin et al., 2011) and this visual emphasis pervades the educational applications literature (Munnerley et al., 2012). However, augmented reality computer-­‐generated sensory input can also be experienced via sound and graphics (Munnerley et al., 2012), haptics (Bau & Poupyrev, 2012) and, less commonly, olfactory and gustatory sensations (Normand et al., 2012). It is likely that consideration of augmented reality within education will expand to encompass these other inputs as familiarity with them increases within everyday applications, such as gaming and mobile apps (FitzGerald et al., 2012). Consequently, this chapter employs a broad view of sensory input in its discussion of educational issues. Helpful objects and the timely juxtaposition of information A significant feature of augmented reality is that it brings into the classroom a combination of the physical and the digital, which allows digitally supported learning activities to move beyond relatively passive ‘desktop’ information presentations, which rely on little more than screen clicks or mouse clicks (Price & Rogers, 2004). Various learning benefits have been noted in studies of children using digitally augmented physical spaces (Olsson & Kärkkäinen, 2012; Roccetti, Marfia, Amoroso, & Palazzi, 2012). Early examples involved incorporating digital information within traditional toys such as balls and bricks, which children could manipulate to explore new concepts through discovery learning (Anani & Cassell, 2001). These tangible objects were viewed as creating new educational experiences and ways of interacting with the world that were not previously possible, although such devices rarely became permanent features of the classroom (Cuendet, Bonnard, Do-­‐Lenh, & Dillenbourg, 2013). 26 Subsequent tangibles teamed smart objects with the visualisation of information, and reviews of the impact of these augmented reality initiatives suggested that that in-­‐situ interactive visualizations could enhance children’s education, using whole-­‐body interactions to make their games more entertaining, and could enhance their skill development through motivating activities that used physical manipulation (Radu & MacIntyre, 2012). A powerful idea associated with this approach is that ‘the mouse is a general all-­‐purpose weak device that can be advantageously replaced by strong specific devices for a specific and limited task’ (Fitzmaurice & Buxton, 1997 cited in Cuendet & Bonnard, 2013). Augmented reality can utilize both the concreteness of ‘physical manipulatives’ and the flexibility of ‘virtual manipulatives’ (Bujak et al., 2013). The use of augmented objects, manipulated through natural gestures, can create a greater sense of presence (Gamito, Oliveira, Morais, & Rosa, 2012). This sense supports learners’ immersion and engagement with tasks, and also enhances awareness of the social aspects of an activity (Wu, Lee, Chang, & Liang, 2013). Whilst augmented reality is often portrayed as involving a solitary child wearing goggles or holding a viewer, educators are becoming aware of the social affordances of augmentation. Bragfish, for example, was a prototype ‘table top’ augmented reality game, viewed through small handheld devices by groups of players (Xu et al., 2008), in which players competed and cooperated to catch virtual fish from virtual boats. Participants particularly enjoyed playing with ‘real people’ and reported a strong sense of ‘being together’ and awareness of others. Adding augmented reality to a traditional classroom allows learners to sit around a table in a social group, viewing and interacting with a same virtual object or activity that is displayed in the space between them. Because they can still see the world around them, they retain awareness of the social cues and gestures that support successful collaborative classroom learning. Consequently, their conversations are essentially natural ones, but can make reference to digital information and data visualisation (Kiyokawa, 2002). When such educationally useful objects can be manipulated through natural gestures, their accessibility is increased and this is helpful for younger learners (Radu & MacIntyre, 2012). There is 27 no need to learn keyboard skills or mouse control, or to master a new displaced environment. Consequently, the cognitive load on young learners can be lower than that required for standard computer activities (Tang, Owen, Biocca & Mou, 2003, p. 73). In augmented reality there is an intimate relationship between virtual and physical objects. The physical objects can be enhanced in ways not normally possible such as by providing dynamic information overlay, private and public data display, context sensitive visual appearance, and physically based interactions. AR applications based on a tangible interface metaphor use physical objects to manipulate virtual information in an intuitive manner. In this way people with no computer background can still have a rich interactive experience. For example, in the Shared Space interface users could manipulate three-­‐dimensional virtual objects simply by moving real cards that the virtual models appeared attached to [Poupyrev 2000]. There was no mouse or keyboard in sight. This property enables even very young children to have a rich educational experience (Billinghurst, 2002) There are, of course, developmental issues regarding which gestures, actions and concepts are available to young children but in terms of offering access to ‘digital’ learning, augmented reality holds great promise. The use of natural gestures to manipulate real objects, with motor feedback, has an educational value beyond access. Gestures and actions have an important role within learning, for example a comparison of augmented-­‐reality and computer-­‐based learning tasks suggested that the extent of physical activity corresponded with differences in pre/post-­‐test topic measures (Shelton & Hedley, 2004). This type of finding has been explained in terms of an increase in students’ fine control of the learning interaction (Bujak et al., 2013) but may also reflect a more fundamental aspect of early concept formation […] combining physical movements, such as manipulation with real world objects, gestures, and bodily posture changes, with higher order cognitive activities, like thinking, reasoning and reflecting. Our rationale for bringing together body and brain in this sense is based on fundamental developmental theory; effective learning takes place when meaning is taken from experience with the world, when children through their own experience discover what is ‘going on in their own heads’ (Bruner, 1973, p. 72). (Price & Rogers, 2004 p138) 28 These physical activities and conceptual abstractions develop a metaphorical association, and augmented reality can help to develop these embodied conceptual representations (Bujak et al., 2013). The physical-­‐virtual juxtaposition allows ‘higher order’ or additional information to be associated with an object of interest. Being able to place related chunks of information next to one another, at an appropriate time, can greatly facilitate learning (Kirschner, Sweller, & Clark, 2006) as long as the additional material is relevant to the task and does not overload or distract learners (Sheehy, 2002). There is evidence that augmented reality can have a positive impact through such juxtapositions: in geometry education (Kaufmann, Schmalstieg, & Wagner, 2000), learning word recognition (Chen, Su, Lee,& Wu, 2007); knowledge of the solar system (Liu, Cheok, Lim, & Theng, 2007), model assembly (Theng et al., 2007) and understanding numerical symbolic representations (Bujak et al., 2013). The importance of timely juxtaposition applies to the information provided by step-­‐by-­‐step instructions, which are most effective when they are integrated with the materials being manipulated (Tang et al., 2003, cited in (Bujak et al., 2013). Augmented reality removes the necessity for students to switch between two necessary objects of interest, such as a tree and a tree-­‐
identification book or the instructions and the model during a systematic dissection. Bujak et al (2013) highlight that such situated instruction can be updated as needed and altered as a task progresses. Scaffolding The provision of information in this juxtaposed and timely way can be seen as a way of scaffolding an activity or a concept. The term ‘scaffolding’, as originally used, referred to the adjustment of adult support as learners learn, allowing them to carry out or understand a task or concept which was previously beyond their independent efforts (David & Miyake, 2004). This adjustment gradually leads to the removal of support so each learner is able to ‘stand lone’ (Wood, Bruner, & Ross, 1976). Wood et al (1976) identified three components of successful scaffolding: 29 1. Making sure the child understands the activity’s ultimate goal. 2. Responding sensitively and contingently to the child’s performance, 3. Ensuring a gradual transfer of responsibility from the teacher to the learner that allows the child to take ownership of the situation. Scaffolding can also operate between people and artefacts and has two mechanisms: structuring, when a task is simplified to allow access, and problematizing, which draws learners’ attention to concepts or issues they may find challenging or avoid, but which are essential to their development and learning (Reiser, 2004). For example Tapacarp, an augmented reality approach that helps apprentice carpenters to develop 3D visualisation skills (Cuendet & Bonnard, 2013) allows users to begin with a small number of augmented cards when they start the curriculum and then, as their skills progress, to gain additional cards that access additional functionalities and concepts. In studying human biology, learners’ attention can be drawn to important components or processes by highlighting them and presenting focused information related to relevant parts of a complex model (Radu, 2012). Furthermore, the information that is presented in such situations can be different to its non-­‐augmented equivalent. In the AR medium, content is presented differently than in a non-­‐AR medium: verbal descriptions become visual, static images become animated, 2D representations become 3D objects, and non-­‐
interactive content becomes interactive. These changes in representation can be educationally effective, as information becomes easier to process (Radu, 2012 p314) Augmented reality appears to offer educators a greater range of ways in which to scaffold activities and to direct and sustain learners’ attention across different learning activities. For example, hand-­‐
held devices such as Play Station Portables (PSPs) can be used to respond to quick-­‐response (QR) codes embedded in traditional books. These codes can open movie clips related to an issue, 3D representations of an object to be explored or more detailed/simplified explanations than those available within the text. Younger learners may well have experience of using this type of hand-­‐held 30 device in activities outside of school as augmented reality games such as Invizimals ™ (in which markers are placed around the physical world and rendered as traps for virtual animals) are increasingly popular (Tan & Soh, 2010). Augmented reality appears able to support activities that are meaningful to learners, which facilitate initial access and direct them to key aspects of the learning activity as it progresses. One significant feature of the scaffolding metaphor is that the support that augmented reality provides is seen as temporary. This issue is critically examined in Chapter 8, where we consider this the notion of scaffolding in a world of ubiquitous and ‘permanent’ technology. Having introduced some of the ‘micro-­‐affordances’ of augmented reality – scaffolding created through helpful objects and a timely juxtaposition of germane information we now consider some of the broader aspects of classroom practice and the affordances that augmented reality offers them. The educational affordances of augmented reality One way to consider the potential impact and opportunities that augmented reality can have on schools and classrooms is to examine some of the positive features that have been attributed to the use of ‘virtuality’, and to see how these features relate to the use of the mixed reality and augmentation within classrooms. In an early review, Greg Kearsley (Kearsley, 2000) highlighted several emerging features of ‘cyberspace’ education which remain pertinent within this new context. These features correspond very closely to the affordances of Web 2.0 and new literacy practices identified in Chapter 1, but foreground how knowledge is acquired and its nature. In this sense they can be thought of as epistemological affordances. Collaboration Collaborative learning emerges strongly in empirical reviews of effective non-­‐augmented classroom pedagogy (Littleton & Mercer, 2012). Augmented reality allows such educational dialogues to occur 31 in new ways and supports them in a wider context. These developments range from the use of smartphones displaying an overlay of geographical features as the core of a collaborative activity (Sharples, Meek, & Priestnall, 2012), to situations where collaboration is through augmented reality – for example between class-­‐based and field-­‐based students (FitzGerald et al., 2012). Although this field is in its infancy, there are sufficient examples to indicate that augmented reality can be successful used to support collaborative learning that is developed in a situated and constructivist way (FitzGerald et al., 2012). Such collaboration can occur at a distance, for example linking learners from different countries (Pemberton & Winter, 2009) or through sharing virtual objects within the same space (Wojciechowski & Cellary, 2013). These experiences are closer in nature to face-­‐to-­‐face interactions than screen-­‐to-­‐screen ones (Billinghurst & Kato, 2002), although the nature of what is shared can be entirely virtual. This can bring learners within the same space to collaborate on objects and data which previously would have ‘forced them to screens’, for example in the curriculum area of mathematics and geometry (Billinghurst, 2002) or the Learning Physics through Play Project (Enyedy, Danish, Delacruz, & Kumar, 2012). This ‘closeness’ can contribute to the creation of an ‘emotionally compelling, rich context for collaborative learning’ (Klopfer, Perry, Squire, & Jan, 2005, p311) through augmented group activities and games. Using augmented reality within socio-­‐dramatic embodied play allows active authentic collaboration with groups of learners mediated through the semiotics that augmentation can provide within situations (Enyedy et al., 2012). This appears to offer a more immersive experience than, for example, augmented reality smart phone card games (Wagner & Barakonyi, 2003). The theme emerging here is not simply that augmented reality can be used to support collaboration, but that it can support collaboration on tasks and with objects that were not previously possible. It extends the reach of a key element of pedagogy. 32 Connectivity This term captures the affordance of cyberspace that makes people and information available directly and quickly. Augmented reality can potentially make this connectivity available at a person’s location, wherever this is, and this is something that we are beginning to take for granted due to the use of smart phones and of mobile computer applications. An AR is a flexible space, containing learning opportunities that the learner can grasp at will. Learning is liberated from traditional spaces such as classrooms, lecture theatres and labs and instead envelops the student wherever they are. Learning opportunities can be present at home, in the workplace, on public transport – and can be taken up or passed over (Munnerley et al., 2012) p43 This is potentially transformative (a concept we will develop in Chapter 3), due to the ways in which information can be called upon and presented. Mobile augmented reality devices can act as contextual sensors, so the environment in which learners move can be shaped with reference to them, and a pedagogic purpose. This might involve translating text into a language they prefer, highlighting pertinent features of the environment or mediating experience in a way that develops learners’ knowledge and understanding of where they are or of the activity with which they are engaged. As noted in Chapter 1, this type of mediation is not necessarily a trivial event. The organising concepts that are used in such mediation can become organising concepts that shape how learners subsequently understand and interact with the world. Augmented reality’s connectivity within the physical world is likely to have a significant impact on learners’ lived experiences. In this respect augmentation is, potentially, not simply an overlay added to the physical world, as some have argued (Azuma, 1997). It has the potential to transform learners’ world, their capabilities within it and their conceptualisation of it. Furthermore, connectivity means that this information is available within and outside the traditional classroom. It is possible to learn about the world and its wonders through mediated authentic interactions with the world itself. 33 An important issue therefore is ‘How will schools react to this disruptive technology? Will we continue to ban these technologies, or will we come up with pedagogical models that leverage students’ constant connectivity? ‘(Squire, 2010, p2566). The idea of being well connected is likely to take on a new meaning and importance in terms of connectivity to the best augmented resources and in terms of ensuring equity of access (Facer, 2012), assuming that such equity is held as a social and political goal. Student-­‐centeredness This term encompasses the personalisation of learning in a variety of ways: in terms of interests, the relevance of the level of skills and the extent to which students define their own learning goals. Augmented reality technologies, by virtue of their possible connection to large databases and sources of information, have been seen as a way of developing inherently student-­‐centred curricula and learning opportunities (Munnerley et al., 2012), moving away from rigidly structured sequences of educational activities completed en masse at specific times. Mobile learning, which can include augmented reality, offers experiences that are ‘highly situated, personal, collaborative, and long-­‐term; in other words, truly learner-­‐centred learning’ (Naismith, Sharples, Vavoula, & Lonsdale, 2004, p36). A learner-­‐centred approach to education, based on enquiry, has long been a goal of ‘progressive education, (for example within The Plowden Report, The Central Advisory Council for Education, 1967). However, such rhetoric has often been at odds with the reality of the classroom (Wyse & Torrance, 2009). Augmented reality may offer a new route towards this goal and beyond it, with students able to discover their own content, to add to it or modify it and share it with other learners, and to link it with particular locations or activities. These affordances may blur, to some extent, the distinction that exists between student-­‐centred learning and user-­‐centred design (Brown et al., 2011). The challenge for educators will be to use their knowledge of pedagogy to ensure that such interactions are beneficial to learners through the creation of narratives and practices that guide them as this new landscape develops. 34 Community It has been argued that a key feature of ‘millennial’ students is their community focus and connection (Rachel, Cobcroft, Towers, Smith, & Bruns, 2006). While discussion about the definition and classification of virtual communities continues (these communities are considered in more detail in Chapter 7), there is evidence to suggest that a sense of belonging to such a community is strongly influenced by how enjoyable it is and the possibilities it offers for activities away from the screen (Koh & Kim, 2004). It is therefore possible that the physical-­‐world engagement offered by augmented reality may heighten the sense of community experienced by its users. Communities have a common identity, which may be shaped by a shared purpose such as the development of new literacy skills (Merchant, 2009); by personal experience as is the case with the blind community (Blum, Bouchard, & Cooperstock, 2012) or by topic as in the learning science community (Davis & Miyake, 2004). They typically have a focal site: a virtual space or a shared social platform. Similar patterns are likely to be found in future communities in which activity is mediated by augmented reality, perhaps in a way familiar to Geocachers (see Chapter 7). Augmented reality might also act as a portal to existing communities, allowing users to access a learning network or gameplay via Google glass™ or a similar technology. Augmented reality communities will be able to label and construct the physical world to highlight points of interest for their group, perhaps drawing attention to areas for action or the proximity of other community members. Most of these possibilities exist already in smart phones; however making use of these affordances to develop educational practices is far from common (we look at some examples in Chapter 3). The type of information processed by an augmented reality mediated community (as opposed to a community of augmented reality users) will define the nature of that community. Learners might access the same physical spaces and be located near the same people while interacting in different ways with each other and their environments. Social constructivist psychologist have examined such social practices in the context of discourse analysis of everyday interactions (Braun & Clarke, 2006), 35 however with augmentation the environment can play a more active role in the process. This is seen in the concept of the ‘collaborative campus’ (De Lucia, Francese, Passero, & Tortora, 2012), which embeds social and context information within its physical architecture in order to create spaces with a pedagogical purpose. This purpose can vary for different groups or students. Providing supportive interactions for a diversity of learners has previously produced educational systems that offer a continuum of support (Rix, Sheehy, Fletcher-­‐Campbell, Crisp, & Harper, 2013), typically resulting in the physical, social and curricular segregation of some learners (Stangvik, 2010). As we discuss in Chapter 8, augmented reality affordances can be used to challenge the rationale that results in such segregation. By challenging traditional notions of learning spaces and practices, the ‘augmented reality educational community’ has the potential to be more inclusive than communities using other technologically mediated approaches (Sheehy, 2011). Exploration An advantage of virtual environments and educational games, particularly for younger children and vulnerable groups (Parsons & Cobb, 2011), is that they can provide opportunities for problem-­‐based learning and exploration within a safe environment where learners can try out ideas, and decision making (Miglino & Nigrelli, 2011) through the use of avatars (Gillen et al., 2009). However, such complete virtuality can act to exclude disadvantaged groups from experiences and actions in the physical world. In contrast, augmented reality supports exploration of the ‘real’ world, albeit a real world that is mediated by augmented reality. AR has strong potential to provide both powerful contextual, on-­‐site learning experiences and serendipitous exploration and discovery of the connected nature of information in the real world. (Johnson, Levine, Smith, & Stone, 2010) p21 It has been argued that most augmented reality systems are inherently motivating, allowing the exploration of materials and environments from different perspectives (Lee, 2012), that they consequently increase learner engagement and exploration (Radu, 2012). However, this is not 36 inevitable in the context of a classroom. In a notable comparative study, children felt freer to explore an educational topic in non-­‐augmented activities. The augmented activities were characterised as teacher dominated and produced less learner engagement (Kerawalla, Luckin, Seljeflot, & Woolard, 2006). Shared knowledge The practice of contributing to shared knowledge through text, video and audio is now well established across social media and online resources in their various formats. Collaborative tools allow learners to access and share knowledge in a variety of formats: they can create or modify materials and share them within communities; develop blogs, wikis and digital artefacts as active players (Martin et al., 2011) distributing, and contributing to, data and discourses. A sharing culture exists within many gaming communities and has been characterised by ‘ (1) enculturation into a shared set of norms and practices and (2) a community of knowledge production in which players are expected to generate new knowledge and contribute to the shared knowledge base’ (Squire, 2010 p2570). The possibilities for augmented reality in this context are currently most evident in the social mapping and tagging of our cities and countryside. The user has just to install the software on the phone, get to a place and then write a message. While doing so, a map is created and shared with friends and acquaintances for information or advice about our favorite (or disliked) places. (Roccetti et al., 2012 p3) This use of technology encourages people to reflect upon their environments and to create a shared understanding of a situation or location. There is evidence that augmented educational activities can support this type of knowledge sharing (Sharples et al., 2012). Whilst augmented reality may offer the possibility of the creation of new forms of shared content, the potential alone does not necessarily create educationally valued knowledge and this type of sharing is not currently common in school curricula activities. 37 Multi-­‐sensory experience Augmented educational resources can include a range of multi-­‐sensory experiences because they are able to present data in ways which add to or enhance sensory experiences in the physical world (FitzGerald et al., 2012). This enhancement or reframing of learners’ experience spans a variety for forms and senses. Augmented interactions with ‘real books’ may monitor readers’ interest in elements of pages (Margetis, Zabulis, Koutlemanis, Antona, & Stephanidis, 2012) in order to provide ‘unobtrusive, context-­‐aware student assistance ’ (p 1) or use a mobile phone to link what is being read to a virtual community for discussion (Chao & Chen, 2009). Increasingly common is the use of markers within books to produce 3D characters such as moving dragons (Drake & Steer, 2009), and illustrations within storybooks (Dünser & Hornecker, 2007). This type of approach can be used to present interactive content that stimulates the readers’ five senses (Ha, Lee, & Woo, 2010). Toys and games that require greater physical movement and engagement can also be augmented. This is the case with some toys or figures designed to be viewed through Android, iOS or handheld gaming devices. The development of augmented reality spectacles such as Google glass ™ and Eyetap ™ will offer new hands-­‐free possibilities. Such innovations may well arise from the gaming rather than the educational world. An important point is that many such applications will allow the child to play with augmented reality and digital playmates at the same time, against a physical-­‐world ‘backdrop’, for example by navigating virtual objects such as planes and cars within their physical setting. Such applications combine the multisensory aspect of the physical world with additional visual and auditory data, allowing the creation of sensorially rich story and game experiences. Immersive mixed reality environments are using a large palette of techniques to create fantasy worlds, including various multisensory effects like various forms of tactile sensations, fog, movement of a seat or floor, and artificially produced smells. All the components of other engaging forms of digital entertainment can be included; as sound and moving images, computer-­‐generated intelligent characters, three-­‐dimensional simulations, embodied characters and new types of spaces (Nakevska, Hu, Langereis, & Rauterberg, 2012) 38 The multisensory opportunities of augmented reality can be particularly useful for children with sensory impairments, providing alternative ways of mapping and exploring their worlds. Object and picture recognition can tell blind users about items within their environments – the TapTap See™ app recognizes and speaks the name of an object – support their navigation in new places (Blum et al., 2012) or translate colours into haptic information for those who are colour blind (Manaf, 2012). By translating environmental data into alternative sensory modalities, augmented reality can create new experiences for learners. Typically this involves translating live camera feed into sound, touch or taste feedback (Meijer, 2011), but this translation can take different forms. The People Finder app (Tracey, 2013) helps blind users to meet other blind users through Bluetooth detection, using sound or vibration to alert them when they are getting closer together or further apart. These technologies are being developed to support people with sensory impairments or learning difficulties (Brown et al., 2011), but multisensory teaching approaches are important for all learners (Cooperstock, 2001; Shams & Seitz, 2008) and augmented reality offers the potential to create richer universal multisensory educational experiences. However, the educational impact of new, augmented forms of multisensory translations has yet to be assessed. Authenticity The term ‘authenticity’ has been defined in several ways. It has been used to refer to activities which learners themselves rate as personally meaningful in terms of their experiences or values, as well as activities that are judged to reflect a ‘real-­‐life’ skill or practice. Some see the central component of authenticity as the link to a community of practice, where members are working together on an educational goal using methods that reflect research practices outside the classroom in creative industries (Miglino & Nigrelli, 2011). An activity might also be judged as authentic in terms of a ‘pedagogic community’, perhaps based on a shared understanding of how to structure learning activities within a curriculum area or research field (Sheehy et al., 2009). 39 It has been argued that ‘the lack of realism in traditional instruction has often been identified as a major weakness of education at all levels’ (Kearsley, 2000, p. 10) and that, in contrast, education that offers connectivity to shared knowledge and a community provides more authentic experience. Research in educational 3D virtual worlds similarly suggests that, within a collaborative project-­‐
driven curriculum, learners and teachers rate their experiences as authentic (Ferguson, 2011) i.e. meaningful in terms of the subject area’s academic community and, somewhat ironically, to a greater degree than typically experienced in traditional classrooms. Such authenticity is not necessarily a by-­‐product of technology mediated learning alone, and has been identified within reviews of effective education within traditional classrooms (Sheehy et al., 2009). This suggests that the pedagogic approach is as important as the technology itself. Daniels, in considering authentic learning activities, draws attention to Vygotsky’s distinction between the ‘scientific and the everyday’ (Daniels, 2007), and the need to transcend the everyday in our choice of authentic activities for learners. With these two important caveats noted, many researchers within the augmented reality field suggest that augmentation can be used to facilitate authentic and engaging learning experiences. For example, handheld computers have been used to create collaborative problem-­‐solving games, which support authentic investigative activities (Klopfer et al., 2005) The augmented reality game Environmental Detectives (Squire & Klopfer, 2007) presented high school and university students with a problem that was real in nature, the discovery of toxins in the university’s groundwater, and asked them to assess the risk, advise on actions to be taken and respond within a fixed time frame. The students used mobile devices to access augmented reality information across the campus. Examining how the players engaged with the game led Squire and Klopfer to state that [p]laying the game in ‘real’ space also triggered students’ pre-­‐existing knowledge, suggesting that a powerful potential of augmented reality simulation games can be in their ability to connect academic content and practices with students’ physical, lived worlds. The game structure provided students a 40 narrative to think with, although students differed in their ability to create a coherent narrative of events. We argue that Environmental Detectives is 1 model for helping students understand the socially situated nature of scientific practice (Squire and Klopfer, 2007, p. 371) This activity can be seen as strongly authentic in several respects. It parallels a real-­‐life problem and also the way in which this issue would be tackled, including the social decision-­‐making that accompanies collection, analysis and response to data. It is ‘good science’ that has not been dis-­‐
embedded from the real-­‐world practices that learners need to develop to become ‘good scientists’. The authenticity of this approach is reflected in learner evaluations. They felt that they were valued; they were important. It wasn’t just a school task, [but] a real-­‐life situation that needed to be taken care of (Squire, 2010) p2589 This type of response has also been noted in virtual world research, where teenagers valued working as researchers on authentic problems (Ferguson, 2011). This explorative and experiential way of working appears well supported by augmented reality applications that enhance a sense of authenticity. This type of activity moves students away from being passive recipients of content (Initiative, 2005) and contrasts with typical school activities. Schools are one of the last places in the knowledge economy where people must learn at the same pace, must take requirements before pursuing advanced topics, are not afforded opportunities to pursue their passions, have little access to any real experts within a domain, and must (usually) work alone (Squire, 2010, p8) Augmented reality’s ability to operate within real space may also allow the creation of authentic physical activities. For example, it is common to refer to the ‘obesity epidemic’ that has taken place in the United States of America and although developing healthy levels of exercise does not require augmented reality, mixed reality applications have been proposed as motivational and engaging ways to address this issue (Howard, Roberts, Garcia, & Quarells, 2012). Within the area of technology education, the use of augmented reality explicitly models realistic ways of creating virtual models (Thornton, Ernst, & Clark, 2012), allowing students to understand complex causality 41 situations (Wu et al., 2013). Within history education, augmented reality can make use of GPS and of game-­‐based learning to create an authentic location for reflecting on historical issues (Lee, 2012). The former examples emphasises authenticity in terms of ‘visioning’ designs, whereas the latter employs is to support constructivist learning. Both of these examples go beyond the simple juxtaposition of information and artefacts, which has been used successfully to support a specific curriculum topic (Vilkonienė, 2009). The examples given here demonstrate a series of interlinked aspects of authenticity: •
Real-­‐life engagement – activity in the physical world, mediated by augmented reality. •
Augmented reality as a real-­‐world activity itself, as in 3D design •
Augmented reality creating an authentic activity, such as an enjoyable play activity •
Augmented reality as a collaborative tool •
Augmented reality mediating a community of practice •
Augmented reality supporting a constructivist pedagogy •
Augmented reality supporting personal values and interests. The different aspects of augmented reality may also exist in non-­‐augmented situations. It seems obvious to state that real life offers authenticity. However, authenticity is not necessarily an element of curriculum activities, even when topics are vocational (Strobel, Wang, Weber, & Dyehouse, 2013) and so technologies which can facilitate this have something to offer learners and educators. When compared to online/virtual educational experiences, augmented reality appears to have particular strengths in terms of connectivity, student centeredness and authenticity. Educational use of augmented reality: issues and barriers Although no single pedagogical paradigm is used within the disparate augmented reality field (FitzGerald et al., 2012), this book is informed by a strongly sociocultural view of learning, which 42 foregrounds the importance of dialogic activities and engagement with cultural artefacts. We have noted that, for some researchers, the authenticity of augmented reality is seen as an outcome of a collaborative and dialogic approach, and its ability to scaffold learners’ activities, artefacts and environments is seen as a core pedagogical affordance. Issues associated with scaffolding It is common for those who promote the use of augmented reality within education to talk about scaffolding and to suggest that decreasing cognitive load will inevitably help learners. It has been stated that ‘properly structured’ augmented reality reduces the cognitive load on users in terms of processing both environmental and digital information (Goldiez et al., 2004) and that augmented reality is so easy to use that it encourages student creativity and exploration. As we have noted, one way in which augmented reality can reduce cognitive load is by highlighting important components or features of the environment, for example when carrying out physical assembly tasks or identifying aspects of anatomy in biology classes (Radu, 2012). Conversely, it has been argued that such reduction in cognitive load may be detrimental to students’ learning in the longer term (Brown et al., 2011; FitzGerald et al., 2012) as they consequently fail to develop their own skills. There has been a concern that, because mobile route guidance reduces the mental load on users, this may undermine the development of their own mental maps (Brown et al., 2011). So, although users are able to complete a set task, the development of their cognitive navigational skills is undermined. The same point could be made regarding augmented reality in other curriculum areas. Its ability to provide immediate and co-­‐located feedback on performance is often seen as an inherently good educational practice. However, this is not always the case. In a spatial skills training activity, those students did not receive any augmented reality feedback and who manipulated the augmented tangibles less, were found to reflect more and learn more than those who received supportive feedback (Cuendet, Jermann,and Dillenbourg, 2012). 43 This suggests that educators need to judge carefully how much feedback and support is provided when aiming for the development of independent skills. This issue of balancing sufficient scaffolding for access and engagement with sufficient agency over one’s actions is important and activities are being designed that explicitly build in points to reflect ‘difficult yet important’ deficiencies (Squire, 2010). Part of effective scaffolding is to problematize aspects of the environment appropriately in order to develop problem-­‐solving skills or to develop plans of action (Klopfer et al., 2005). Insights into effective scaffolding have emerged from the field of serious gaming (Brown et al., 2011). Careful design of the nature of the support and the learning task can have positive results such as improved navigation skills (Oliver & Burnett, 2008) and psychomotor skills (Wu et al., 2013). Well-­‐designed activities include structured levels of challenge and repetition in order to achieve mastery of essential skills. In terms of teaching navigation skills to people with learning difficulties for example, new routes and locations can be accompanied by more information, which is reduced over time or when collaborating with peers, and the cognitive load on the user may be increased when appropriate (Brown et al., 2011). This approach illustrates how augmented technology can be used to support, rather than undermine, skill development. It is supportive when it is situated, responsive to learner need and can promote the development of users’ knowledge and cognitive skills. Whilst this example works well to illustrate the positive possibilities of augmented reality in learning it is an example from outside the classroom that employs a type of augmented reality that is relatively easy for learners to modify. This is not the case with many classroom applications, which are less flexible and that run the risk of information overload or of providing data that is not appropriate to the learning goal (FitzGerald et al., 2012; Wu et al., 2013). Without this flexibility, is there a risk that school-­‐based learners will simply rely on augmented reality to ‘think’ for them as they carry out activities? This issue is not a new one, as illustrated by 44 Socrates’ concerns about the potential of writing to undermine human memory (see Chapter 1). He went on to argue that those who read will be hearers of many things and will have learned nothing; they will appear to be omniscient and will generally know nothing; they will be tiresome company, having the show of wisdom without the reality (Socrates, 327BCE) To avoid this shallowness, the interpersonal aspects of learning need to be emphasized, with learners taking an active role in collaborating with others in developing understanding, as well as being guided by them (Miglino & Nigrelli, 2011). The use of augmented reality to support social and collaborative models of learning is likely to reduce the possibility of Socrates’ fears being realised. There is some support for this from research that looked at the values and skills of online gamers and their peers. Beck and Wade (2004) looked at how gamers performed in industry and found that they were more likely than nongamers to believe that challenges were solvable, were more driven to accomplish goals, were more confident in their abilities, cared more deeply about their organizations, preferred to be paid by performance rather than by title or salary, reported a greater need for human relationships, believed that connecting with the right people ‘got the job done more quickly’, and preferred collaborative decision-­‐making to independent problem-­‐solving (cited in Squire, 2010, p 8) Technologically mediated collaboration and problem solving are therefore not necessarily detrimental to functioning in the physical world. The caveat to this is that further research is needed to reveal whether augmented reality’s transfer of the digital into the everyday, as opposed to the educational, produces outcomes that differ from those associated with purely virtual activities. Orchestration A significant practical issue concerns augmented reality approaches which might work well within a laboratory or informal setting but which are not able to transfer well to classroom use. Good pedagogic design and efficiency of operation are not enough to allow new technologies to transfer 45 successfully into classrooms and classroom practices (Cuendet & Bonnard, 2013). The issue of classroom usability must be addressed if the potential benefits of augmented reality are to have an impact within schools. This is an integrationist and pragmatic argument, in that technologies need to be designed to fit the classroom forms and teaching practices that currently exist (Prieto, Villagra-­‐
Sobrino, Jorrin-­‐Abellan, Martinez-­‐Mones & Dimitriadis, 2011). Within the classroom, augmented reality applications need to complement activity at individual, group and plenary levels. Augmented activities do not stand alone, but will follow on from previous learning and lead on to and inform subsequent activity. Consequently, Cuendet and Bonnard (2013) highlight the significance of classroom orchestration in determining the usability of augmented reality. it is not simply the interaction of individual users or teams with the AR that needs a good usability, it is the smooth integration of the AR environment in the classroom workflow that is embedded in the notion (Cuendet & Bonnard, 2013) If augmented reality is to become a part of classroom practice in an integrated and supportive way then such orchestration is crucial. This is no small task. A survey by the London Grid for Learning of 17,000 school pupils (Warner, Smith, & Rees, 2013) found that, regardless of age or gender, pupils regarded interactions with computers and computer technology as a largely non-­‐school activity. If computer-­‐supported activities that are part and parcel of their home lives have yet to permeate into their everyday school experiences, then perhaps a similar pattern will be found in the use of augmented reality. Considering the issue of orchestration may help to prevent this. Ceudet and Bonnet (2013) developed design principles, derived from the ways in which augmented reality systems have been used in classrooms, that aim to enhance the successful orchestration of augmented reality within learning activities. These principles aim to reduce orchestration load and are summarised in Figure 2.2. 46 Integrauon Orchestrauon load decreases if the learning environment is integrated in the workflow Empowerment Orchestrauon load decreases if the learning environment allows the teacher to keep a central point in the classroom interacuons when it is necessary Flexibility Orchestrauon load decreases if the learning environment is flexible enough to adapt the acuviues to the evoluuon of the scenario (e.g. the state of students, the ume remaining) and to accommodate unexpected events Awareness Orchestrauon load decreases if the learning environment provides the teacher with permanent awareness of the state of all students in the class Minimalism Orchestrauon load decreases if the learning environment does not provide more informauon (and funcuonaliues) than what is required at a given ume Figure 2.2 Augmented reality principles that support classroom usability (adapted from Ceudet & Bonnet, 2013) These principles relate to how well the classroom teacher is able to support the learning of all the children across the class and across the curriculum topic. This key level of analysis is often missing from accounts of augmented reality in the classroom. Consideration of such principles may allow augmented reality initiatives to move beyond the attraction of novelty and into a period of sustained development within schools. 47 Additional challenges Whilst this form of design implementation might allow the integration of augmented reality into existing practices, there is a risk that this potentially transformational technology will be shoehorned into the ill-­‐fitting constraints of a previous era or model. For example, the early use of tablet computers in schools was accompanied by positive analyses of what they could offer. Whilst innovative and educationally valuable practices did arise (Sheehy et al., 2005) there was also evidence that practical and curricula constraints reduced the impact of these devices; for example, they were only used in ‘computer lesson time’ or as a novel way of practising handwriting. There is also the barrier of technical support. This has been seen to be essential in supporting innovative practice (Hamel, Sandrine Turcotte, & Laferrière, 2013; Sheehy et al., 2005) and, indeed, in setting up and running augmented reality activities for a classroom (FitzGerald et al., 2012). As with tablet technology, augmented reality technology will become a part of students’ and teachers’ everyday lives outside formal education. It could be that the technology will become ubiquitous and robust enough to lessen the degree of technical support needed. Even this does not necessarily mean that augmented reality will become commonplace in schools. The constraints of school practice and curriculum are likely to constrain how these technologies are experienced within formal education (Ferguson, Faulkner, Whitelock, & Sheehy, 2013). These constraints include online safety, the issue of locational awareness (Sheehy & Littleton, 2010), and the monitoring of learners’ activities for commercial interest. Traditionally, learners in schools have been relatively protected from this level of monitoring or targeting advertising. This situation may change if learners consistently move or connect beyond the school walls in their learning activities. In the next chapter, we look at examples of augmented reality within education. We draw upon the concepts we have considered here in order to examine what these examples tell us about augmented reality’s place within education, and the extent to which it affects not only learners’ experiences but also the nature of the curriculum. 48 Chapter 3 Augmenting teaching Introduction As we have seen, many of the positive features of augmented reality are not unique to technologically mediated learning. Nevertheless, augmented reality may offer several advantages to learners when used as part of an appropriate pedagogy and within particular topic areas. A systematic review of augmented reality noted use of the terms ‘game-­‐based learning’, ‘participatory simulations’, ‘problem-­‐based learning’, ‘role playing’ and ‘jigsaw method’ (Wu, Lee, Chang, & Liang, 2013), reflecting both constructivist and socio-­‐constructivist assumptions about teaching with augmented reality. They categorised this variety in terms of the most salient features of these approaches: engaging learners in roles, emphasising learners’ interactions with physical locations, and also emphasising the design of learning tasks. However, the types of pedagogy and models of learning which are explicitly mentioned in educational research related to augmented reality are varied and some do not explicitly report on their underpinning assumptions about how students learn (FitzGerald et al., 2012). Indeed, it has been argued that users of augmented reality may emphasise the entertainment of individual learners at the expense of pedagogical value (Initiative, 2005). Making use of augmented reality solely because it is a novel technology, rather than selecting it to achieve a pedagogical purpose, may undermine its educational value. In this chapter, we look at examples of the use of augmented reality within education and consider their educational merit, drawing on concepts developed in Chapter 2 in order to assess their merits within educational practice. Orchestration v transformation When we introduced the concept of orchestration (Cuendet & Bonnard, 2013) in Chapter 2, it was to highlight a pragmatic and essential part of classroom practice – it is important that use of 49 augmented reality is smoothly integrated within the classroom workflow. This aspect might easily be overlooked if augmentation is considered outside the context of its ‘final destination’, so consideration of orchestration is vital if augmented reality is to work well as an educational tool. However, in developing well-­‐orchestrated augmented reality practices, mindfulness is needed of the risk that orchestration also has the potential to reduce, or even remove, the benefits that augmented reality can offer learners. This can be seen in the use of other educational technologies. For example, interactive whiteboards have been actively promoted by governments (Slay, Siebörger, & Hodgkinson-­‐Williams, 2008) and heralded as a technology that will transform classroom practice (Smith, Higgins, Wall, & Miller, 2005). While positive changes have been noted, some educationalists have not observed any significant positive change in classroom behaviour and learning (Flory, 2012), and this stasis has been ascribed to interactive whiteboards being made to fit in with classroom practices and procedures. electronic whiteboards have held back the use of technology by teachers by allowing them to remain within a comfortable pedagogy. The investment has been massive and the return nil […] The ‘interactive’ tag is a farce […] Only one person can use the pen at once – the rest of the audience are passive observers. […] When I see lessons (secondary mostly) using this technology I see bored students looking at squinting teachers with their backs to the class. Let’s not dress it up to be something it isn’t. Let’s start encouraging teachers to explore technologies that may actually empower the learners. Get out of the comfort zone! Time for some new slippers! (Hynes, BECTA Online Forum comment, 2008 cited in Sheehy, Ferguson & Clough, 2011) Many of the perceived benefits of interactive whiteboards in practice simply reflect the data presentation aspects (like those offered by a laptop and projector), rather than their potential to support a more interactive classroom pedagogy (Slay et al., 2008). A lack of impact also may also reflect social attitudes to the use of technologies by learners. For example, some well-­‐controlled studies suggested that children’s engagement with texting via mobile phones had a positive 50 influence on some of their literacy skills (Plester & Wood, 2009; Wood et al., 2011). When this research was publicised it provoked negative and hostile responses from the public (Paton, 2011). Such attitudes are likely to impede the use of phones as educational tools within the classroom, despite these phones offering many of the affordances of previously ‘approved’ desktop computers, and research supporting their educational usefulness (Chao & Chen, 2009; Furió, González-­‐Gancedo, Juan, Seguí, & Rando, 2013). With regard to augmented reality, we can be certain that platforms for augmented reality such as phones and tablets will become increasingly common and will be carried into schools by students, although school policies may be put in place to ban or disconnect mobile devices. The development of augmented reality glasses is predicted to make augmentation ‘an infinitely more common experience for the general public’ (Wasko, 2013 p17) but, as the example of texting research suggests, public awareness and usage do not necessarily precede acceptance as an educational tool. Seymour Papert commented on the general issue of introducing new technologies into existing practices and technologies. Way back when I wrote Mindstorms I used a little parable that I find useful for guiding thinking. The parable is about a brilliant engineer around 1800 who invented the jet engine. Since he was dedicated to improving transportation, he took his invention to the people most involved with transportation, namely the makers of stagecoaches. He said, ‘Look, I’ve got this thing. Find out how to use it.’ So the makers of stagecoaches looked at it and they said, ‘Well, let’s tie it on to a stagecoach and see if it helps the horses.’ So they tied the jet engine on the stagecoach and of course it shattered the stagecoach to pieces. So that wasn’t any good. However, somebody got a brilliant idea, ‘We'll make a tiny little jet engine. And we will put that on the stagecoach, and it won’t shatter it to pieces. Besides, its price is affordable.’ In fact, very careful statistics managed to show that this did have a minor effect on the performance of the horses. 51 I hate to say it, but I think that this is a very accurate portrayal of what is being done with computers in schools. (Seymour Papert, 1996) In order to be sensitive to what augmented reality technologies can offer, and to lessen the risk of orchestration removing or reducing their benefits, it is important to highlight the different effects that new technologies can have on learners’ experience of the curriculum. Adapting the Computer Practice Framework (Twining, 2002) allows us to structure our understanding of the possibilities. The framework suggests that there are three general types of possible effect. Support – Learning objectives (excluding those relating specifically to IT) remain the same but the process is automated in some way. Support is thus about improving efficiency and effectiveness without changing curriculum content. [...] Extend – Curriculum content and/or process are different, but these changes could take place in a classroom context without a computer [...] Transform – Curriculum content and/or process are different, and these changes could not have taken place in a classroom context without a computer. (Twining, 2002) In the current context, we can replace the term ‘computer’ with ‘augmented reality’ and also add the notion of ‘impairs’ in order to reflect cases in which technology is used in ways that have a negative influence on the curriculum and learners’ understanding of it (Flory, 2012; Kerawalla, Luckin, Seljeflot, & Woolard, 2006). These ideas, combined with the affordances discussed in Chapter 2, give us a way of looking at the diverse examples of augmented reality that have been developed, or are currently being used, for educational purposes. Figure 3.1 illustrates this framework for a fictional augmented reality system. 52 Collaboraqon 4 Authenqcity 3 Connecqvity 2 1 Mulq-­‐Sensory 0 Shared Knowledge Student-­‐
Centered Name of AR system Community Exploraqon Key: 4 = Transforms, 3 = Extends, 2 = Supports, 1 =Impairs and 0 = Unknown Figure 3.1 Affordances of Augmented Reality Systems and Applications in Education Augmented books One of the first types of augmented reality to be seen as offering something to education was the augmented reality book. As books are a well-­‐established classroom technology, they are not generally perceived as a technology. Books are a comfortable part of classroom life and teachers’ pedagogical practices. The Magic Book (Billinghurst, Kato, & Poupyrev, 2001) took a ‘normal’ book as its basis. It contained pictures and text that could be read and looked at without the help of augmented reality. However, looking at the book through a hand-­‐held display gave the reader access 5o 3D virtual models that could be turned around and examined. In doing this, the Magic Book rendered the computer ‘invisible’ and allowed the reader to interact with graphical content as easily as with the text of a book (Billinghurst et al., 2001). This approach can be seen as supporting classroom practices, making them more efficient. The barriers between physical and digital content are removed and information is located where is most pertinent rather than being sourced via a separate and dislocated technology. 53 Learners can use augmented reality books to gain a better sense of what a complex object looks like in 3D, for example by reading an augmented pictorial book of Insects (Shibata F, Yoshida Y, Furuno K, Sakai T, Kiguchi K, Kimura A, 2004). Augmented reality books have been available commercially since 2008 and have incorporated dynamic images and opportunities for interaction, for example with models of the earth’s magnetic fields together with ‘pictures’ of electromagnetic poles (Billinghurst & Duenser, 2012). As with the Magic Book, these examples clearly extend the curriculum. These tasks might be possible without augmentation, but they would be dislocated, requiring learners to take and combine information from different sources in different locations. Because they can draw on digital content, augmented books incorporate audio as easily as visual information. We have previously discussed how augmented reality can create a multisensory experience and this applies to some augmented reality books. The Digilog Book (Ha, Lee, & Woo, 2010) offers visual, auditory and – through the ringing of a virtual bell – haptic feedback to its readers. It is also proposed that the content of this book could be updated via the internet (Ha et al., 2010). In terms of our tentative Affordances of Augmented Reality Systems and Applications in Education framework, one could depict augmented reality books as shown in Figure 3.2. 54 Authenqcity 4 Student-­‐Centered 3 Collaboraqon 2 1 Shared Knowledge 0 Mulq-­‐Sensory Community AR Books Connecqvity Exploraqon Key: 4 = Transforms, 3 = Extends, 2 = Supports, 1 =Impairs and 0 = Unknown Figure 3.2 Affordances of AR books In term of authenticity, augmented reality books are able to add realism to pictures and diagrams by displaying 3D models or videos. This is more efficient than finding additional photographs, accessing videos separately or using a real-­‐life 3D model. Multi-­‐sensory augmented reality books appear to be rare but may increase in the future. Whilst these books greatly extend the possibilities that a traditional book can offer the curriculum, current technologies have yet to provide as rich a multisensory experience as real life might offer – assuming that the experience was possible in real life. Augmented reality books do not typically offer users the opportunity to contribute to shared content. In some cases, it is possible to interact with and change the path of a story (Saso et al, 2003) and as augmented reality authoring software become more accessible pupils and students will be able to create and share, their own augmented reality content. Researchers are working to develop accessible authoring tools (Ha et al., 2010) and examples of user-­‐augmented authoring, even by young children, are beginning to appear (Billinghurst & Duenser, 2012). For example, Zooburst (see Salmon & Nyhan, 2013) is a digital story-­‐telling tool, accessed through smart phones, 55 that allows learners to create their own 3D ‘pop-­‐up’ books. This potential for creativity and development is important; this type of facility offers the potential to transform the curriculum, as learners develop new skills and practices that previously did not exist. Until this becomes more commonplace, augmented books are less likely to be associated with student-­‐centred practices and may act to impair such practices. In-­‐class collaborative activities can be supported and extended through the mixed reality that augmented books bring to a shared class topics, allowing groups of readers to see both their classmates and the virtual objects and in this way extending opportunities for collaboration. The Magic Book notably allowed users to move from an augmented reality scene to a shared virtual environment which could be explored by groups (Billinghurst et al., 2001) but this has not been a common feature of subsequent books. Some aspects of augmented reality allow greater exploration of a topic than was available through traditional books, and can make such exploration far easier. A book that ‘reads itself’ for young readers or presents different types of material (videos, 3D models, moving illustrations) will allow them to find information more independently and to explore different perspectives on the same issue. The use of augmented reality to enhance the traditional book format and content does not typically include a link to a community, as might be found in many screen-­‐accessed resources. This relatively contained experience is also reflected in the lack of connectivity that augmented reality books have offered in the past, although they may connect to specific web-­‐based resources. In some situations, this delineation of content is highly appropriate, and will help support a learner’s exploration of a specific curriculum area. It may be that, in the context of a school, the book format itself provides a user-­‐friendly structure for exploring potentially large and disparate forms of information. Clearly, the profile in Figure 3.2 will change according to the specific augmented reality and its design. However, the profile appears somewhat constrained and it may be that this pattern reflects the nature of books within the classroom. Even when something as radical as augmented reality is brought to the form, its classical function impacts upon its potential. 56 Opening the doors An alternative educational use of augmented reality has been in the creation of learning experience outside the confines of the classroom. One of the best known examples of augmented reality in education to date is Environmental Detectives (Squire & Klopfer, 2007), which we mentioned briefly in Chapter 2. The feature that leaps out strongly from this problem-­‐based environmental simulation is the authentic nature of the learning activities. This is a multiplayer game for high school and college students, who use smart phones to access an augmented view of the world. Students take on the role of environmental engineers and are presented with a problem: a toxin has leaked into the groundwater from an unknown source. The students investigate this scenario in the actual geographic location that they are investigating (i.e., if the scenario takes place on a high school campus, students need to walk around that actual campus as a part of the game). (Rosenbaum, Klopfer, & Perry, 2006, p33) Handheld devices can be used to access documentary evidence about the event, virtual interviews with differ types of witness and expert, and environmental samples. The game is not finding about the solution to a linear problem. The students needed to take into account many of the real constraints of that particular location: use of the land and water, nearby water sources, topology, attitudes of the local community, visibility of potential remediation, and use of chemicals in the vicinity. (Rosenbaum et al., 2006, p33) The students need to negotiate different types of live and stored data, of varying degrees of trustworthiness, and arrive at a plan for how to best proceed. Augmented reality allows learning about real-­‐life issues in real-­‐life contexts. This reality exists in terms of their physical location, the nature of the data they are examining and the ways in which they interact with those data and negotiate their meaning with others. 57 This approach has been positioned as a form of situated learning (FitzGerald et al., 2012). Many games are now being developed along these lines (Wasko, 2013). The EcoMOBILE project (Kamarainen et al., 2013) is based around a field trip to a local pond. It uses a combination of augmented reality, smart phones and environmental probeware to create an explicitly educational activity that can also be seen as a game. Students work in pairs and are prompted by the augmented reality device at key locations to collect data on water purity with the probeware, to sketch with pen and paper and to classify an organism they have observed while at the pond or to compare their results with those of another pair of students. As well as guiding the project in this way, the augmented reality provides an augmented experience of the pond through ‘visual overlays, 3D models, videos, and additional information […and] posed questions related to the role of these organisms in the ecosystem’ (Kamarainen et al., 2013, p4). One interesting aspect of the game was that educators could create additional augmented reality aspects. The FreshAiR™ platform allows an author to create augmented reality games and experiences with no programming experience required. These games and experiences can then be accessed anywhere from an iPhone or Android mobile device with wireless connectivity, camera, and GPS capabilities. ‘Triggers’ (also referred to as ‘hotspots’) are placed on a map of the physical setting, and these triggers become accessible to students at the real location in the field. At a trigger location the student can experience augmented reality visualizations overlaid on the real environment, as well as interactive media including text, images, audio, video, 3D models and animations (supported by Qualcomm Vuforia technology), and multiple-­‐choice or open-­‐ended questions enabling immersive, collaborative and situated mobile learning experiences. (Kamarainen et al., 2013, p3) This is a promising development, as it suggests that in the near future teachers will be able to design their own augmented reality location game materials, or at least modify pre-­‐existing augmented reality packages, in order to suit the needs of their students. Teachers will be able to create activities 58 mediated by augmented reality that offer a supportive framework to guide and enhance their students’ learning in the physical world. One issue in the uptake of these games may be the extent to which the underpinning skills (such as team work and complex problem solving) are valued relative to content that is part of a traditional subject curriculum. With Environmental Detectives (Eric Klopfer & Squire, 2007) and i (Kamarainen et al., 2013) the ‘content’ would clearly be valued by school and college educators, and perhaps by national or governmental bodies with curriculum responsibilities. Many of the games that have been developed to date deliver school curriculum topics and academic content. Schrier’s (2006) historical augmented reality game Reliving the Revolution (RtR) gives learners a rich and interactive experience of historical events. It is location based (Lexington, Massachusetts) and players interact with virtual objects and characters from history that are triggered by specific locations. They are able to play the game in different roles (including a British Soldier and a Minuteman soldier) in order to develop a perspective on who started the battle of Lexington. The pedagogy used in the game was designed to develop complex skills appropriate for the 21st century (Schrier, 2006), rather than simply improving students’ recall of factual knowledge. In Mentira (Mentira, 2013), a murder has been committed and players need to solve it in order to avoid being charged with the crime themselves. As with other location-­‐based games, players work together and explore an augmented environment. However, the game’s primary purpose is to develop students’ skill with the Spanish language, and Mentira appears to be the first augmented reality game to focus on language learning in this way. It is set in a Spanish-­‐speaking neighborhood in Albuquerque, NM and plays out much like a historical novel in which fact and fiction combine to set the context and social conditions for meaningful interaction (in Spanish) with simulated characters, other players, and local citizens (Mentira, 2013) The approach creates an authentic and engaging context for developing students’ language skills Players investigate clues and interact with other players and non-­‐player characters, creating a 59 diversity of language contexts that would be difficult to create within a classroom. It is intended that the game becomes a standard part of Spanish classes at the University of New Mexico (Mentira, 2013).The intention is that in the future students will be able not only to interact with virtual characters in Spanish but also to actively design these characters. if playing Mentira were only the precursor to researching and designing their own game, we could produce an opportunity for truly deep learning to take place. It is one thing to see that a character is being polite to you, it is entirely another to write a character so that she sounds polite. (Mentira, 2013) Other games foreground different topics, including biology, campaigning, business skills and journalism (see Wasko, 2013) but typically each provides experience of analysing a complex and nuanced situation, adopting a role and collaborating with others. The notion of student-­‐driven design to deepen their educational experience is an emerging issue. When students use hand-­‐held devices to explore augmented real-­‐world locations they are tackling models of a real-­‐world problem, and collecting data in a way that mirrors not only how data is collected in real life but also how the relative merits of different types of data are judged. This takes learners as close as may be possible in a classroom to an authentic learning experience of some topics. These are ‘serious games’. A review of the nature of augmented reality games published over the period of one decade (2000-­‐2010) noted a relative increase in serious augmented reality games (such as Environmental Detectives) with educational possibilities in relation to the proportion designed mainly for entertainment (Tan & Soh, 2010). Not surprisingly, augmented reality is being used to provide safe but realistic training for situations that are dangerous or high risk. Augmented reality serious ‘games’ have proved successful in military training (Tan, 2010), offering the potential to provide rich and variable scenarios (Goldiez et al., 2004). A case has been made that, ‘The best preparation for military life in the 21st century may indeed be playing on computer games’ (Nicholson, 2013, p34). This is not simply because of the authentic nature of training with augmented reality, but also because military personnel will 60 increasingly use augmentation in their operational work. For example data from airborne drones can be fed to the head-­‐up displays (HUDs) of troops’ enhanced battle suits. This live data can include the positions and movement of hidden people and equipment and levels of environmental risks, such as chemical toxins (Nicholson, 2013). Augmented reality also provides support for mechanics maintaining complex and dangerous equipment (Henderson & Feiner, 2009). Augmented reality will therefore be part of the job, as well as a way of training for the job. Consequently, augmented reality development is now thriving in military industries (Gamito, Oliveira, Morais, & Rosa, 2012; Lee, 2012). In general terms we might represent educational affordances of ‘out of the classroom’ (OoC) augmented reality games as indicated in Figure 3.3. Authenqcity 4 Student-­‐Centered 3 Collaboraqon 2 1 Shared Knowledge 0 Mulq-­‐Sensory Community AR OoC Connecqvity Exploraqon Key: 4 = Transforms, 3 = Extends, 2 = Supports, 1 =Impairs and 0 = Unknown Figure 3.3 Educational Affordances of augmented reality ‘Out of Class’ games 61 This depiction may be somewhat conservative. From the examples we have considered, there is a strong indication that augmented reality OoC games are likely to transform each affordance in the near future. This approach can create a create a highly authentic learning experience, not only by modelling and supporting real-­‐life practices, but also possibly by incorporating actual real-­‐life practices. Learners using these serious games seem to be sharing the experience of knowledge construction in ways that bring them close to the relevant academic and professional communities. The constraints of location-­‐based explorations created by others will act to limit the degree of exploration, although these limitations may be appropriate for learners who are setting out to develop a particular set of skills and concepts within a defined period. So we could see exploration being enhanced but within defined specific locational and curriculum spaces. Creating shared knowledge to gain a deeper understanding of an issue is a clear aspiration of the Mentira project and, as the focus is on older learners in higher education, may be something that is achieved with this group relatively quickly. The student-­‐centred aspect will be transformed when learners are more able to create their own games of this type. However, it may be that teachers working within the confines of the curriculum, and with defined assessments, will by necessity keep control of the of the direction and content of this type of educational experience. Therefore the relative ‘shape’ shown in Figure 3.3 reflects the pragmatic control that needs to exist over certain aspects of augmented reality educational games. In subsequent chapters, we discuss examples of practice outside traditional classroom environments, where these constraints can be challenged. AR objects and off-­‐the-­‐shelf apps In between ‘sit-­‐down’ augmented books and ‘wandering’ location-­‐based educational games are a plethora of augmented reality objects and activities of varying types. For example, the Haptic Lotus is a kind of of robotic flower, which uses infra-­‐red sensors to detect locational beacons. By opening 62 and closing its petals, it provides haptic feedback about the environment to those how hold it as they move around. It has been used as part of an immersive theatre experience to raise awareness and questions related to blindness. The device has been found to encourage ‘enactive exploration and provide reassurance of the environment for both sighted and blind people, rather than acting simply as a navigation guide’ (van der Linden et al., 2011). Devices such as this are moving beyond the prototype stage but are not yet readily available to educators. More accessible, though still not common, are applications that can be obtained from education technology specialists. These include included augmented astronomy teaching material, with which 3D solar systems can be explored, and augmented reality chemistry materials in which molecules can be manoeuvred to explore reactions (see Lee, 2012). Tinker Lamp (Cuendet & Bonnard, 2013) is a specialist piece of equipment that can support various augmented reality activities. It consists of a camera and a projector that are positioned on a stand to point downwards at a table top, which becomes the augmented space. One application has been to teach vocational apprentices in a classroom about the logistics of warehouse management. The table top displays a small-­‐scale virtual model of a warehouse. Apprentices interact with the warehouse model using miniature plastic shelves, docks, and offices. Each element of this small-­‐scale warehouse is tagged with a fiducial marker that enables automatic camera object recognition. The model is augmented with visual feedback and information through a projector in the lamp head (Cuendet & Bonnard, 2013, p4) What moves this beyond being a form of ‘virtual Lego’ is that the interactions are monitored with a Tinkersheet, which tracks changes that are made to the environment and displays a graphic or textual summary, for example of the amount of particular resources that are being used at different points in time. Apprentices can try out solutions to different problems that might arise in the real warehouses where they work when not in the classroom. The system is linked to a classroom display board that enables teachers to review and share how different apprentices have tackled their 63 activities. This approach creates new equipment for both learners and teachers with activities for a specific curriculum area and with classroom functionality in mind. Other approaches augment existing classroom objects and activities. The sandbox has long been a much-­‐loved piece of nursery school equipment (Pursell, 2011). It allows children to play creatively and enjoy the feel of manipulating sand and water. The Augmented Sandbox (Kreylos, 2013) is currently used as a hands-­‐on exhibit at science museums. Children can play with real sand, building mountains and valleys. As they build different levels of sand, each level becomes differentially coloured, displaying contour lines. This takes place via a projector that projects the colours in real time onto the sand below. When the children trigger a virtual rainstorm, virtual water displays the properties of real water in relation to gravity and contours (Okreylos, 2012). The augmented reality sandbox is seen as part of informal science education. Children can learn about how lakes form, how water flows around and over contours or inserted obstacles, and gain direct experience of how contour lines relate to a real environment. Kreylos (2013) suggests that, using this approach, children can learn concepts that are important in understanding lake stewardship and management. Live contour mapping offers users a more accessible route to understanding the concept of contours than 2D maps or static contoured models. Individuals and groups of children can easily create – and rain on – multiple landscapes, without the need for new dry sand every time. This has clear benefits for contexts with serial multiple users. The Augmented Reality Sandbox has an explicitly educational use; however, for younger learners, it will be interesting to see how its take-­‐up develops relative to the much messier and wetter real-­‐world original. The physical activity of the sand box is tracked using a Kinect ™ camera and free open source software. That the system uses Kinect™ highlights how commercial games technology has significant potential for use within the classroom. In this case it is used in combination with free software but, 64 increasingly, augmented reality resources can be purchased ‘off the shelf’ from general online app stores or for use with well-­‐known game controllers, such as the PlayStation Portable™. NASA Spacecraft 3D ™ is a good example of an off-­‐the-­‐shelf app for smart phone or tablet use. This activity uses printed markers to display and interact with a variety of spacecraft and planet-­‐exploring robots, as well as presenting information about the engineering behind them. A helpful feature of this type of app is that NASA promises to update the content to keep it current. One can imagine a suite of topic-­‐linked off-­‐the-­‐ shelf apps being used by teachers to create an exciting educational experience. Pupils who have begun to understand spacecraft and what they do, finding out about them at their own pace with NASA Spacecraft 3D, might then simply click on another NASA app such as ISSLive ™ to see real-­‐time data about the international space station, together with a ‘public-­‐
friendly’ view of the crew and their activities. (As I am typing this the space station is 425 km above the west coast of Africa and Pavel Vinogradov, the station commander, is relaxing before going to sleep.) This type of educational experience augments pupils’ classroom table and their view of the world around them, using preloaded and live augmentations to create exciting learning experiences that were not previously possible. These can now be obtained with the tap on a smart phone. Whilst the number of augmented reality apps (and associated media-­‐viewing software) with a defined topic focus will continue to grow, educators may wish to create their own augmented objects and locations. There is growing evidence that the personalization of technologically mediated learning activities is helpful to young learners (Kucirkova, Messer, Sheehy, & Flewitt, in press) and self-­‐created or customised augmented-­‐reality objects will create new opportunities in this respect. Aurasma ™ is an early example of an easy-­‐to-­‐use way of linking markers with a self-­‐created video, audio or image file, or attaching commercially designed animations and materials to a chosen location. This type of approach to augmented reality is likely to be become increasingly common and teachers and pupils will be able augment any objects or locations they wish with materials that they have 65 created or chosen. Creating one’s own personalised augmented reality books will become much easier and teachers will find it much more straightforward, for example, to attach hints and instructions to objects in a room or to create location-­‐based games specifically for the pupils they are teaching at a particular time. Currently these augmentations are typically experienced through handheld devices, as technologies such as Google Glass™ have yet to appear in schools. Such technologies are likely to significantly add to the immersive feel of augmented reality experiences. We have provided only a snapshot of a few of the multitude of augmented reality apps, objects and kits that are being developed, and have not attempted to create a representation of the affordances of such a miscellaneous group. However, we hope these examples indicate the range that already exists, ranging from specialist equipment through topic-­‐based material to simple apps for creating your own augmented reality. There will be a growing opportunity for teachers to select materials from this range that not only suit their curriculum area, but also engage the students they teach and support or transform the pedagogy that they use. A key part of such decisions will be a consideration of the educational outcomes of using such technology. Educational outcomes Although ‘relatively few user studies have investigated augmented reality’s educational value in classroom settings’ (Billinghurst & Duenser, 2012 p61), a body of evidence regarding the educational use of augmented reality activities and technologies is developing. Motivation and engagement in learning There is evidence from different research studies that augmented reality environments increase learners’ motivation and subject interest (Wu et al., 2013). For example, augmented reality mini-­‐
games have been incorporated into an educational iPhone-­‐based activity. The activity aims to enhance children’s knowledge of multiculturalism and tolerance (Furió et al., 2013). Players search a 66 room for augmented reality markers, which link to videos about specific countries (food, animals and climate). Children are guided through the activities by a character on the iPhone. Furio et al (2013) made a direct comparison between this iPhone game and a matched, traditional game. They found no significant differences in the children’s learning between the two conditions. They make the point that this could be seen as a positive result for the iPhone game as ‘children can learn not only in the classroom, but also anywhere and any time without requiring full control [teacher supervision] over their learning process’ (p19). Furthermore, in terms of motivation, 90per cent of the participants preferred the iPhone game to the more traditional game and 91 per cent wanted to use augmented reality within the class as a learning tool. Interestingly, the adults involved felt that the concepts had been learned more deeply by the children in the traditional game and, in the absence of the learning outcomes data, were more likely to see the traditional games as the best learning activities for the children. However, the children were much more likely to be motivated to use, and thereby learn from, the augmented reality mediated activities. The motivational influence of augmented reality has been seen to create positive outcomes for children who may lack motivation to engage with traditional learning activities. For example an augmented reality book about vegetables, with embedded learning activities, produced greater motivation to complete the activities than an alternative approach (Richard et al., 2007, cited in Gamito, 2012). Radu (2012) reviewed 32 research papers that made direct comparisons between the effects of augmented and non-­‐augmented applications and concluded that The users’ high enthusiasm to engage with AR experiences is noted in multiple papers, where users report feeling higher satisfaction, having more fun, and being more willing to repeat the AR experience. Interestingly, user motivation remains significantly higher for the AR systems (vs the non-­‐AR alternative) even when the AR experience is deemed more difficult to use than the non-­‐AR alternative. (Radu, 2012, p313) 67 While increased engagement and motivation are important, educators also want to know if the use of augmented reality improves learners’ knowledge of a subject. Subject knowledge There is evidence to suggest that information learned through augmented reality experiences is more likely to be recalled than that gained through video or paper-­‐and-­‐pen activities (Vincenzi, Valimont, Macchiarella, Opalenik, & Gangadharan, 2003). One aspect of students’ improved recall of information with augmented reality is attributed to associated physical actions (Bujak et al., 2013). This is seen in comparisons of recall tests of physically interactive augmented reality stories and non-­‐
interactive content (Hornecker & Dünser, 2009 cited in Bujak et al, 2013). In the context of recalling key points from a story, augmented reality appears to have particular benefits for children who might struggle with text-­‐alone-­‐based material, significantly improving their recall scores (Billinghurst & Duenser, 2012). Augmented reality can also have a positive influence on students’ performance in tests, inferential and factual, of specific topics. For example students in the EcoMOBILE project made significant gains in their factual topic knowledge (Kamarainen et al., 2013). There is evidence of this improvement with topics which contain a strong spatial component (Billinghurst & Duenser, 2012; Wu et al., 2013). A comparison was made between students who were able to trigger simple interactions with 3D models in augmented reality books and a group who used traditional books with the same content. The augmented reality group performed significantly better than the ‘traditional’ group in immediate and longer-­‐term tests of subject knowledge (Billinghurst & Duenser, 2012). This may be partly because augmented reality allows students to see actions or event that are difficult to visualise or are usually ‘invisible’, such as the rotation of the earth (Kerawalla et al., 2006). It also allows them to manipulate phenomena that are not readily apparent in the real world, such as the lifecycles of wetland creatures (Wu et al., 2013). Augmented reality’s ability to enhance students’ experience of spatial understanding has been seen in applications that present biological 68 information, such as the location of organs within the body, where learner recall is significantly improved by the use of augmented reality, in comparison to the use of a traditional book (Nischelwitzer, Lenz, Searle, & Holzinger, 2007). This type of experience is becoming increasingly available through mobile apps such as Anatomy 4D™. In comparisons of computer-­‐mediated and augmented reality mediated geography activities, the degree of physical manipulation that learners use has been associated with increased performance on tests of landscape knowledge and on tests relating to knowledge of earth-­‐sun relationships ( Shelton & Hedley, 2004, cited in Bujak et al, 2013). The use of augmented reality markers, placed on the body, replicating the appearance of specific medical conditions, has been trialled as an efficient way of training students in some ethically sensitive medical topics. This makes the experience more physical in nature and, in comparison to the use of a text book, the augmented reality users developed significantly great subject knowledge (Albrecht, Folta-­‐Schoofs, & Behrends, 2013). As would be expected in studies that examine the use of a technology within real-­‐life educational settings, implementing augmented reality has not always produced positive outcomes for learners, in comparison to non-­‐augmented approaches. Kerawalla and her colleagues’ (2006) comparative research found that the active learning of 10-­‐year-­‐old children was impeded when augmented reality was used. An augmented reality virtual mirror interface was used to explore the relationship between the earth and sun. However, the technology produced less learner engagement than role-­‐
play and traditional teaching, and teachers used the technology in a less interactive way. In this case, the researchers highlighted the potential of augmented reality for use as part of good classroom teaching and the ways in which institutional context mediates the way in which augmented reality is experienced. The need to orchestrate (Cuendet & Bonnard, 2013) the technology, in this case, to achieve specific learning aims within a short period of time, was 69 significant. Consequently, some have argued that this outcome is the result of ineffective classroom integration (Radu, 2012) but it could also be the case that some (or many) activities are better experienced through creative non-­‐augmented practices. As with traditional classroom pedagogies, meeting the learning needs of a diverse student group can be problematic (Sheehy et al., 2009). Some augmented reality approaches appear not to benefit different ability groups. Freitas and Campos used racquets with augmented reality markers to move and explore digital models, including planes and motorbikes, as part of teaching national curriculum topics such as understanding transport. They looked at pre and post-­‐test outcomes for groups across three schools defined as ‘weak’ ‘average’ and ‘good’ students (Freitas & Campos, 2008). Individual students came to the front of the class. the whole class watches the projected screen where the student is manipulating the game’s racquets. As soon as one student ended the game, he or she would return to his seat and another student would play the game. When the student chose the right racquet, the system would play an applause sound, like in a TV-­‐show quiz. This caused the whole class to respond and also to cheer and applaud, which helped to maintain the attention of the majority of students. (Freitas & Campos, 2008, p29) Whilst the ‘weak’ and ‘average’ students learned significantly more with the augmented reality than control groups using a whiteboard, this was not the case for the ‘good’ students. They learned much more without the use of augmented reality and the reasons for this disparity are not clear. It may be that ‘good’ students are those who, by definition, are ‘good’ at learning from the standard whiteboard approach. The new approach benefits most, relatively, those who are not as ‘good’ at learning from existing practices and augmented reality offers something that is, relatively, better for them. Radu’s review of comparative augmented reality research (Radu, 2012) reveals broad advantages for subject knowledge learning over text-­‐ or video-­‐based activities. These advantages are seen in the types of spatial tasks we have mentioned (including mechanical concepts, chemical structures and 70 astronomical processes) but also where students are learning language associations (such as word meaning, reading and writing knowledge) and physical tasks including object assembly. However, the amount of physical movement and interaction that is being referred to in these and the preceding outcome studies is relatively minor, with learners manipulating the orientation of virtual objects, triggering changes through paddle movements or screen taps. This type of activity would fit relatively easily into a traditional classroom and, indeed, the comparable classroom activities might even offer slightly less physical movement to learners. For some topics and situations this is entirely appropriate, however educational augmented reality can move learners beyond this format and has the potential to offer opportunities for learning that are associated with larger scale physical movements. In doing this it can becomes involved with outcomes measures concerning learner’s physical health and fitness. Hsiao been one of the first researchers to use augmented reality to integrate the development of ‘educational’ knowledge with improved physical fitness, and to conduct large-­‐scale controlled and comparative investigation of such an approach (Hsiao, 2010, 2012). In this approach, students waved to control and catch virtual objects, shared real objects to move virtual ones, and took part in ‘boxing’ and ‘jumping’ games. The degree of movement required in these activities could be tailored for individual learners. These actions were part of learning an Ecosystems unit in Science at seventh-­‐
grade high school level. His findings were that, contrary to teachers’ expectations, students using an Ecosystems AR Learning System (EARLS) did as well as their peers using the alternative approaches of keyboard/mouse-­‐based computer-­‐assisted instruction (KMCAI) or pen and paper. The augmented reality approach was also judged by students to be more motivating (Hsiao, Chen, & Huang, 2010). Other work used augmented reality to teach the standard chemistry curriculum, combined with aerobic fitness, muscle strength and flexibility fitness (Hsiao, 2010). Here, the augmented reality approach produced greater academic knowledge when compared with KMCAI, led to higher levels of physical fitness and there was evidence of significantly more positive attitudes to science. 71 Subsequent research has examined other aspects of physical fitness (Hsiao, 2012). This approach to the use of augmented reality and physical movement might move ‘physical’ augmented reality out of the realms of rehabilitation, where it has considerable merit (Gamito et al., 2012; Regenbrecht et al., 2011), and the improvement of health alone (Howard, Roberts, Garcia, & Quarells, 2012) and into realm of a more holistic approach to learning. Learner identity Positive impacts on the affective aspects of learning have emerged from several evaluations of educational augmented reality (Dunleavy, Dede, & Mitchell, 2013). In the EcoMOBILE project described previously, student engagement was rated higher than in similar activities without technology. The augmented reality activities were associated with gains in self-­‐efficacy measures, linked to a greater understanding of ‘what scientists do’ (Kamarainen et al., 2013). As with other field-­‐based augmented reality approaches, students were motivated to engage with new concepts and the authenticity of the activities appeared to give them a deeper experience and understanding of the role of a scientist and ‘real-­‐world’ scientific practices. The EcoMOBILE project resulted in students who were significantly more positive about their ability to understand the topic area and also their own science-­‐related skills (Kamarainen et al., 2013). It’s much better than learning from textbook because it’s more interactive. because you’re in. you’re in it, you can see everything instead of just reading, and the questions are related to what you can physically do, instead of what you just know from your knowledge. 6th grade student using EcoMOBILE during a field trip (Kamarainen et al., 2013 p10) Learners value the experience of taking on different roles and using these roles to collaborate. For example, in Alien Contact! (Dunleavy et al., 2013), teams of four students play a campus-­‐based augmented reality game, with tagged locations and activities. They adopt the role of Chemist, Linguist, Computer Expert, and FBI Agent in order to deal with different pieces of information (HARP, 2013). The idea of using roles was derived from video games, but reflects part of the reality of real-­‐
72 life teamwork. Students enjoy this approach (Dunleavy et al., 2013) and it also produces increased interest in the academic content that is relevant to the activity and their roles (Wasko, 2013). Perhaps as a consequence of this enjoyment and interest, many augmented reality experiences have been shown to improve group collaboration (Radu, 2012). These types of activity highlight an important point regarding the use of augmented reality in education. Augmented reality approaches can be measured against other media forms with regard to teaching traditional subject knowledge and skills. However, they can also be used to promote, ‘A new set of skills that are important and essential in an information-­‐based economy.’ (Wu et al., 2013, p46). While the exact nature of what these skills are and how they are assessed can be debated (Rix, 2010), there is a sense that the experience of learners in ground-­‐breaking activities such as Environmental Detectives (Eric Klopfer & Squire, 2007) has influenced many educators’ views regarding the types of outcomes that are significant in education mediated by augmented reality. Foregrounding these aspects for assessment will, we believe, reduce the risk of the ‘jet engine’ ( Papert, 1996) of augmented reality being tacked onto existing tasks, and its merits assessed only in terms of the outcomes of a previous technology. We need rather to be assessing the skills, knowledge and habits of mind to be successful participants in our increasingly technology-­‐infused society, thereby ‘bridging’ experiences between the classroom and the outside world. (Klopfer & Yoon, 2005, p33) There is evidence that augmented reality mobile games develop the skills required to navigate and critically evaluate primary and secondary data and to understand dynamic models and complex causality (Rosenbaum et al., 2006; Wasko, 2013). As we have seen, augmented reality has the ability to create or enhance the authenticity of an activity and to give learners a deeper understanding of how, for example, ‘scientists think’ (Kamarainen et al., 2013). The combination of these elements ‘promotes important practices and literacies that may not be developed and enacted in other technology-­‐enhanced learning environments’ (Wu et al., 2013, p46). This would include skills such as 73 interpretation, multimodal thinking, problem-­‐solving, information management, teamwork, flexibility, civic engagement, and the acceptance of diverse perspectives (Schrier, 2006) The assessment issues that augmented reality raises for educators are interesting and challenging. In the context of an increasing experience of augmented reality outside the classroom, and increased availability of contextually driven information, Bujak et al ask What will motivate students to learn when grades are less relevant and students are learning beyond the watchful gaze of a teacher? (Bujak et al., 2013 p7) Deconstructing this question suggests that it might be rephrased as ‘What will motivate students in schools if they are being assessed through outcome measures that appear irrelevant to the world in which they live or aspire to?’ The outcomes that we have considered in this chapter suggest that activities in schools and colleges that are mediated by augmented reality can contribute to motivation for learning. They can also help learners to develop the skills and knowledge that they need. The examples of practice that we have discussed suggest that teachers will need to consider which activities are appropriate for mediation through augmented reality and which are not. Typically, augmented reality appears to add most ‘value’ when used as part of a constructivist or social constructivist pedagogy, allowing teachers to facilitate a more holistic and deeper experience for learners than has previously been possible. Augmented reality has ‘the potential for confronting, subverting and transforming realities and for creating shared narratives’ (Munnerley et al., 2012, p45 ). Ubiquitous augmented reality may well break down the walls of traditional classrooms, connecting learners more directly with real-­‐world practices and communities. 74 Chapter 4: Augmentation with the virtual The focus in this chapter is on the virtual; on experiences mediated by a computer screen or similar interface. Although these virtual interactions can take place on laptops and tablets or via phones and gaming devices, this chapter is not focused on mobile learning. Augmentation with the virtual can take place in a classroom or at a study desk – it adds new possibilities to a conventional learning environment. The focus is also on these conventional education environments, where education is formal in that learning outcomes and the means of achieving those outcomes are decided by the educator rather than by the learner (Vavoula, 2004). Informal learning, in which the learner chooses both learning outcomes and means of achieving them, is dealt with in subsequent chapters. In 2007, Castronova published a work of ‘speculative nonfiction’, entitled Exodus to the Virtual World. In it, he predicted Already, practical virtual reality immerses 20 or 30 million people in worlds of perpetual fantasy. Over the next generation or two, hundreds of millions more will join them. (Castronova, 2007, p xiv) He envisaged a future where the world would be more fun because everyone would be interacting in game-­‐like environments Because games and virtual worlds have learned how to help people learn and work and socialize while having fun, the new society will also probably be better educated, more productive and more civically engaged. (Castronova, 2007, p208) This utopian view is at odds with a report on the virtual economy commissioned by the World Bank in 2011. 75 An estimated 100,000 young, low-­‐skilled workers in countries such as China and Vietnam earn their primary income by harvesting virtual resources and providing player-­‐for-­‐hire services in popular online games such as World of Warcraft. The demand for these services comes from millions of wealthier players who have a serious interest in the game world and the social connections it facilitates, but lack the time (and patience) to reach far into the game alone. (Lehdonvirta & Ernkvist, 2011, p xi) While many of us enjoy exploring virtual worlds, and a growing number of us have experience of them, this does not mean a wholesale and joyful exodus to these environments. Instead, as the examples considered in this chapter demonstrate, the virtual and the physical worlds are converging, with the physical world increasingly augmented by the virtual while development of the virtual is shaped by the social, economic and political realities of the physical world. All the virtual environments, tools and communities considered in this chapter are integrated with physical world use, not experienced in isolation from it. The emphasis is not on total immersion, but on increasing the possibilities that are open to us when we augment the physical with the virtual. Virtual environments This augmentation of learning with the virtual has experienced many false starts. Around 2007, many universities began experimenting with use of the virtual world of Second Life™. Widespread trials of the use of this virtual environment to augment educational provision were carried out within a very short space of time. A 2007 survey of further and higher educational establishments in the UK (Kirriemuir, 2007) showed that few had made any use whatsoever of virtual worlds. A related study, published two years later (Kirriemuir, 2009a), reported that there was only one UK university where no evidence could be found of virtual world activity. 76 Many of these early ventures into Second Life represented higher education institutions as locations in which learning takes place, and therefore took care to reproduce the physical form of the buildings of those institutions. Second Life made it possible to build detailed scale models of classrooms, lecture theatres and university buildings and so ‘it was probably inevitable that in the early days of SL, people would reproduce the buildings and classrooms they were familiar with in RL’ (Salmon, 2009, p529). This focus solely on reproduction of a space, without reflecting on the meaning and value of acting within that space, was in many cases a brief phase (Kirriemuir, 2009b), though this stage was played out many times across many institutions. Unfortunately, this meant that Educators expend significant resources on developing learning spaces and learning activities in 3D virtual worlds that fail to engage their learners properly because inadequate account of what it is to be engaged in a 3D virtual world has been taken, and the factors that promote and obstruct engagement in such environments have not been assessed. (Mount, Chambers, Weaver, & Priestnall, 2009, p40) In this context, the issue of resourcing is a significant one. Virtual environments require time and money. Individual builds require server space and maintenance, and in Second Life there are substantial regular rental charges. Developers, educators and learners require varying degrees of training in how to use virtual environments. In a crowded timetable, even one session spent on orientation is time that needs to be justified by progress towards valued learning outcomes. Some of this investment only had to be made once. A virtual environment can be reused many times once it has been constructed, although it may still need amendment or development. People who have been trained to operate within it will not need to repeat their initial training sessions, though they may need refresher courses or help to develop new skills. 77 Many educational institutions withdrew or reduced their engagement in virtual worlds because the perceived educational gains were not considered to justify the expenditure (Kirriemuir, 2010). Due to a lack of archiving facilities for virtual builds, valuable resources may be lost forever if funding is not available for even a short period of time. This has been a problem even for carefully planned and popular developments. For example, the Dresden Gallery in Second Life was welcoming 60,000 visitors a year to its art collection, but the enormous amount of work that had gone into this resource was lost when the Dresden State Art Collections decided not to extend the project ‘since they see themselves unable to commit further capacities to the maintenance of the virtual gallery and have set new priorities regarding their digital strategy’ (Primperfect, 2011). Likewise, Oxford University’s acclaimed development around its First World War Poetry Archive (University of Oxford, 2009) was nearly lost when the university withdrew from Second Life. Only the intervention of a new sponsor allowed it to survive. It is increasingly evident that educators need to draw on the experience of others, to be aware of the difficulties involved in sustaining a development over several years, and to be able to articulate clearly how their augmentation of learning with virtual environments will provide valuable support for learning outcomes and learning processes. A virtual world is ‘a synchronous, persistent network of people, represented as avatars, facilitated by networked computers’ (Bell, 2008). The experience of learning and teaching using a virtual world can therefore make use of two features, the sense of space that they offer, and the user’s self-­‐presence within that space. ‘Understanding the nature of learning in virtual worlds, and how that can be essentially different from other forms of online learning, entails bearing these twin aspects constantly in mind’ (Mount, et al., 2009). The interactions that are available when avatars are included within a virtual space make a whole set of additional learning possible (Childs & Peachey, 2013). Awareness of these possible interactions means that they can be used to augment the learner experience. 78 Virtual field trips Looking at the potential of virtual environments from a pedagogic perspective means the focus is not only on realistic reproduction, but takes other possibilities into account. Such work was already well underway in the 1990s. Whitelock and her colleagues (Whitelock, Romano, & Jelfs, 2000) identified several key factors of these environments related to learning: they offered the potential to provide authentic situations, stimulating and motivating teaching environments, challenge and fun. One of the environments her team developed for students, North Atlantic Ridge, took students to the bottom of the ocean where they could steer a submarine and choose where to stop to carry out close examination of the geology and the flora and fauna. Another environment, Oak Wood, enabled students to participate in a field trip to an ancient woodland site where they were able to investigate ecosystems, food chains and energy transfer levels. Both these programs were developed by the BBC [British Broadcasting Corporation] to give the students as much a feeling of ‘being there’ as possible. It was thought that this condition should enhance the students’ motivation to continue working with the conceptual notions embodied in these virtual reality environments (Whitelock, et al., 2000, p280) In both cases, great care was taken to provide an accurate representation of physical-­‐world environments. In the case of Oak Wood, the original wood was filmed for over a year in order to obtain appropriate footage; a dive team filmed the North Atlantic Ridge. However, realism was not the only element that was important in these virtual environments; they were underpinned by appropriate pedagogy and supported by research that investigated the importance of elements of presence for that pedagogy. More recently, the UK Open University has developed an entire virtual field trip for undergraduate students who have physical or economic limitations that prevent them from 79 taking part in a field trip in the physical world. Virtual Skiddaw can also be used to prepare students for field trips, or to widen their experience. The trip to Skiddaw, a mountain in England’s Lake District, is represented realistically using photogrammetry and Lidar data scanned on the mountain, together with a sound track recorded on the site. The aim is to create a realistic environment that provides a sense of transportation and thus helps students to internalize a sense of exploration (Minocha, 2013a). Virtual Skiddaw teaches students about the geological significance of the area – how metamorphism varies in the Skiddaw group sedimentary rocks due to the intrusion of Skiddaw granite, and how the Skiddaw rock groups deformed during the mountain-­‐building event. Learners must select equipment suitable for the trip and for current weather conditions, visit key sites, collect and examine rock samples and make sketches in their field notebook. The experience combines the physical and the virtual, so sketches and comments are made in a physical field notebook, as they are by students who participate in the same field trip by visiting the Lake District. The focus is therefore not entirely on the sense of presence associated with realism and transportation; the field trip makes use of the affordances of the virtual environment. Students are able to use a virtual microscope to examine the rock samples they have just collected, examining them at different magnifications and through polarized light. They can switch from a realistic view of any location to see different maps draped over the landscape, showing clearly the relationship between the different maps and the territory. They can also switch to a cut-­‐away view of the mountainside in order to see the geology underneath it (Minocha, 2013b). These views provide a double layer of augmentation. Students on the geology course use electronic devices to include a different space within their current environment. No matter where they are located in the physical world, they can gain a sense of being in the English 80 Lake District. This is valuable but could remain an impoverished experience when compared to a physical-­‐world field trip. The virtual environment provides little opportunity for learners to develop their risk awareness skills, or to deal with the challenges of being in an outdoor environment and struggling to use equipment or make field notes in the pouring rain, the biting wind or the blistering heat. By adding an extra layer of augmentation, and by making different views and information available on the virtual landscape, the experience is enriched and offers learning possibilities that would be difficult or impossible to achieve on the actual mountainside. This points the way to a future in which educators will want to make use of both physical and virtual field trips in order to extend the available learning opportunities. Another fruitful area for development has been the use of virtual environments for emergency training When the learning goal is the correct physical behaviour to solve a problem, feedback that comes from the immediate experience of the results of one’s actions is one of the best self-­‐training tools available (Romano & Brna, 2000) Realism and transportation are important in this area of education; the ability to reproduce a high-­‐risk and fast-­‐changing environment in which highly situated decision-­‐making is essential. At the same time, a learning environment ‘should also support various ways of reflecting on the relationship between the elements of the dynamically changing situation and the learner's goal’ (Romano & Brna, 2000). In the case of emergency training, being able to work as part of a team is often crucial, and virtual environments can provide shared experiences that enable team members to reflect together on problems, collaborate on ways of approach them, and then act through the consequences of their decisions (Whitelock, et al., 2000). Research into and development of such environments for emergency training has taken place over more than twenty years. 81 In Second Life, for example, educational simulations focused on life-­‐and-­‐death situations have included the University of Wisconsin’s disaster triage in the case of a plane crashing into a chemical plant, the University of Southern California’s checkpoint training for soldiers in Iraq, and City University of New York’s evacuation of an oilrig in the case of fire. In all these cases, there is a sense of realism and of transportation but the sense of immersion is not complete. This limited sense of presence allows students to detach themselves from the situation with its stresses and emotional implications, cease responding to social cues from non-­‐player characters, and reflect on their learning goals and on the repercussions of different courses of action. It also limits the repercussions, ‘the scenario can actively respond to choices the students make, but there are no real-­‐life repercussions on making bad mistakes’ (Kirriemuir, 2009a). Virtual environments enable educators to provide learners with experiences that would be difficult, dangerous or impossible in the physical world (Thackray, Good, & Howland, 2008). They also provide learners with educational experiences that would not otherwise be available. In 2009, a senior lecturer at the University of Worcester in the UK reflected on the reasons for his department’s use of virtual worlds to support midwifery training. He noted that virtual worlds provided opportunities for students to gain experience in a variety of clinical situations, to practice decision-­‐making skills, and to understand their own country’s healthcare practices through interaction with people from other healthcare cultures. There is much in nursing and midwifery that is difficult to accommodate in the normal way, either because the practice phenomena do not exist or are oversubscribed with students […] It really is not a matter of choice; nurse and midwife education (and many other healthcare professions) currently have nowhere left to accommodate the needs of students except in virtual worlds.’ (Kirriemuir, 2009a) 82 In this case, the virtual is not seen as an interesting experiment, or as an optional extra, but as something that is necessarily embedded in standard practice. This is increasingly the case with virtual tools. Remote and virtual tools and laboratories are now familiar elements in the science landscape. Virtual laboratories and virtual tools Remote experiments are carried out on tangible scientific instruments on which geographically distant users can make alterations to the experimental parameters, with the results of the experiment actively returned to the user. Such experiments, and the remote laboratories in which they are located, broaden learner access to practical science, making scientific instruments available to a larger and more diverse student population, expanding public outreach opportunities, and enabling students to access instruments that physical or economic limitations would formerly have placed beyond their reach. Scientific instruments can be sited at the most appropriate location to support selected research goals, and their use can be extended by providing round-­‐the-­‐clock access from anywhere in the world. These experiments also facilitate novel methods of study and collaboration, allowing geographically distributed teams to work together effectively (Brodeur, 2013). By way of contrast, a virtual experiment does not give users control of tangible scientific instruments but instead reproduces the essential control functions of a physical apparatus via a computer-­‐mediated representation. It allows users to make alterations to experimental parameters and returns either pre-­‐captured or mathematically modeled data that is appropriate to the chosen experimental conditions. Virtual experiments offer additional benefits to those provided by remote experiments. They allow functional modes and learning options that would be impossible with other forms of experiment, they allow the same experiment to be provided to many students at the same time, they accommodate socially averse or less secure learners and they enhance the 83 confidence of students by giving them opportunities to practice laboratory skills (Brodeur, 2013). Such laboratories and experiments have been implemented since the 1980s. Brodeur (2013) cites examples ranging from a computerized pendulum experiment reported at the University of Pretoria in 1987, through the University of Naples’ remote measurement laboratory (Arpaia, Baccigalupi, Cennamo, & Daponte, 1997), to the iLab/iCampus collaboration between Microsoft Research and MIT that has been adopted by partner universities in Africa, Asia, Australia, Europe and North America (Harward et al., 2008). In July 2013, the Open Science Laboratory – providing the tools and facilities necessary for undergraduate practical science courses – was launched at the Royal Society in London, the world’s oldest scientific academy in continuous existence. As with virtual environments, virtual tools and laboratories are no longer a novel idea, they have been incorporated within mainstream development. Examples include remote telescopes and virtual microscopes. Remote telescope PIRATE (Physics Innovations Robotic Astronomical Telescope Explorer) is a remote telescope facility situated in the Mediterranean on the island of Mallorca. Students and researchers can operate the facility remotely. This makes it possible to include a practical astrophysics component within a distance-­‐learning course for undergraduates (Holmes et al., 2011). The facility has been in use by students since spring 2010, when 30 students divided into three groups used PIRATE to make observations on 40 nights. Each group selected a suitable target source and then built up a long-­‐term light curve of their target. Individual observation sessions involved two to four students who maintained audio and text contact throughout the night. The collaboration of these teams within larger groups meant that each group was 84 able to build up a jointly owned database, even when some individual teams were unable to make observations due to cloud cover. PIRATE provides multiple levels of augmentation for learners. In the first place, the telescope itself augments the experience they could have without the aid of technology. Astronomy is a highly augmented field of study that has been reliant for centuries on technology to supplement human sight. Astronomers continually use electronic devices to augment their perception of their current environment to include different times (a view through a telescope is a glimpse into the past of the universe) and spaces. The undergraduate students using PIRATE are not using a technology that is only relevant for learners; they are also developing their skill in using professional instruments. When the technology is not in use by students, researchers make use of it to discover extragalactic novae (Holmes, et al., 2011). Remote operation has the additional benefits for professional astronomers that it allows them to share resources, to make observations when it is daylight in their own time zone, and to engage in rapid-­‐response follow-­‐up observations of time-­‐
sensitive events such as gamma bursts (Brodeur, 2013). In addition to the basic augmentation to their view provided by the use of a telescope, the students’ view is augmented because they are not in Mallorca looking at a physical facility, they are at home recording information that has been gathered in a different place, possibly in a different time zone and probably in different weather conditions. Students who would normally be unable to make observations at their location due to smog, cloud cover or the time of day are able to make use of a facility that has been carefully situated in an area that is well suited to astronomical observation. At the same time, they collaborate with a distributed team; a group of people who have never met face to face. These multiple levels of augmentation not only make it possible for students to collaborate with a geographically distributed team in order to observe events many light years away, it also makes it possible 85 for them to experience the reality of what it means to be an astronomer working in the 21st century. Although remote telescopes can provide several degrees of augmentation, they cannot be classed as virtual tools because the telescope facility does exist in physical form (although some remote telescopes, including PIRATE can be reconfigured as simulators for training purposes). In the case of virtual microscopes the tools exist wholly within cyberspace. Virtual microscopes Microscopes have been used to augment human vision throughout history. A lens and tube of water were used to visualize the unseen in China more than 4000 years ago, and more complex microscopes have been employed as scientific instruments for hundreds of years. Students of science need to be able to work with complex visual materials, learning how to see them from the perspective of their own discipline (Whalley, Kelley, & Tindle, 2011). The use of the petrological microscope to recognise mineral and rock textures forms a crucially important part of a basic geoscience education and is the basis of many hours of laboratory based study and tutor-­‐intensive training. As with most science based courses, these practical activities are not primarily related to learning facts but are actually concerned with learning how to discriminate and classify within the paradigms of the particular discipline. (Whalley, et al., 2011) Despite the importance of developing these skills, hands-­‐on experience can be difficult to achieve; microscopes are delicate and can be both expensive and bulky. The UK Open University, a distance-­‐learning institution, has therefore been working on the development of virtual microscopes since the 1990s and now uses them in a variety of courses (The Open University, 2013). A virtual microscope allows students to explore a thin section of material just as they would in a physical laboratory. For example, with a virtual petrological microscope 86 users can pan around the images, change magnification (by zooming in and out), change lighting conditions (from plane polarised light to between cross-­‐polars), and study changing mineral characteristics (pleochroism and birefringence) as the section is rotated. It is also possible to make measurements of individual crystals or perform modal analysis using a superimposed grid. (Anand et al., 2010) In 2003-­‐4, the Medical College of Wisconsin made a complete switch from light microscopy to virtual-­‐microscopy-­‐based histology labs. This was motivated in part by the expense and difficulty involved in maintaining a collection of high-­‐quality glass slides that could be used to teach hundreds of students. Students had indicated that they were reluctant to use these slides for fear of breaking them and becoming liable for replacement costs. The other motivation prompting the move was a desire to facilitate and streamline student learning. The virtual microscope enabled small groups to work together to view structures of interest at the same time, rather than working individually to set up similar views (Krippendorf & Lough, 2005). A virtual microscope allows students to obtain views they would not be able to achieve with a conventional microscope. They are able to rotate thin section views in polarized and cross-­‐
polarized lighting conditions at the same time – viewing both images simultaneously. This ‘makes the conceptual issues being discussed much easier to grasp for students who are just beginning to study the geosciences’ (Whalley, et al., 2011). Slides can be annotated to help students, and hyperlinks that are built into the tool or included within online textbooks can take students directly to particular views in order to explain a particular point or test understanding. When learners or researchers are working together, they can share and discuss the same views, setting parameters in the same way, confident that they are all looking at the same view (Whalley, et al., 2011). 87 In addition, virtual microscopes allow rare slides – for example section views of moon rocks or of unusual pathologies – to be studied and utilized worldwide. Many museums and academic institutions have collections of extraterrestrial rocks, but in physical form these have limited geographical reach. In virtual form, their views are not limited by national boundaries and they can be used not only for education and research but also to support public outreach and engagement (Anand, et al., 2010). As with remote telescopes, the intention when using a virtual microscope is not only to reproduce what is possible in a physical environment, but also to extend the learning possibilities provided by the tool. These microscopes can extend the capabilities of students and of experiences scientists alike. Realism is crucial – in this case super realism, because both physical and virtual microscopes augment our view. In the case of the physical microscope there is already a sense that this is not a mediated experience and that scientific instruments and the views they provide are part of a scientist’s physical experiences. Virtual microscopes provide a sense of transportation, the sense that ‘we are together’, as groups of people look at and discuss the same specimen simultaneously. They allow wider participation, collaboration around specimens, dispersion and sharing of resources. They also have the potential to support both distributed expertise and collective intelligence. Within formal education, the virtual can be used to support collaboration, distributed expertise and collective intelligence in a variety of ways. Virtual worlds, virtual tools and virtual environments all support these features of augmented learning. An alternative approach is to construct virtual communities that can support learning. A way of doing this that builds on experience gained in virtual gaming environments is practomime. Practomime ‘Gamification’ and ‘edutainment’ aim to harness the enthusiasm, excitement and sense of flow (Csíkszentmihályi, 1990) associated with video games in order to make use of these for 88 education. A focus simply on the form of video games results in two approaches. One is the ‘chocolate-­‐covered broccoli’ approach in which a veneer of fun is wrapped around a thinly concealed task. A second is use of the trappings of games, such as badges, scores and timed practices, to make study such as drill-­‐and-­‐practice work appear more appealing (Sharples et al., 2013). The message underpinning both these approaches is that learning involves boring drudgery. More positive approaches focus on what motivates people to learn within games, and how that learning can be supported and encouraged (Gee, 2003, 2009). The next chapter explores how these insights can be used to support the augmentation of learning in informal settings. Here, the focus is on their application within formal education. The term ‘practomime’ refers to ‘playing pretend in a context where everyone agrees that playing pretend is what you do’ (Travis, 2010c). It lays stress on the performative element of this activity, whether it takes place in the context of gaming, storytelling or education. Practomime is used to transport learners to an environment where they interact together and immerse themselves in a subject. When used to study Classics, the signal benefit of the practomime is that my students and I get to experience it for ourselves in such a way that we may be able to understand the poetry surrounding the event in a deeper way. (Travis, 2010b) The intention is that, by blending elements of roleplaying games and alternate-­‐reality games, learners will be able to produce creative solutions to problems and develop experimental enquiry skills that can be used in other contexts. The nature of the environment encourages students to apply critical thinking to the subject of study as well as to other subject areas in order to approach a more holistic understanding of course content. 89 A successful practomime combines student inquiry, problem solving and social construction of knowledge in a single and engaging process (Ballestrini, Travis, & Slota, 2010). Operation BIOME is a year-­‐long biology curriculum that takes a practomimetic approach. This curriculum offers students the opportunity to think, behave and act as scientists. Role-­‐
playing as experts, they work in research groups, construct solutions to complex problems and participate in laboratory procedures. The learning objectives of the curriculum have been used as a guide for developing the narrative, aligning story missions with final assessment. The narrative carries much of the weight usually associated with direct instruction, freeing teachers to provide exploratory prompts, guide reflection and discussion, and correct misconceptions (Slota, Travis, & Ballestrini, 2012). Practomime originates from the Greek words πράττω / pratto, meaning to do or act, and μίμησις /mimesis, meaning performance. Among its theoretical roots are the ancient Homeric bardic tradition in which epic tales are jointly constructed by bard and audience. Appropriately, many practomimes relate to study of Ancient Greek and Latin. In a course on Herodotus and Thucydides, students stand trial for breaking and entering the home of Pericles’ rival, Thucydides (Travis & Young, 2010). In an advanced Latin course, learners encounter the poetry of Horace and Ovid through a narrative set in ancient Rome and, in a course about Homer, they are recruited to fulfill bardic missions carried out in the virtual world that forms the setting for Lord of the Rings Online (LoTRO). The narratives of these courses are engaging and enjoyable – but fun isn’t the thing that matters most. What matters is engagement in the material, and, if they’re to be believed in their comments on the course at the end of the semester, my students were engaged […] It’s not the fun, it’s the immersion, whether that immersion is high-­‐tech, low-­‐tech, or somewhere in between (Travis, 2010a). 90 These courses involve students applying their knowledge, communicating in Latin when appropriate and applying what they are reading and learning to shared activities. Although practomimes can be played out in a virtual environment, such as LoTRO, the majority are played out through forum interactions and, in most cases, these are integrated with classroom interaction. Practomime is a relatively new pedagogic approach, still under development. This process is being played out in public through posts on the ‘Living Epic’, ‘Play the Past’ and ‘Techna Virumque Cano’ blogs (see, for example, Ballestrini, 2011c). These posts document both failures and successes. An attempt to harness the ‘grind’ of repeated effort necessary for success in many video games ended in failure or, at least, in the realization that it is not the grind itself, but its significance in relation to an individual’s goals, that is key (Ballestrini, 2011a, 2011b). Overall, though, the approach is proving both popular and successful What I see in these students’ work is what I can only describe as a ‘situated’ attitude about ancient Athens that far exceeds anything I’ve ever seen in even the best students in this course (Travis, 2011). The sense of immersion and transportation within a practomime bring many other elements into play. Students are encouraged to engage fully and to collaborate to solve problems. Along the way they build relationships, not only with their peers and teachers, but also with the subjects they are studying. Creative rule breaking is encouraged – if the aim is to talk to the Emperor Augustus, then diplomacy is one approach, but disguising yourself as his litter bearer is a creative alternative that proves just as effective. This approach to learning and teaching is not static, it involves experimentation and evolution involving not only direct participants but anyone who is interested enough to engage via blog comments or interaction through other social media. 91 Augmenting formal education with the virtual Augmenting education through practomime offers the potential to incorporate something of the experience of living in ancient times, speaking ancient languages and reading ancient texts within the day-­‐to-­‐day reality of students. When this process takes place successfully, the use of virtual communities and virtual environments serves to increase realism; building learning into lived experience rather than fencing it off as an activity that can only be enacted within a classroom environment. In educational settings, as in the ‘real world’ for which schools and colleges prepare learners, the divide between the virtual and the physical is becoming increasingly blurred. Even conventional labs can be disconnected from reality, says Michael Schatz, a physicist at the Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta. ‘Students get the idea that it's all about some specialized room with specialized equipment,’ he says, ‘and then they walk back out into the real world, where none of what they learned there applies.’ (Waldrop, 2013) The virtual is increasingly being incorporated into everyday practice. A computer screen further mediates the view that was once mediated simply by a telescope or a microscope. Scientists’ view of the world is already overlain with information, with different ways of looking at the same physical reality. Education without augmentation would be incomplete; these days it is essential to train students to be able to employ and make sense of a variety of different views. We all need to be able to operate within a variety of augmented environments. Distinctions between the virtual and the physical within formal education are rapidly becoming invisible to us. Already, we find it hard to consider the view through a microscope or a telescope as an augmented reality. We take it for granted that airline pilots will have spent time in a flight simulator and that surgeons will have supplemented their practice on live subjects with practice on virtual substitutes. We assume that those scientists, pilots and 92 surgeons will have received training that enables them to interpret the augmented view of their environment presented by the instrument panels and sophisticated equipment surrounding them in their workplace. Nevertheless, the distinction between virtual and physical is still sufficiently pronounced for us to observe the ways in which the virtual is used to augment education. This is done in four ways: •
reproduction of the physical world •
reproduction of the values of the physical world, •
versioning and •
counterpoint (Ferguson, Sheehy, & Clough, 2010). The most basic approach is reproduction of the physical world. This focus on the physical environment can work well, particularly if the physical reality is difficult, dangerous or impossible for learners to access. The danger of this approach is that educators and developers do not think beyond fidelity of representation, and end up wasting time and resource developing a diminished, rather than augmented, reality. Reproduction of the values of the physical world takes educators one step further. The primary focus here is on outcomes, on being able to deliver a better learning experience through augmentation with the virtual. This approach involves considering underlying pedagogy and how this can be served and supported by augmentation. Practomime does not demand a realistic recreation of ancient Rome; it focuses on the experience of what it meant to live in that environment and uses that to augment the classroom environment. Virtual Skiddaw combines realistic elements with the additional affordances available in a virtual environment. To do this, it makes use of the tools best suited to the job and so the virtual experience is recorded in a physical field notebook, just as it would be on a traditional field trip. 93 Both reproduction of the physical world and reproduction of its values have an important role to play in extending access for learners. They can be used to transport learners to an environment as dangerous as a war zone or as difficult to reach as first-­‐century Pompeii. Equally, they can be used to augment learners’ experience by opening access to an English mountainside or a common piece of laboratory equipment. These tools and environments have always been easily accessible to some students; now they are open to learners whose physical abilities or economic circumstances have previously limited access. Versioning involves learning or developing the skills necessary to function in and make sense of a virtual environment. On one level, this involves understanding how to make use of new tools, and how to interpret the readings of new instruments. On another, it involves learning to collaborate with others at a distance and to work as a member of a distributed team. When well done, versioning encourages learners to appreciate and make use of the affordances of Web 2.0 that are available in an environment augmented with the virtual, including collective intelligence, distributed expertise, experimentation and innovation. Educational counterpoint involves the bringing together and combination of different modalities so that each can be understood and experienced in a new way and is available to be linked to create a new experience. The contrasts and interplay between [the virtual] and everyday reality serve to make the familiar strange, throwing into relief some of the ways in which education is utilized by individuals, groups and societies and providing an insight into the ways in which it is constituted (Ferguson, et al., 2010) This is the most difficult to achieve in a formal educational setting, where learning objectives and assessment methods are often set outside the classroom at regional or national levels and a certain degree of conformity is required of both educators and learners. The following 94 chapter therefore examines augmentation of informal learning in environments where learners have more scope to experiment with the virtual and the augmented. 95 Chapter 5: Augmenting informal subject-­‐based learning Previous chapters have focused on augmenting the formal education associated with schools, colleges and universities. In these settings, an external authority such as an organisation, institution or teacher defines not only learners’ goals but also the ways in which they work to achieve those goals. However, much of our learning takes place informally, in settings where we choose our own methods, define our own goals, or work towards shifting goals (Vavoula, 2004). ‘The basic terms of informal learning (e.g., objectives, content, means and processes of acquisition, duration, evaluation of outcomes, applications) are determined by the individuals and groups that choose to engage in it’ (Livingstone, 1999). This chapter and those that follow therefore examine the augmentation of learning in informal settings: virtually, using social media and through distributed networks. Research and scholarship relating to informal learning often focus on its role in workplace training or in organisational settings (see, for example, the journal edited by Marsick, 2009). Organisations provide complex problems that offer specific learning challenges. There is a need for more-­‐rapid comprehension, better comprehension, the possibility of gaining a useful degree of comprehension in a situation that previously was too complex, speedier solutions, better solutions, and the possibility of finding solutions to problems that before seemed insoluble (Engelbart, 1962, p4) In the wider world, the challenges are broader. We make use of informal learning in order to make sense of our surroundings, engage with different communities, develop useful skills, deal with change and understand our roles in the world. 96 When learners engage through choice rather than compulsion, approaches to learning and teaching are necessarily different. Informal learning often takes place when teachers are largely or entirely absent, so the role of the educator is less central than it is in formal settings. This type of learning is often serendipitous; individuals come across something that inspires them to learn. An artifact or event may provide the trigger for an investigation, and augmentation makes it possible for these to be associated with relevant information, ideas and communities, helping to support learning even in the absence of an educator. Museums and heritage sites have a continuing interest in informal learning. Many have worked for many years to augment visitors’ experience. This has included extending learners’ interaction with and perception of their current environment to include and bring to life different times, spaces, characters and possibilities. This chapter therefore focuses on history and heritage, taking these as examples of the augmentation of informal learning in subject-­‐based contexts. History and heritage There are many definitions of both history and heritage. These encompass not only their subject matter, but also the practices related to that subject matter. Here, the two terms are used to refer to learning about and interpreting the past and its relationship to the present in academic, economic and cultural contexts. Broadly speaking, history is taken to be concerned with understanding the past, and heritage to be concerned with mobilizing the past for use in the present and future. These broad definitions take in areas as diverse as cultural heritage, environmental heritage, digital heritage and the study of texts and artefacts. They also include virtual history and virtual heritage. Virtual history and virtual heritage are, themselves, terms with several distinct meanings. Although interest in them is increasing, they currently appear on few formal curricula, so their study and their practice are developing primarily through informal learning. They form 97 a significant subset of digital heritage, an area that has been identified by UNESCO as being under threat: ‘digital heritage is at risk of being lost […] its preservation for the benefit of present and future generations is an urgent issue of worldwide concern’ (UNESCO, 2003). The terms virtual heritage and virtual history can be used in three distinct ways (Ferguson et al., 2010). The first refers to use of virtual reality to augment access to and interpretation of heritage sites and historical resources. The second refers to preservation and interpretation of resources such as virtual worlds, which only exist in digital form. The third is concerned with items and locations that can be read as reflections on the past and that are gathered or re-­‐presented within cyberspace. Increasingly, the distinctions between the virtual and the physical are being eroded in all these contexts, and this erosion is connected with their use for informal learning purposes, as is explored in more detail below. Augmenting access and interpretation Physical reality is anchored in the present; even our most recent history is a construction based on the evidence and accounts that survive. Day by day, across the world and across the observable universe, billions of events take place. Some of these, like fossilized footprints in the sand or the light of a supernova, survive and may later be observed and interpreted. Others are consciously selected by humans and considered significant enough to be preserved for the future. Meaningful material objects, shaped in one moment’s activity, can provide the link to another, related activity in a later moment of time. And the result is the construction of continuity on a longer time-­‐scale than that of momentary activity (Lemke, 2002, p41). We construct continuity for our perception of reality by linking short-­‐term events and long-­‐
term processes, either by the use of a material object as identified by Lemke, or by developing a non-­‐material element, such as a story or anniversary. The accounts that we 98 construct around these elements, though immaterial, are the narratives that make up our reality. When we augment our understanding of the past with technology, we are also shaping its reality. Material objects appear to have the ability to carry the past to the future unaided. However, their message and meaning are contextual and erode over time. The megaliths of Stonehenge survive, but their original meaning is lost. Millions of tourists visit London’s Trafalgar Square and its central feature, Nelson’s Column, each year – few will be prompted to reflect on the Napoleonic Wars or on the famous sea battle fought off the coast of Spain. Augmentation of heritage sites can be used to support visitors’ understanding of what they experience. There is a tension here between visitors’ desire for an unmediated experience, and their desire for the understanding that augmentation can provide. This tension is not new; our views of heritage sites are carefully managed, and locations are cleaned, decorated and displayed to present an impression of authenticity. This is not simply a technological issue. Heritage sites are commonly augmented with elements intended to immerse us in the past. Medieval banquets, ‘residents’ in traditional dress, the opportunity to dress or act like someone from a relevant period; these are all used to augment locations by creating a sense of being transported to another time. In some cases, entire environments are augmented in order to offer realism and a sense that the visitor’s presence in another time is unmediated. The heritage site of Blists Hill Victorian Town in Ironbridge, UK, appears to be an authentic location where costumes and activities are used to augment the Victorian setting. ‘Visitors are transported back to a world of pounds, shillings and pence [old forms of currency], where steam engines and horses powered industry and gas, and candles lit shops, factories and homes’ (Ironbridge Gorge Museum Trust, 2008). In fact, the location cannot be considered authentic – it has been constructed to offer the appearance of a Victorian town 99 and is actually a modern amalgamation of buildings carefully moved from their original sites. They include a canal warehouse from one town, a tollhouse from another and a Wesleyan chapel from a third. These are combined in a location designed to help visitors understand the twenty-­‐first century in the light of the nineteenth. The location has been constructed to support both informal and formal learning, and has been so thoroughly augmented that it is impossible to distinguish relocated originals from modern reproductions. Increasingly, augmentation in the physical world is enhanced by the digital and the virtual. These can be used to provide relevant contextual resources that help people to make sense of the past and of the heritage sites that they visit. This augmentation may begin even before they arrive. Websites can help to ‘transport’ visitors to a site, using walkthroughs, audio description and video footage to create a sense of what will be experienced on the site itself and how this can be understood. Similar resources can be used on site to enhance a sense of presence through audio and video supplied through local technology or via visitors’ own tablet computers or smartphones. These media may be supplemented by the use of virtual reality to present different times and places. English Heritage used virtual reality as early as 1996 to produce a high-­‐quality and accurate ‘walk-­‐through’ record of Stonehenge that allowed visitors to explore the site and its landscape in ten different eras, from 8500 BCE to 2000 CE (Burton, 1997). In most cases, visitors can extend their experience by making audio and video recordings. These can be used to share the experience with others via social media, or to relive or reflect on the experience in future. Today’s interactions with heritage are entangled in a web of augmentation that inevitably influences the ways people interact with, respond to, and understand locations when they encounter them in ‘real’ life. Augmentation may be a permanent feature of the landscape, or can be offered as an optional extra for visitors who want to find out more or to increase their understanding of 100 artefacts and locations. The Rock Art Mobile Project http://rockartmob.ncl.ac.uk/ was developed at Newcastle University in the UK in order to offer visitors to the area opportunities to find out more about the ancient rock art that can be found in remote areas of north-­‐east England. The project aims to extend public engagement with this art by using mobile digital technology to enhance the visitor experience and to engage new audiences. Photographs, diagrams and commentaries relating to the art can be viewed online, or downloaded in advance and taken to the site. Heather and Hillforts /heatherandhillforts.co.uk/ is a similar project, based in north Wales, offering interactive heritage trails in English and Welsh that visitors can download onto a portable media device. An aim of the project is to ‘to increase understanding of our hillfort and moorland heritage.’ In central England, the Roman Leicester project offers both an online and an offline experience /www.romanleicester.dmu.ac.uk/. Visitors can be transported to the virtual environment of Roman Leicester and explore its buildings through use of the Unity browser plug-­‐in. Five buildings have been virtually constructed, using evidence from archaeological investigations. Maps and videos supplement the 3D experience online. In the physical world, an app for tablet computers is currently under development that will allow users to superimpose the Roman buildings onto the modern landscape. In some cases, an augmented view is the main or only option. Modern 3D scanning techniques make virtual representations of sites increasingly convincing, but the costs of scanning and of ongoing data storage mean that projects must plan for sustainability if they hope to outlast time-­‐limited project funding. Virtual reality can be used to help visitors to understand and explore heritage sites in non-­‐intrusive ways in order to promote conservation. Use of non-­‐invasive digital imaging techniques is also increasingly taking the place of digging on archaeological sites that could be destroyed by excavation. 101 Virtual representations extend access to people who would not be able to visit in person; they can also be used to protect fragile locations and artefacts. The prehistoric cave paintings in the cave of Lascaux, France, were closed to the public in 1963 to avoid further deterioration but today the virtual version is always open to visitors from around the world (Carlson, 2013). In this case, the augmented version of the site is the only one accessible to visitors. In the examples above, augmentation is used to engage learners, helping them to explore places and historical periods in ways that would not otherwise be possible. A very different approach to the use of augmentation to support historical inquiry is through inspiration. Again, this was a possibility before digital technologies became widely available. Historical novels, television series and films can all engage people deeply, providing a feeling of transportation and even prompting social response to the medium. It is not necessary for a work of fiction to provide a faithful representation of an historical period in order for it to inspire people to explore it more deeply. Engaging with a virtual historical period within a game can provide inspiration in the same way. In the case of the historical adventure game series, Assassin’s Creed, produced for multiple platforms by Ubisoft: Every named character has been researched by fans attempting to determine the precision of Ubisoft, and some blogs have done massive comparisons of the clothing and environment of the game against images from the Renaissance. Unlike historical simulations, Assassin’s Creed has created an environment where players are actively engaging with the environment and proactively learning about it’ (Meyers, 2011). This inspiration provided by historical games and simulations can take players beyond simple fact checking, offering other learning opportunities. McCall (2012) suggests that, in addition to raising questions about authenticity, simulation games can draw players into historical 102 problem spaces in which they consider the choices and strategies available in different situations. They also prompt players to engage in evidence-­‐based discussion about cause, effect and discussion in the past. These ‘are fundamentally valuable exercises in historical criticism. They are the sorts of exercises students, aficionados, and professionals alike should undertake’ (McCall, 2012). The augmentation of history and heritage considered in this section has involved the interplay of physical and digital environments in order to develop an understanding of the past and the ways in which it is currently interpreted. A second interpretation of virtual history and virtual heritage focuses on the purely virtual past – the past that has no counterpart in the physical world. This history is the consequence of augmentation; other places are brought into our everyday reality so convincingly and with such richness that they cannot be excluded from our accounts and interpretations of the past. As described in the last chapter, the approach here is to replicate the customs and practices of the physical world with respect to history and heritage. At the same time, engaging with virtual history and heritage in this way raises questions about what heritage is, why it is important and how we practise it. This approach prompts individuals to engage with the practise of heritage, choosing what to preserve and highlight and the ways in which this can be done. Preservation of the virtual The pace of change in virtual environments is significantly faster than it is in the physical world. Virtual environments sit outside ‘real’ time in many ways. Virtual days may be shorter than those in the physical world, players from different time zones may interact on the same activity, set at a different hour, in a different season or even a different era to their physical environment. Entire civilizations develop, flourish and collapse. Worlds are born and die. 103 Complex structures are created within hours and entire landscapes in weeks, [giving] a feeling that history has been speeded up, that the pace of change is far faster than real life. The terms ‘history’ or ‘heritage’ may therefore be used without irony to refer to events that took place only a few months previously. (Ferguson et al., 2010) Impermanence is currently a feature common to all these environments. In the physical world, things tend only to be classified as ‘heritage’ when there is a danger that they will be lost. There is a growing recognition that virtual environments are in continual danger of being lost forever. In recognition of this, in 2008 the US Library of Congress launched a major project to preserve virtual worlds – worlds that have moved from the category of ‘new phenomenon’ to endangered heritage within twenty years (Lamolinara, 2007). In these environments, where people interact intensively over long periods of time, customs and traditions begin to develop early in their existence. The informal learning environment of Jokaydia Minecrafts had only been open in the virtual setting of Minecraft for a few months when its young residents began the practice of building statues of its inhabitants. Today, there are over a hundred of these statues; some built individually, others collectively. Visitors are taken to see them as part of a world tour; they function as a landmark and as a reminder of the size of the community. The virtual world of Second Life – now in its second decade – has a complex past that is represented in histories, museums and heritage trails. Different accounts of its history have already been written. The History Trail set up in world as part of the world’s Tenth Birthday celebrations takes a museum-­‐like approach. Historical events are summarised briefly on noticeboards, accompanied by avatars, maps, vehicles, animations and a range of other period artefacts. The Second Life wiki is a collaboration between residents of the world and Linden Lab, the company that runs it. Its account of the history of Second Life /wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/History_of_Second_Life/ is primarily an event-­‐ and date-­‐based 104 chronology. For example, ‘Second Life closed beta started in November 2002 and lasted until April 2003 when public beta started.’ This summary of events includes hyperlinks to related resources and a couple of historical movies, dating back to 2001 and 2003. A more nuanced, historical, account is provided by Tateru Nino in a series of blog posts (Nino, 2010). These provide a chronological account, but also draw attention to the wider context, the social history, and what events meant for residents. While the Second Life wiki account presents a seamless unfolding of events, Nino contextualizes and draws attention to the workings of the economy, to protests and to revolts: Second Life initially suffered from a tragedy of the commons, so a rudimentary economic system was put in place, initially focused on flat, scaled fees to place objects in-­‐world (not at all unlike the pennies system used in MUSH and MUCK predecessors to control resource utilization), and later followed by a more complex system of taxes. Users almost immediately began trying to evade taxes, and a tax revolt began in a portion of Second Life called Americana, which did not simmer down until September [2003]. (Nino, 2010) Of course, the informal learning is limited in these cases. Very few people have tried writing the history of a virtual world, or have reflected on the historiography of virtual worlds. Yet there is an emerging area of study here. Already around 100,000 people worldwide earn their primary income by harvesting virtual resources and providing in-­‐world services (Lehdonvirta and Ernkvist, 2011). Increasingly, these people will want to find out more about the communities and worlds in which they operate, make sense of how their economic systems have developed, and seek ideas and inspiration from the past. What these histories begin to do is provide the resources for those already immersed in a virtual world to augment their experience further by accessing different historical periods within that world. 105 They will do this not only through history, but also through heritage. A key feature of Second Life is the range of builds that exist within it, from detailed representations of physical world sites to complex structures that could only exist in a virtual-­‐world setting. Many of these represent weeks or months of work by their creators and many are treasured by those who know them. Yet all are at risk. An apocalyptic event, such as the closure of Linden Lab, would destroy the world – the Teen version of Second Life has already disappeared. A landowner can fail to pay rent, resulting in the loss of everything built on that land. Or a landowner can simply move on and builds left without economic support will eventually be deleted. Early builds faced other problems; Second Life upgrades would damage them, residents would scavenge their prims (building blocks) and exchange them for in-­‐world cash, and abandoned builds would slowly decay (Writer, 2013). Second Life residents therefore face the physical-­‐world problem of how to select and maintain their heritage. The solutions employed currently appear to be similar in both settings. Certain historic builds are selected by the ‘state’ – in this case, Linden Lab, for preservation. ‘The Man’ statue, for example, was ported to the current world from the Alpha version. Governor Linden’s Mansion, ‘a very important historical landmark’ (Writer, 2013) also made the move between worlds and boasts its own preservation society. Second Life has an historic mansion and an ancient monument – it also has memorials. These include the Beta Monument located beside Governor Linden’s mansion, which was presented to Linden Lab by the beta testers. It bears the inscription This monument has been presented to Linden Labs to mark the culmination of its Beta Test. This will be an everlasting reminder of all they have done for and given to their beta testers. May it forever be a token of our appreciation and Gratitude for giving us the tools to create this amazing world. 106 Linden Lab created a second, larger, Beta monument. Its inscription, which appears to be carved in stone, begins ‘The 1500+ names listed here recognize the most active residents who made the Second Life Beta a tremendous success’ (Ferguson et al., 2010). The July 2013 issue of PrimPerfect, an online magazine focused on virtual worlds, celebrated the 10th birthday of Second Life with more than 100 pages of features on the world’s past (Widdershins, 2013). These included coverage of the in-­‐world history trail and of heritage sites that were taken to represent historic events. The remains of the Jessie Wall (built in October 2002) struggle to carry a heavy weight of violent history. Wagner James Au of New World Notes tells the story of those historic conflicts better than I ever could in his July 2003 essay titled [hyperlinked reference] War of the Jessie Wall (Writer, 2013, p80). The informal learning in these cases takes place at two levels. Augmenting the physical world with the virtual has inspired people to investigate the past and to identify key features and events. At the same time, they have used their learning to resource further exploration, providing pictures, accounts and trails that may prompt others to explore and to find out more. One group has gone even further. ‘The Last Days of Second Life’ project blog documents a five-­‐month expedition through abandoned areas of Second Life and claims that the explorers appealed to UNESCO because the ‘Cultural heritage of Second Life [is] threatened by destruction’ (Berkenheger, 2010). As with the virtual scientific equipment considered in the previous chapter, now that one layer of augmentation is taken for granted, we are beginning to see a role for other layers of augmentation. Virtual worlds provide a sense of presence and immersion; they too can now be augmented by the experience of different times and different locations. In the process, they provide an insight into the reasons why we construct and structure knowledge about 107 the past and our relation to it. Virtual heritage is not simply a ‘copy’ of heritage in real life but provides an opportunity to engage with and interrogate aspects of heritage in new ways. This process is taken one step further with a third aspect of virtual history and heritage, gathering and re-­‐presentation. These processes are used to open up new possibilities, making use of the affordances of both physical and virtual environments. Gathering and re-­‐presentation The ability to move between the digital and the physical world provides new ways of interacting with the past. This interaction can alter the significance of events and artefacts within the physical world. One approach to this is the ‘internet of things’, a vision of a world in which every site and every artefact can be approached digitally (Council, 2013). Technologies are currently being developed that could be used to add elements of the past to objects as they are examined or created. Prosthetic memory The interdisciplinary Tales of Things and electronic Memory (TOTeM) project investigates new contexts for augmenting things with stories and memories, creating an ‘internet of old things’ that offers the possibility of providing an augmented memory system. The Tales of Things tagging system uses two-­‐dimensional barcodes (Quick Response or QR codes) and Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) technology to enable the capture and sharing of object stories as well as physical links to objects via read-­‐and-­‐writable tags. (Barthel et al., 2013). Another project, Spyn, allows the incorporation of data within objects as they are created. Spyn is ‘mobile phone software that associates digital records of the creative process (captured through audio/visual media, text, and geographic data) with physical locations on handmade fabric’ (Rosner and Ryokai, 2010). Recordings can be woven into the fabric of artefacts, expanding the meaning of these artefacts by associating them with the thoughts 108 and memories that inspired them. Memories can be ‘pinned’ to particular locations in the fabric, based on rows and stitches in knitting or crochet. These technologies are in the early stages of development and may never become widespread. Nevertheless, they point to the potential for embedding data about the past in a wide variety of settings. This could, possibly, make the data more readily available to learners, who would be able to locate information without long and complex online or offline searches. It might also inspire people to create new narratives about the past, and to seek out different interpretations of events and artefacts. Distributed expertise, collective intelligence, dispersion and sharing could all come into play here – or the work involved in creating, maintaining and making use of this data could bring an end to further development of this form of prosthetic memory. Shared memorials Another way of enhancing memory is to develop collective memories of events, people and places. Virtual memorials offer a variety of methods of doing this. First is the online page or site where people can add their memories, pictures and footage of a person or event. Some of these are fixed, so that only the original authors can add to them; others encourage participation and sharing, allowing people to collaborate to develop a shared representation of the past that can be changed and developed over time. History pin /http://www.historypin.com/ is a site set up to do this in an overtly historical context; current projects include the Fall of the Iron Curtain, Hurricane Sandy and the First World War artworks owned by Britain’s Imperial War Museum. In the case of the latter, the shared resource that is constructed in this way can be used to augment study of the physical artworks within the museum. Memorial and memory projects also offer augmentation when they extend into virtual environments, immersing the visitor and allowing them to experience an interpreted past in 109 new ways. The multiplayer online role-­‐playing game, World of Warcraft, includes multiple memorials. Early memorials required players to search for resources outside the game in order to understand them fully. More recent ones have a quest structure. They tell a story about the past that is built by the game designers and enacted by players, usually in memory of an individual who is now dead. These quests involve extended interaction with the memorial narrative. In their development of these, ‘the designers have set out to draw on an intertextuality of cultural material and human experience to create emotional journeys that speak to profound issues’ (Gibbs et al., 2012). Second Life has its own memorials, reminders of people and events in the past. It also offers the opportunity to take a physical-­‐world memorial or heritage site and augment it by the addition of new dimensions. (Accounts presented in this section draw heavily on ‘Death of an avatar’ (Ferguson, 2012) and on ‘Heritage and the recent and contemporary past’ (Ferguson et al., 2010).) The Wall SL was a tribute to the famous Vietnam Memorial in Washington DC. The virtual site reproduced the wall, but also added new features: a synthesized text reader recited the names of the war dead that are inscribed on the wall, while music of the period became the location’s soundtrack. ‘All Along the Watchtower’ played in the background, and the season was perpetually winter. Experiencing it in Second Life was not the same as when I went in-­‐person with my mother and my sister to DC – a rainy day that slicked the memorial and made the surface as reflective as a mirror, so that I saw my own face overlaid with the names of the soldiers on the wall – but it was an equally moving experience. Instead of sharing that collective sense of grief with just my family, in the virtual world I was sharing it with people all over the terra world. (Tuque, 2008) 110 The architects and creators of this area in Second Life were able to augment the physical world experience of a memorial – making use of the opportunities for richness and realism of the medium to transport people to a new setting, immersing them within it, and prompting both parasocial interaction with the virtual artefacts and social interaction with other visitors. Historical and heritage locations This augmentation of the past can be carried out in a variety of different ways, sometimes with explicit educational purpose. The University of Oxford used Second Life to expose items from its World War I archive in context. On the Frideswide sim, visitors were able to listen to poetry readings, hear interviews with veterans and watch contemporary film footage as they explored areas such as a casualty clearing station and a front-­‐line trench. The result is an immersive and personal experience. It’s not ‘real’ but it does offer possibilities for understanding a part of history that is now beyond human memory. (University of Oxford, 2009) Elsewhere in Second Life, the Crystal Palace Project recreated a section of the giant Crystal Palace built near London in 1854. The selected section was a life-­‐sized model of a Roman house, originally based on a house in Pompeii that was destroyed by the eruption of Vesuvius. Thus this virtual site reworked a Victorian augmentation of history. In the 19th century it was necessary to build a physical building to give visitors a sense that they had been transported to ancient Rome. By the 21st century, both the Pompeian House and the Victorian structure that housed it could be re-­‐created within a virtual setting. The Roman House included both Victorian and Roman bots (characters controlled by computer programs rather than by people). The Victorian bots were tourists who moved around the site talking, reading from a guidebook and discussing what they could see. They 111 were designed to help visitors to orientate themselves, ‘giving clues as to what should be looked at and demonstrating some Victorian responses to the site’ (Hales and Earle, 2011). Further into the house, visitors encountered a young Roman girl and a slave cook. These were divided from the Victorian characters in order to reflect the idea of travelling into the past as the visitor moved deeper into the house experience. They were designed to support ‘intended learning activities: visitors will be able to ask them questions and the bots will have a variety of subjects they can talk about to help children find out more about Roman life’ (Hales and Earle, 2011). These bots appeared as social actors within a medium – prompting visitors to respond socially to the social cues they provided. They also added social richness – helping to create a sense of a populated building rather than a large, empty house. As realistically presented characters, they also increased perceptual realism. Construction of a heritage site within a virtual environment allows its creators control over the environment and the landscape. They can shift buildings around, restructure them or change their use. This shaping and tidying of heritage allows builders to make powerful points. Second Life once contained a detailed replica of the Mezquita in Cordoba, Spain. A beautiful building, the Mezquita was designed as a mosque and replaced earlier temples and churches on the site. The physical Mezquita is no longer a mosque, but the Cathedral of the Assumption of the Virgin, having been consecrated as a church in 1236 CE. During the sixteenth century a baroque cathedral nave was constructed within it – a startlingly incongruous addition. In Second Life the cathedral nave was never constructed and the Mezquita functioned as a virtual mosque, the Chebi Mosque, where avatars of all religions were welcome to visit and to pray. A notecard available on the site reflected on the reality of the setting: Chebi Mosque is currently the most important meeting place for Muslims on Second Life – so this is a ‘real’ mosque in many ways (Derrickson, 2008). 112 Some visitors experienced this as subversive. Spanish Muslims are not permitted to pray in the physical building, although they are currently campaigning for this right, so the Second Life build challenged the real-­‐world order. The presence of a Second Life mosque angered racist avatars who attacked it and even forced it to close at one point. All these sites were carefully planned to immerse visitors, to create a mood and to create an environment that would prompt people to engage, to investigate further and to find out more. A related approach is to hand control to learners, offering them the opportunity to learn by researching and constructing sites. Constructing the past Such construction projects can be carried out in a variety of different ways. ‘Museums at Night’ ran a one-­‐off event in Tullie House Art Gallery in the north of England. The event used projections from the online gaming and building environment Minecraft to share a topographical local landscape, including a partially constructed version of part of the Roman construction, Hadrian’s Wall, which extends across the country in that area. Visitors were able to engage in building parts of Hadrian’s Wall, and one of the Roman forts that were located at intervals along the wall. Adam Clarke, who organised the event, saw it as opening up new ways of engaging with the past: Museums are traditionally about housing the intimate objects of the past. When we visit a museum, we engage in a dialogue with these objects and the people who once made them, used them or collected them. By making 3D printing accessible, museums can open up that dialogue in ways that empower the individual and community to create their own objects, their own living history and dialogues with the present, the past and the future (Clarke, 2013). Other projects run and develop over periods of months or years. The 1920s Berlin project extends across a region of Second Life and has been running as a community since 2009. It 113 includes reproductions of buildings, encourages visitors to dress appropriately in period clothing, runs activities and records events in video form. We wanted to show our visitors both sides of the coin; the amazing modern houses near Unter Den Linden where modern rich people in the latest fashion live a life of leisure, but also the dirty, narrow streets with tiny apartments where the poor try to survive. /1920sberlin.com/ The wide range of activities available in the region includes a cabaret visit, a stay at the Hotel Adlon, a ride in a zeppelin, original 1920s movies, German language classes, and visits to the slums of the Rote Wedding area, the Eldorado gay club and a coffee shop on Unter den Linden. For some, this provides an opportunity to immerse themselves in another time and place, for others the site provides an opportunity to work with others to construct an understanding and a representation of that time and space. A similar experience is available in Second Life, in the Roman-­‐themed area of Roma. A note card offered to visitors on arrival explains that The sim of ROMA was designed to be an immersive experience, and many visitors (though certainly not all) are interested in role playing like they were a Citizen of ancient Rome. The owners of ROMA encourage this, as this is the only place in SL that this is possible. […]Visitors are encouraged to create a character based on an ancient Roman model and to join various role-­‐playing groups based in the sim, including Roma citizens (SPQR) and Legion XIII. The opportunity to engage in role-­‐play as an ancient Roman is available 24 hours a day, seven days a week. As one nation’s role players are logging off for the night, another’s are switching on their computers on the other side of the world. This extended role-­‐play gives citizens a chance to build relationships, share information and develop both their knowledge of ancient Rome and their understanding of Latin. 114 Other communities are not entirely focused on history or on heritage, but include these within their activities. Within Jokaydia Minecrafts, the young miners (community members) have worked together to research and construct ships and buildings from the past. Early in 2013, miners from around the world worked together over a period of several weeks to construct a medieval town. On Teen Second Life, members of the Schome community worked together to construct a reproduction of Hadrian’s Wall that would help them to understand the original wall as it existed in Roman times. Although this was an informal learning experience, it was supported and initiated by archaeology lecturer Alan Greaves. He noted that ‘the reconstruction included all the major features that made up the Wall system: the forward ditch, berm, wall, military way and the vallum (a wide flat-­‐bottomed ditch flanked by raised banks)’ (Greaves, 2007). Although archaeologists know enough about Hadrian’s Wall to be able to construct its ground plan, the model was designed to provoke investigation of other aspects, including its original full height and external appearance. The Schome wall was not constructed as a full reproduction of the 73-­‐mile-­‐long original, but rather as a version of it that would help learners to understand the Roman wall in ways that would not be possible on a visit to the physical site. Teenaged members of the Schome Community also set up their own history strand within the project: Time Explorers. Each week, a teenager would take responsibility for leading a session on an historical subject, and these sessions attracted attendance from both adult and teenaged members of the community. Together the Time Explorers uncovered the different layers of a Roman road, visited the virtual cave of Lascaux, constructed Roman aqueducts, and experienced lava raining down on them as they studied the destruction of Pompeii (Gillen, 2012). The teenagers wrote the project up in detail on the community wiki: 115 We are learning in a very visual and interactive way on a much more personal level than you do in a classroom […] Schome Park has given its students a real chance to study History and Archaeology in new ways which are more engaging and interactive than those used in the classroom […] This unique way of learning breaks down the barriers of students and teachers. This leads to student run sessions which benefit many people as both children and adults can learn from each other /schome.ac.uk/wiki/Learners_X_Factor/ In these cases, it was not only the opportunity for individuals to immerse themselves in a virtual world that supported their learning. These environments were set up to enable collaboration and participation and to allow experimentation and innovation. Participants were not inspired to create and learn solely because those activities were available to them. They did so as part of a community, working with others and engaging in dialogue about the past. Conclusion There is no single way in which augmentation can be used to extend the possibilities of informal learning. ‘Learning in informal spaces is fluid, sporadic, social, and participant driven’ (Yoon et al., 2012). As this chapter has shown, even when the focus is on just two subject areas, the approaches to augmentation are many and various. Augmentation can be used to inspire, to provoke engagement and to extend experience. However, focusing on the use of augmented reality to support informal learning in museums, researchers noted that While AR studies in museums are continually emerging, it is evident that much of the research centers on how to increase engagement, interest, and usability rather than on what visitors learn and how learning can be improved (Yoon et al., 2012) 116 Ultimately, it is not enough to provide a mass of easily accessible information and an inspiring starting point. Deep and meaningful learning takes time; so informal learners need support if they are to extend their knowledge. Augmentation can help here by prompting engagement over time. This may involve extending a physical world visit, providing support for investigation before the trip and reflection afterwards. It may involve a long-­‐term project with sufficient resources to continue over weeks, months or years. Or it may include support for an extended community, willing to engage in dialogue and to construct understanding together. At the same time, augmentation involves educational counterpoint, as discussed in the previous chapter. In the case of history and heritage, the contrasts and interplay between the virtual and the physical throw into relief some of the ways in which the past is utilised by individuals, groups and societies and provide an insight into the ways in which it is constituted. A heritage artefact in a virtual world is not simply copied from one medium to another; it provides a vantage point from which to reflect on heritage in the physical world. By offering a re-­‐organised, re-­‐articulated space, augmented learning can provoke learners to attain fresh understandings of time and space and also to realise that heritage in both virtual and physical environments is concerned with relationships, communities and contested accounts of past, present and future. The ability to reach these understandings is underpinned by technology and supported by an augmented learning community. Informal learning does not take place in a vacuum; learners need opportunities to access expert advice, to encounter challenges, to defend their perspectives, and to amend their ideas in the face of criticism. The next chapter therefore examines the role of augmented learning in bringing to life different times and spaces through social interactions. 117 Chapter 6: Augmenting learning using social media The last two chapters have explored ways in which learning can be augmented through the use of virtual worlds. Although such environments are widely used, particularly for gaming, their use is dwarfed by social media, which are now almost ubiquitous in many countries. Accessible through phones, tablets, games consoles and computers, the 1.11 billion people who currently access Facebook and the 190 million people who access Twitter each month are never far from a portal to their online interaction. These social media facilitate conversations and the exchange of information, but the majority of postings could only be described as ‘learning’ in the loosest sense of the word. While all social media can support information exchange and conversations, the augmented element provides a nucleus around which learning opportunities can coalesce. These media offer opportunities to bring learning to life. When they are used to support augmented learning by ‘bringing to life different times, spaces, characters and possibilities’, they can form the basis for extended projects that support informal learning on a grand scale. The initiatives considered in this chapter do this by making use of four of the affordances of augmented learning: •
medium provokes social response – prompting response to mediated cues from the no-­‐longer alive and the never alive •
social richness – supporting interaction that feels sociable, warm, personal and immediate •
social immersion – provoking, supporting and encouraging a sense of involvement •
transportation – prompting a sense of togetherness that transcends both time and distance. 118 These augmented elements support the joint construction of knowledge by enabling and inspiring dialogue and interaction around a subject area. In order to consider how this takes place in different contexts, this chapter considers examples from three disciplines: history, science and English language / literature. In each case, it shows how projects make use of augmented learning to harness the benefits of Web 2.0 and digital literacy for learners. History projects are able to construct an interpretation of the past by recreating it virtually. Social media sites support exploration of the past in real time, bringing it to life for learners in new ways. Examples include the primary school children who spent a week taking on the roles of real-­‐life 17th-­‐century conspirators plotting to overthrow the English government, the use of ‘rephotography’ to blend past and present, bloggers posting old diaries an entry at a time and many examples of tweeted history, or ‘twistory’. This chapter examines the possibilities for understanding and interpreting the past that are created by such initiatives. It also deals with possibilities for learning about science from non-­‐humans as they share details of the exploration of other worlds and unfamiliar environments. The spread of ubiquitous technologies means that we are increasingly used to objects having interactive qualities and, in some cases, personalities. When this trend is combined with social media, it produces a variety of learning opportunities. A well-­‐known example is NASA’s Mars Phoenix rover, which attracted over quarter of a million followers on Twitter – all of whom were able to receive regular updates on activity on Mars. These updates included links to the first video footage of dust storms and Martian clouds. This chapter explores the possibilities for formal and informal learning that can be provided by giving a voice to such objects. The study of literature is necessarily a mediated interaction, with the focus on a body of literary work. These texts are continually reworked and reconsidered using different media, from Grieg’s Peer Gynt Suites through Roman Polanski’s Macbeth to Turbine’s Lord of the 119 Rings Online. Social media provide another vehicle for this exploration, opening up the possibility of interaction with authors or, in the case of pre-­‐20th-­‐century literature, the possibility of interaction with proxies standing in for authors or characters. In all these cases, there is a role for an expert, but this is not a conventional teaching role. The majority of these projects extend beyond what is possible in the time-­‐constrained environment of formal education. Their base is in educational outreach, in research projects, in long-­‐term interests and in personal enthusiasm. These projects require expertise; they also require the time and ability to act as a coordinator and a facilitator. Unless the expert is able to inspire and engage people, the project falls flat, because no one is required to participate. Anyone can engage at any time, anyone can leave at any time, but a skilled facilitator can keep people engaged and actively contributing for many years. The first project discussed here, Samuel Pepys’ Diary, is a good example of this persistence. The project began in 2002, and is still engaging the public across social media more than a decade later. History PepysDiary.com Samuel Pepys was a civil servant who lived in London during the seventeenth century. For nearly ten years he kept a private diary, which was interpreted and first published in the 19th century. His journal, which provides a first-­‐hand account of London’s Great Plague and the Great Fire of London, as well as detailed descriptions of day-­‐to-­‐day life and his sexual adventures, is one of the key primary sources for British history of that period. Although the diary is of great historical interest, and contains many dramatic and entertaining sections, it was not written for publication. As it was composed over a period of ten years it is lengthy, and some sections are obscure to readers who are not thoroughly 120 familiar with Pepys’ world. As a result, most people who know anything of Pepys know him through quoted highlights, particularly his accounts of the Great Fire of London. What was originally a series of short passages, spread over a decade, has become a series of blocks of text, removed from their original setting and presented as historical or literary sources. PepysDiary.com restored the sense of the diary being an account of daily life by publishing the full text of the diary, day by day and in real time, from January 2003 until May 2012. In January 2013, these daily entries began to appear on the site’s front page once again, starting with the entries for January 1660. The site also contains the text of letters sent or received by Pepys, together with large amounts of contextual information on everything from religion and law to herbs and spices. The site was set up in a way that encouraged readers to make use of the affordances of Web 2.0. They were able to participate in the project by adding their own annotations, making this a site for the sharing of distributed expertise, where people could share ideas, collaborate on the project and build working relationships over time. The author, Phil Gyford, was surprised at the amount of engagement. Online, he provides intermittent reports on site activity. By July 2012, after nine years, the site had been annotated 58,603 times and was attracting around 28,000 different visitors each day, with the majority of those having visited previously. Daily posting of Pepys’ diary entries offers many advantages for readers. In 2008, a Dutch reader outlined some of these. The shared timescale is an important aspect of the augmented learning here; there is a sense that both Pepys and the reader are moving through time at the same pace and experiencing the same season. Enjoying the Diary online has several advantages: wherever I am in the World, I can follow it – and scrutinize specific information regarding a detail in the text, without losing the passage where I have abandoned the path made by Mr. Pepys. Try doing this with a book! 121 Your in-­‐text annotations are a genuine bliss: no more tedious leafing through pages! Also: always the London map only a mouseclick away! In-­‐deep articles! Entries from other fans! And finally, the gentle pace of releasing one entry a day and synchronizing this with the actual calendar of 2008 – that is an absolutely brilliant idea. (Vinken, 2008) In April 2008 @Samuelpepys joined Twitter as a ‘17th century London diarist, tweeting the events of 1660.’ He tweets several times a day, and has attracted more than 35,000 followers. This continuous activity, written in Pepys’ own words, builds an account of an individual and his environment over time. The Twitter feed, in particular, gives an impression of a personal and intimate account; an accurate representation of Pepys’ life. Although it is clear that Samuel has been dead for 300 years, the medium provokes a social response from followers in the 21st century. Sometimes these are brief, throwaway comments; others suggest a continued engagement. For example, on 20 May 1660 / 2013, when Pepys tweeted I went to lie down, where in another bed there was a pretty Dutch woman but though I had a month’s-­‐mind I had not the boldness to go to her. he received the response @samuelpepys are you ok there Sam? That's very uncharacteristic of you. I'm sure your wife thanks you, however. This suggests a familiarity both with Pepys’ life – the respondent knows that he is married – and with his typical behaviour. Another, briefer, comment treats Pepys as a friend whose behaviour may be influenced by people in his Twitter stream. @samuelpepys gwan, Sam, have a go! The full 376-­‐word entry for the day appears on PepysDiary.com. Again this provokes response, but in a more academic vein, with longer entries and links to related references. 122 When first posted, in 2003, the day’s entry prompted a series of comments about interpretations of and derivations for the phrase ‘month’s mind’, together with some explanation of the custom of sleeping in mixed rooms at hotels. The focus was on understanding the 17th century, but in the context of the 20th, as a comment shows: Sam is working with very little sleep at the moment, but now his irregular sleeping patterns have finally caught up with him: he’s obviously extremely tired. He gets up very early (if at first light then that’s at about 4 a.m.), travels some distance, takes a nap for a couple of hours until 8 a.m. then goes to church, sightsees and travels back to his ship where he has to take another nap, but this one lasts at least 8 hours longer than he expected (waking up at 4 a.m. rather than 8 p.m.) then going back to sleep again. His body clock has gone haywire, and if this was the present day I’d say he was jet-­‐lagged. (Glyn, 2003) There is a familiarity to this account – Samuel becomes Sam – and a focus on the minutiae of the day’s activities. This focus on detail is easier because of the way in which the diary is presented. One day’s entry can be examined in a short period of time, in the knowledge that other interested parties will be reading and commenting. On that occasion, nine people added comments over a two-­‐day period. After a ten-­‐year gap, another nine comments were posted in 2013, on the occasion of the entry’s second appearance. ‘Month’s mind’ appeared again, but on this occasion the commenters were more interested in Pepys’ account of sleeping on board ship that night. They focused on time-­‐keeping aboard ship and on whether bells were rung or guns fired to let sailors know the time. In the Twitter stream, people tweet to Samuel Pepys in the full knowledge that the man cannot tweet back. On the website there is now another fracture in time, with the 2013 commentators ten years removed from those who first made annotations. Despite this, they continue to respond to previous comments. On 24 May 2013, Gerald Berg commented ‘A decade late but Waldo ask for some tracts in defense of Monarchy […]’ and supplies a 123 reference. On the same day, another poster from 2013 corrected a comment from 2003. There is a sense of building a resource and of creating a conversation across time, which dies down for a while, and is then resurrected around the same resource. Pepys Diary brings the 17th century to life, by its presentation of a contemporary account. Teacher Chris Leach took another approach, working with his class to bring the 17th century to life by producing new accounts in real time. Gunpowder, tweeting and plot Remember, remember, the fifth of November Gunpowder treason and plot I see no reason why gunpowder treason Should ever be forgot. (Traditional) For school children in England, the Gunpowder Plot of 1605 is one of the best-­‐known historical events. On 5 November, known as ‘Bonfire Night’, people across the country mark its anniversary. On this night ‘guys’, effigies of conspirator Guido Fawkes, are burned on thousands of bonfires. There are fireworks, traditional rhymes and traditional foods. Each year the tale is retold of the plot to blow up the House of Lords on the occasion of the state opening of parliament. The 36 barrels of gunpowder placed in the cellars by the conspirators would have been sufficient to kill the king and most of the government. At a time of religious uncertainty and conflict, the plotters hoped to install a Catholic on the English throne. Instead they were betrayed. ‘Guy’ Fawkes was found with the barrels of gunpowder, arrested and tortured. Many of the conspirators were killed as they fled. The eight who were captured, including Fawkes, were sentenced to be hanged, drawn and quartered – a particularly brutal form of execution. The bare bones of the story are well known and often repeated. However, the impression is of a one-­‐off event, a snapshot of Guy Fawkes’ capture in the cellars with the barrels of 124 gunpowder. Chris Leach worked with primary-­‐school children to bring the characters and events to life in real time by using Twitter. Tweets from 2009, and subsequent years, can be viewed at https://twitter.com/chrisleach78/gunpowdertweetingplot/. The project first ran in 2009, with his class of 10 and 11 year olds working together to tweet as Robert Catesby, the leader of the conspiracy. As ‘Robert Catesby’ was tweeting publicly, he attracted followers from outside the school, some of whom added comments to his page at http://padlet.com/wall/rcatesby. These examples give a flavour of the comments: •
Congratulations on your fantastic work, it's really brought history alive for me :) •
I learned a lot about the gunpowder plot that I didn’t know before! •
Following your tweets is captivating got me right into the story behind the history. There is evidence here of both social richness and social immersion. The online interaction not only feels personal and sociable, it also provokes and encourages a sense of involvement. In this case, it encouraged such a high level of involvement that the next year this became a more extensive project, with several schools taking on the roles of different plotters with the hash-­‐tag #gtp2010 (Gunpowder Tweeting Plot 2010). Once again online reaction was positive, with deputy head teacher David Mitchell commenting I was honoured to be a part of it and the pupils loved being a part of it too. They actually learned so much about the people and the facts behind the common facts. (Mitchell, 2010) The children and their teachers played out the story for two weeks from 25 October, tweeting every day; taking on the roles of conspirators and those who opposed them. The story came to a dramatic conclusion on 8 November as the final conspirators were captured, and Thomas Bates tweeted, ‘Captured. Pray for me now.’ The message still has the power to chill; on 6 January 1606 Bates was dragged through the streets of London, hanged, drawn and quartered after watching three of his co-­‐conspirators undergo the same fate. 125 Figure 6.1: Gunpowder, tweeting and plot – part of the Twitter narrative from 2012 As the project has evolved, the jointly authored narrative has become increasingly compelling. In this sample from 7 November 2012, the plot has been discovered and the conspirators are on the run. •
Robert Catesby: We are so tired and soaked to the skin. All our gunpowder is wet. But we must stay strong #gtp2012 •
Thomas Percy How much further must we ride. They must be hunting us now. Hope is fading #gtp2012 •
John Grant: Wet. Tired. Miserable. Haven’t slept for 3 days. #gtp2012 •
Robert Catesby: We have reached Holbeche House. Everyone is exhausted #gtp2012 The multiple voices give a sense of this as a shared event, unfolding in real time. 126 Gunpowder, Tweeting and Plot makes good use of the different elements of Web 2.0. It encourages participation, not just from those with an active role related to events in 1605, but also from those supporting them and encouraging with them. The different roles allow participants to make use of distributed expertise, with each being able to look at events from a different perspective, building this collaboration into an example of collective intelligence with many people working towards a common end. It is also shared with a wider audience, with the related Twitter list followed by a wide variety of people, including parents, teachers, students and lecturers. Nevertheless, this is a relatively small-­‐scale project when compared with others. Real Time World War II WW2 Tweets from 1941 (@RealTimeWWII) currently has almost 300,000 followers around the world. The project began in 2011, with a series of tweets reporting the aftermath of the invasion of Poland in 1939, when German troops were sweeping across Europe. While Pepys’ Peeps presents an individual’s perspective, and Gunpowder, Tweeting and Plot is voiced by many participants, Real Time WWII is the product of one man, filtering multiple primary sources. Alwyn Collinson bases his tweets on a range of eyewitness accounts, photographs and videos, in order to give the impression that his tweets are coming straight from the time. His tweets present perspectives from around the world, some commenting on well-­‐known events, some presenting the perspective of a private individual. The war is presented and experienced through the eyes and the words of people who were involved. The editorial perspective of the writer shapes the account for the present day, giving due prominence to what, with hindsight, we know to have been key events. In the comments stream of a Gizmodo report on the project, Collinson noted In some ways what I tweet is not truly what people at the time experienced, because I include things that nobody could have known. But think of the alternative: if I only included what, say, 127 British civilians (or even the British government) knew, there'd be almost no mention of the Holocaust for years, grossly inaccurate reports & rumours, and many things simply never mentioned because they weren't discovered until years later... (realtimewwii, 2011) This approach allows him to tweet stories that were not widely known at the time, but that bring home the ongoing brutality of events. For example, on 1 November 2011, the fate of the inmates of one hospital was reported in two tweets, accompanied by a picture of the huge building that was emptied in this way • SS today deported 78 mentally ill children from Owinska Mental Hospital, Poland. They're being taken to nearby Poznan to be gassed. • All patients at Owinska have been killed-­‐ part of Aktion T4 program of "euthanasia". These children are last to die. http://dld.bz/ay5Mf The second of these messages was retweeted 54 times, expanding its audience far beyond the people actively following this Twitter account. From the perspective of learning, this project is not merely a resource. Readers respond to the social richness of the medium, treating these as personal accounts and realistic representations. They pass them on as they would do any other tweets that they find interesting and worth sharing. This vivid account of the Blitz, accompanied by a picture of burning buildings, prompted 116 retweets 1 Londoner: "We hear gibbons in London Zoo screeching in terror & bells cracking in burning churches. It's like Hell" pic.twitter.com/SYmNiZuuQn Another vivid image, from the other side of Europe, was retweeted 59 times: German advance in Crete finds scenes of slaughter; officer Walter Gerick: "Dead parachutists hang in olive trees, swinging gently in breeze" This low-­‐level engagement suggests some degree of emotional response to these accounts. Others have taken on a more elaborate role. @realtimewwii_ch has translated 5,205 of the 128 Tweets into Chinese. Among the many other translations, 1,494 Tweets have been translated into French, 1,343 into Turkish, 545 into Latin and 379 into Finnish. People around the world are engaging on a grand scale with this project, producing translations or providing links to their own selection of tweets. They also contribute to the conversation with reflective posts that make links between the posts and current events, as in these two exchanges. •
@RealTimeWWII: Mufti Amin al-­‐Husseini, respected Muslim cleric living in Baghdad, has declared a jihad to drive “British infidels” from Iraq and Palestine •
Ken Bavier: @RealTimeWWII We fight the same wars over and over again. Is this our destiny? •
@RealTimeWWII: Over 900 people are dead to German bombing in Belfast, Northern Ireland– Luftwaffe pounded city from 10pm last night •
@atheistpunk: @RealTimeWWII Kinda puts current events into perspective. Imagine facing this every day for years •
@petersinnott: @atheistpunk: @RealTimeWWII Current events do too. 30 people died in bomb attacks in Iraq yesterday. Harsh world out there unfortunately These augmented projects form a bridge between different times, allowing strong links to be made, which provoke written engagement. Such projects are numerous, and often interlinked – with many following each other on Twitter. Engagement across time is also possible in images, using the technique of ‘rephotography’. This involves photographing the same site on two occasions, creating a new version of an existing photograph that produces a then-­‐and-­‐now view of the location. Sergey Larenkov is a Russian photographer who has used this technique to bring historical events into the modern landscape (Larenkov, 2013). His pictures explore the siege of 129 Leningrad, the defence of Moscow, the liberation of Prague and Vienna, and the storming of Berlin. Black-­‐and-­‐white tanks appear to roll past parked cars on modern-­‐day streets, a casually dressed tourist from the 21st century takes a snap of soldiers running towards a scuttled ship in 1944, and infantry march past an ice-­‐cream stand in Yalta. A related technique was used by artist Shimon Attie for his The Writing on the Wall project in 1992-­‐3 (Attie, 1992). He incorporated original pictures within the landscape by slide-­‐projecting portions of pre-­‐war pictures of Jewish sites into Berlin onto the same or similar buildings in the modern city, and then photographing the projections. These were primarily artistic projects, without an explicit educational intention. They point the way, though, to a learning experience that can be shared and developed through social media. Comments on these pictures where they are available or reproduced on social media website suggest that, they have inspired others to experiment with and learn from this approach. Rephotography groups on the image-­‐sharing site, Flickr, suggest that this technique is used in some cases to support the development of a networked understanding of history and of change. The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) Turn back Time group on Flickr focuses on the changing face of the British high street, and is linked to the BBC’s Hands on History initiative that was set up to help adults and children learn about history together. A smaller-­‐scale example is the Tasmanian vegetation and landscape change rephotography group, which ‘aims to collate “then and now” images of Tasmanian landscapes to illustrate changes over time’. This is a citizen science project in which participants’ perception and understanding of the current environment are augmented by including a different time period within it. Another approach to augmenting learning in the context of science is to supplement perception and understanding by including different spaces. 130 Science NASA The US National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) has been very active in using social media to add social richness to accounts of US space exploration and science. In April 2013, when the official NASA Twitter feed won an award for best government use of social media, the organisation’s press release about the award outlined an extensive use of social media NASA uses almost 500 social media accounts to communicate its mission to a wide range of followers. The @NASA twitter account has 3.8 million followers, the most in the federal government. NASA also maintains presences on Facebook, Google+, Flickr, and other popular platforms. NASA Socials, formerly known as NASA Tweetups, allow social media followers to attend functions and interact with NASA's engineers, astronauts and scientists. (NASA, 2013) This makes it clear that NASA is aiming to enable a sense of transportation by running Tweetups that can give an impression that ‘we are together’ at an event. The webpage ‘Connect and Collaborate with NASA’ http://www.nasa.gov/connect/ sets social media links alongside 20 different ways of collaborating. These include Stardust@home, a citizen science project that has run since 2006 and encourages people to join an Internet-­‐based search for interstellar dust, and the Be a Martian project. This positions the viewer as an explorer who can share in a journey of discovery by helping to explore Mars. The introductory video invites viewers to Join us, and we can work together to create the most comprehensive global mosaic of Mars in human history […] We are linked, by all who’ve come before to bring us the tools of understanding […] Landers and rovers give us a sense of presence on the vast expanse of the windswept Martian terrain […] You are the cartographer. You are the explorer. Be part of discovery. It is happening now. 131 There is an explicit acknowledgment of a sense of presence here and, again, a move to create a sense of social richness. The medium is warm and personal, presenting the opportunity to join a team of people working together to learn more about Mars. An augmented sense of presence features in several of the NASA Twitter accounts. All active NASA spacecraft have Twitter accounts and these are carefully managed in order to give the impression that they are speaking directly to their thousands of followers (Vertesi, 2010). Janet Vertesi, a sociologist of science, has made a detailed study of NASA’s use of Twitter. She notes that followers of the spacecraft maintain a suspension of disbelief, addressing robots as individual agents, tweeting questions for science projects or asking for clarification on press releases. the use of the first person makes it seem as though the robot is speaking directly to its friends in cyberspace, despite being an inanimate object on that could be on a planet millions of kilometres away. This sense of robotic personality is augmented when other JPL spacecraft like @MarsRovers retweeted @MarsCuriosity’s call for webcam watchers, saying, “Aw, they grow up too fast!” Such a comment establishes a relationship between the two robots, using a familiar phrase often exchanged between parents or siblings. (Vertesi, 2010) Perhaps the best known of these Twitter accounts is @MarsPhoenix, the Mars lander that arrived on the planet in May 2008 and explored the planet until communication was lost six months later. Tweeting ‘from Mars’ proved very popular, @NASA noted that this was the organisation’s first Twitter account and it had reached number 5 on Twitter in summer 2008 with 38,000 followers. On 20 June that year, the lander broke a major news story with a Tweet that was favorited 693 times @Mars Phoenix: Are you ready to celebrate? Well, get ready: We have ICE!!!!! Yes, ICE, *WATER ICE* on Mars! Woot!!! Best day ever!! 132 Figure 6.2: @MarsPhoenix announces the discovery of water on Mars When prestigious science magazine, Nature, announced the same story online, it quoted the lander’s Twitter account in the same way it would a human “Ice!” screams NASA’s Phoenix lander. “Whoohoo! Was keeping my eye on some chunks of bright stuff & they disappeared! Sublimated! So it can’t be salt, it’s ice.” That’s the triumphant verdict of the Mars lander craft (Sanderson, 2008) There is a continual sense that this was not a mediated interaction, that @MarsPhoenix was talking to its followers in a warm and personal way, transporting them to a shared space where they could talk together about exploration of a planet many thousands of kilometers from earth. Some of this was humorous and light-­‐hearted, but the Twitter stream also shared links to many resources, including academic articles, scientific pictures, graphs and NASA news briefings. It fired the imaginations with its accounts of snow and dust devils on Mars, and it interacted with followers by answering questions. It also involved the followers of @MarsPhoenix in the journey of exploration: @MarsPhoenix : Look at this picture: http://tinyurl.com/63jpsj Now, turn your screen upside down. Is this the mother lode of the polar region? Ice!? 133 The Twitter stream encouraged participation in the project, it shared information about NASA’s activities more widely than had ever been possible in the past, building relationships with followers and connecting them to a growing network of NASA social media accounts. When the lander stopped responding, it provoked an emotional and creative response. Almost 1000 people wrote Twitter obituaries for it, some of which pointed to the lander’s ongoing role in supporting learning. Here lies the Phoenix, a wonderful little machine that gave humans knowledge and smiles while reminding them to dream a bit – Mauricio Orozco To the children who will one day visit me on their school outings and laugh at this puny metal albatross. Stand on my shoulders and do great things. – Mike (Madrigal, 2008) Despite the lander’s ‘death’, interest in the expedition remains high. Five years after that announcement of water on Mars, the Rover’s number of Twitter followers had risen to over 261,000, with tweets now posted by the ‘Phoenix ops’ team who ‘promised Phoenix to continue to update here its discoveries and future news’. So the account now not only enables followers to participate in the exploration of a distance place, it helps continue the voice of a character after the obituaries are written. A similar approach is used in the field of Middle English, where 14th-­‐century playwright Geoffrey Chaucer is reanimated through social media. English language and literature Geoffrey Chaucer hath a blog Whan that Aprill with his shoures soote The droghte of March hath perced to the roote […] Than longen folk to goon on pilgrimages (Chaucer, c1394) 134 Chaucer was a 14th-­‐century poet and translator, also a member of the English royal court and Comptroller of Customs for the port of London. His work, including the portion from The Canterbury Tales quoted above, is written in Middle English. Although many words are the same as those used in modern English, the irregular spelling, mediaeval references and unfamiliar vocabulary mean that works written in Middle English are difficult for the modern reader to understand without some training. Nevertheless, the quality and impact of Chaucer’s writing mean that it is still well known today, particularly The Canterbury Tales, which has been reworked in many ways, including as television drama and film. In 2002, Chaucer joined the social networking site, Friendster, where his profile gained only a few friends. Four years later, Geoffrey ‘LeVostreGC’ Chaucer developed his use of social media, beginning his blog with a post in Middle English on Internet abbreviations •
Oh new fanglenesse! Ich have learned the privitees of the manye abbreviaciouns ywrtten on the internette. •
Par ensaumple: OMG: “oh mine ++DOMINUS++”. ROFL: “rolling on the floore laughing”. IRL: “in real lyfe.” WTF: Whatte the syve.” ('Chaucer', 2006) In late 2011, the same character – Chaucer Doth Tweet @LeVostreGC – joined and became very active on Twitter. The author of these social media contributions, later revealed to be assistant professor of English Brantley L Bryant, noted that The blog began with a fascination with and enthusiasm for Chaucerian texts, with the possibilities they afford for interpretation, play, and self-­‐creation (Bryant, 2010, p23) Although LeVostreGC’s social media accounts of his life and activities roughly mirror those of the real Geoffrey Chaucer, with 1386 mapping to 2006 and 1387 to 2007, The world of the blog is meant to give a muddy sense of time and resist consistency building, allowing the medieval to freely cross-­‐pollinate with contemporary pop culture. In one post, 135 LeVostreGC plays video games, on an archaically named analogue of a home gaming console, but the games themselves refer to medieval concerns (Bryant, 2010, pp., p22) Bryant is clear that the blog is not intended as a first-­‐hand account of activities in mediaeval England; contrasting the blog’s accounts with the direct broadcast from the past provided by Phil Gyford’s blog version of the diaries of Samuel Pepys (see above). This is not an attempt to augment the reader’s reality by bringing the past to life, although the writing does vividly evoke a fan-­‐fiction-­‐style world in which the 21st century and the 14th century collide in unexpected ways. This account, for example, published on 11 May 2006, would be an amusing but misleading resource for anyone wanting to learn about types of employment in the 14th century One man cardeth the woole, oon man spinneth the woole, and an oothir dyeth the woole a fayre colour. Oon man ys skillede yn the husbandrie of beestes, an othir yn the preparacioun of java-­‐
basid online gamblynge interfaces, and yet an other in the produccioun of artificieale guacamole flavour for potato crispes. In many cases, the mismatches and anachronisms are so skillfully woven within the narrative that only an experienced mediaeval scholar with a broad knowledge of modern-­‐day popular culture can understand all the subtleties of the humour. The learning possibilities are more closely aligned with the author’s ability to bring a language to life. In his tweets and blog posts, Middle English makes the transition from a difficult subject for unwilling scholars to an inventive and amusing medium to be read for pleasure. It provides a method of participation, through comments and responses, that allows people to try the style for themselves. Many of the responses to LeVostreGC are written in an approximation of Middle English, such as this comment by Caroline on the April 2012 blog post ‘A long tyme agoon in a shire far away’: 136 Ich hath great payne upon my bode from the reding of thyne tale. Much merriment hath it gave unto me Ich wish Ich knowe the way to maken aine tweet for all the world to rede and lerne of thyme crafte. Running through all LeVostreGC’s writings is a sense of experimentation and creative rule-­‐
breaking, of using social media to push at the boundaries of how the middle ages can and should be studied, and challenging people’s understanding of what it means to be a Chaucerian scholar. In an amazon.com review of the related book ‘Geoffrey Chaucer hath a Blog’ (Bryant, 2010), David Cope suggests that Chaucerian scholarship appropriately should mix careful observation with humor, an awareness of our own absurdity, and a delight in the play of language. Geoffrey Chaucer Hath a Blog does just that, exploring the current state of scholarship (with a proper nod to the famed International Congress of Medieval Studies at Western Michigan University) even as the authors compose new works in faux-­‐Middle English Figure 6.3: @LeVostreGC explains the Middle English letters thorne and yogh 137 For scholars in the field, the blog and Twitter stream provide new arenas in which to enjoy the fruits of their study. For those new to the area, they cast the subject in a new light and provide gateways to related areas, particularly other writers and writings of the period. Was Piers the Ploughman really ‘the subjecte of a toppe-­‐secrete governmente experimente’ and did Margery Kempe really pilgrimage to Ba’alt-­‐Ymoor, thinking it was ‘yn the launde of theSarazines ner the cite of Jerusalem’? @LeVostreGC prompts readers to look beyond his own medieval writing, to explore other works from the period and to consider the different characters and styles of their writers. He also answers questions, provides links to more academic sources, and provides accessible and helpful information (see Figure 6.3). Augmenting learning through social media Different media have always been adapted as tools and resources to support both learning and teaching. Augmenting learning through the use of social media offers the possibility of involving people across the world, encouraging participation and thus being able to draw on both distributed expertise and collective intelligence. It opens up possibilities for engagement and, by doing this, is able to offer a wide range of perspectives instead of a unitary view of a subject. The projects described in this chapter all began on a small scale and have grown and developed over time. Each one allows learners to engage by linking the remote – in time or space – to their own context and by helping them to build relationships with characters and objects over time. This extended interaction and engagement encourage exploration of different perspectives, allowing detailed examination from different angles. Those who choose to do so can gradually engage more deeply, on a larger scale and over an extended period of time. Each of these projects provides a means of sharing stories and resources more widely. Learners are offered opportunities to share and develop their own stories and 138 resources. They can also enrich those on offer by commenting and reflecting on them or by translating or extending them. This augmented learning prompts both research and creativity. It can extend the learning experience by inspiring new projects, encouraging creativity and spreading ideas and opportunities to develop knowledge. Although these social media sites act to bring large numbers of learners together internationally, each one has an individual at its heart. These individuals rarely play the role of teacher or educator – they typically are not working in a formal educational setting, have no commitment to developing the learning of specific individuals or sets of individuals, and have no set programme of study for others to follow. They have an area of expertise, but their role is not that of an expert passing on skills and information to passive learners. They use their expertise to filter ideas and resources, to facilitate engagement and interaction, and to build a sense of presence. At the same time, they may act as co-­‐learners, open to new ideas, and willing to engage with developments suggested by other participants. In this role, they manage a learning space that has multiple entrance and exit points. In a space that an individual may find accidentally and with no intention of staying for long, they offer ways of engaging at different levels – attracting people to stay and learn when there is no compulsion to do so. On these sites engagement is under learners’ control – they can engage extensively over a long period of time, they can engage very briefly or they can take the role of lurkers, consuming resources and learning vicariously from the interaction of others. Increasingly educators, particularly those with an interest in educational outreach, are aiming to develop and employ the skills necessary to support this type of learning. Two examples from June 2013 indicate how augmented learning through social media is being taken up on a grander scale, with projects designed from the start to involved many 139 thousands of people. D-­‐Day As it Happens was an ambitious project, set up by a British television channel, to bring to life the events of the Normandy landings of 1944 on 6 June, the anniversary of D-­‐Day. Updates from seven participants in the original event were delivered via blog posts, pictures, tweets and live maps. The project attracted over 100,000 visitors in the 24-­‐hour period, with the seven characters accumulating 40,000 Twitter followers (Lawrenson, 2013). Two weeks later, the Royal Shakespeare Company’s Midsummer Night’s Dreaming partnered with Google+ to play out a digital version of Shakespeare’s play across the midsummer weekend. As the play was performed in real time, it was supplemented by photographs and news stories, and by material added by commissioned artists and audience members. There were opportunities to engage and to follow the action both online and offline, exploring the play from a variety of perspectives. These examples suggest that opportunities for augmenting learning through social media projects set up by individuals, and now by organisations, are increasing. However, not all distributed learning projects rely on a facilitator to set them up and to take on the tasks of filtering resources and engaging people. The next chapter explores how networks of individuals can take the initiative and enable large-­‐scale learning experiences. It examines how location-­‐aware mobile technologies, augmented by Web 2.0 social spaces, have enabled the collaborative community activity of Geocaching and how this leisure pursuit can transform a simple walk in the countryside into a rich, collaborative informal learning experience for its members. 140 Chapter 7: Augmenting collaborative informal learning This chapter deals with the development of informal learning communities in real and virtual settings and explores the impact of location aware mobile technologies, augmented by Web 2.0 social spaces, on informal learning through community membership, using the Geocaching community as an example. Geocaching is a leisure pursuit that combines the use of GPS mobile technologies, Web 2.0 social networks with opportunities to go out into the countryside, get fit and learn about location, history, geology and geography from other community members by searching for packets, or ‘caches’, hidden in the landscape by other Geocachers. These activities are co-­‐
ordinated via a central website. This focus on augmented learning through a community that exists in both virtual and physical setting reveals a little-­‐explored affordance of new technologies; that of allowing individuals to engage in informal learning themselves and to create informal learning opportunities for others. The relationship between social interaction and collaborative learning has long attracted the attention of researchers (Dillenbourg, 1999, Gokhale, 1995). This interest extended to include how best to support online collaboration (Kreijns et al., 2003, Kollock, 1998), looking for the most effective ways to use technology to help sustain relationships and provide a sense of community for distributed learners (Hiltz, 1998). Studies into how to support online collaboration tended to center on formal learning and use a broad definition of collaborative learning as ‘a situation in which two or more people learn or attempt to learn something together’ (Dillenbourg, 1999 p2). Indeed, Gokhale, (1995 p23) defined collaborative learning as ‘an instruction method in which students work in groups toward a common academic goal’. 141 Such definitions emphasise the existence of an intentional learning goal and thus permit the use of experimental design methods (Hiltz, 1998, Gokhale, 1995) to measure the effectiveness of collaboration. This emphasis on formal learning goals has provided persuasive data on the benefits and drawbacks of collaborative learning and on computer supported collaborative learning (CSCL), however it does not account for collaborative informal learning that occurs through membership of a community whose primary aim is social or recreational rather than educational. Since the 1970s, computer-­‐mediated communication (CMC) technologies have been developed that have created an online environment that supports a ‘level of person-­‐to-­‐
person interaction where relationships, friendships, and communities happen’ (Rheingold, 2000 pxxvii). Social interactions occur between group members where the intended goal is not learning but where some form of informal learning may be one of the outcomes. By the 1980s, this potential for many-­‐to-­‐many communication was being used by a ‘relatively small subculture of early adopters, technophiles, and researchers’ (Rheingold, 2000 p323). Over the past two decades, this communicative potential has evolved into a reality for millions of Internet users worldwide. Learning and online or virtual communities A virtual or online community is one where the main locus of social engagement is via the web, often via some form of asynchronous discussion software such as a web forum. Preece (2001) defined online community as consisting of people who: •
interact socially •
share a purpose such as an interest, need or service •
share policies in the form of tacit assumptions, rituals, protocols, rules and laws to guide interactions •
use computer systems to support and mediate the social interaction. 142 According to Rheingold, ‘Virtual communities are social aggregations that emerge from the Net when enough people carry on those public discussions long enough, with sufficient human feeling, to form webs of personal relationships in cyberspace’ (Rheingold, 2000 pxx). Beaudouin and Velkovska (1999) aimed to further our understanding of the meaning of the term ‘online community’ by studying the active users of web forums provided by the French access provider Cyberia. They defined a virtual community as characterised by the following traits: •
the existence of personal (vs. anonymous) relationships between members •
feeling of belonging •
co-­‐operation (exchanging links and sharing information) and production of collective goods (public information, social network, political movement) •
shared common place where encounters take place (e.g. the Cyberia newsgroup) •
shared reference system, with knowledge about: •
the roles/status structure in the community •
rituals of initiation and group membership celebration rituals •
etiquette (e.g. appropriate topics to be discussed, how to ask a question or advertise for one’s own homepage) •
values The community they studied, referred to as ‘Cyberians’ were active web forum users, posting on average 200 messages per day, who could also use other internet-­‐based artifacts such as a homepage or personal signature, to augment their virtual identity. They concluded that an active minority of the Cyberian newsgroup did meet the definition of virtual community, in that they ‘share a common etiquette, common references and writing style, adhere to the same values, keep regular contact’ (Beaudouin & Velkovska, 1999 p109). They also identified that the community had constructed a shared set of rituals, including 143 initiation rituals, with support for newcomers entering the community. However, they suggest that the study raised several questions: There seem to be many commonalties between virtual and physical communities, proceeding from the fact that sociability is a basic human need and will, presumably, always occur through role and status structure, sharing time, space and experience. But a whole range of new problems occur, ensuing from the specific affordances of the internet: namely the coexistence of different communication channels and their social construction through uses, the need of continuous communication for self existence, the emergence of common knowledge in the situation of CMC, to name only a few. And then connection of virtual and physical social lives also needs to be investigated, since social motivations in the first might come from the latter (Beaudouin & Velkovska, 1999 p109) The emergence of new technologies requires that we extend our understanding of what constitutes an online community and of the relationship between online community and informal learning by analyzing the effect of the new Web 2.0 communication channels on collaborative informal learning, and by exploring the relationship between the virtual and the physical through the mobile technologies that give situated access to powerful computing and communication channels. Many communities that originated as online communities evolved to incorporate some form of face-­‐to-­‐face contact between their members. For example, members of the WELL community came together for picnics and funerals (Rheingold, 2000) and some of these meetings were adopted as regular community practices (annual WELL summer picnic). Jones and Preece (2006) suggested the term ‘blended community’ to refer to this type of community in which face-­‐to-­‐face contact became commonplace. However, although face-­‐to-­‐
face encounters between online community members took place, they were not fundamental to the operation of these communities, and the precise geographical location of such encounters was not critical. 144 In May 2000 the USA turned off selective availability on their satellites orbiting the Earth. GPS data became available for non-­‐military uses, allowing anyone with a GPS receiver to identify their location anywhere on the planet using a dedicated GPS receiver. More recently, mobile phone manufacturers have incorporated this GPS functionality into their smartphones making location-­‐based information more widely available. This increasing availability of location awareness, combined with Web 2.0 social technologies has supported the creation and maintenance of associations between a particular location and information relevant to that location. For example, when visiting outdoor attractions it is often possible to download a guide onto your smartphone which will provide you with context-­‐appropriate information based on the GPS signal, e.g. the Impressionist Gardens iPhone app which linked paintings in the Impressionist Gardens exhibition in the National Galleries of Scotland to locations in the Royal Botanic Gardens, Edinburgh. Therefore, it is now possible for a community to use location in a new way. Instead of viewing location as simply a spot for individuals to meet up, it is possible to look at location more creatively, as a focus for learning activities and knowledge construction. The impact of Web 2.0 technologies on collaboration As discussed in Chapter 1, Web 2.0 refers to internet-­‐based technologies that facilitate creativity, information and knowledge sharing and collaboration. The term Web 2.0 was originally used in 2004 by Dale Dougherty, a vice-­‐president of O’Reilly Media Inc., to refer to the outcomes arising from a range of applications and services that support content creation, information sharing and end-­‐user creativity (Anderson, 2007 p5). Use of the term outcomes is deliberate; Web 2.0 is not any single collection of applications or technologies, rather it is the set of collaborative activities and creative products that are enabled by these technologies. ‘Web 2.0 is an attitude, not a technology’ (Downes, 2005). Fischer and Scharff 145 (1998 p5) suggested that, ‘New technologies and learning theories must together serve as catalysts for fundamentally rethinking what learning, working, and collaborating can be and should be in the next century’. Web 2.0 concepts are more than ‘a set of “cool” and new technologies and services, important though some of these are’ (Anderson, 2007 p2). These new technologies are ‘changing the way some people interact’ and have the potential to transform learning and knowledge creation and management. Asynchronous interactivity and a persistent record of collaboration are now supported by technologies such as blogs, vlogs, photo blogs, wikis, and web forums. Blogs provide a chronological record of text postings, enabling dialogue through comments and providing a means of sharing and exchanging ideas (Ferguson et al., 2007). Vlogs are the video equivalent of blogs. The aim of photo blogs such as Blipfoto is to record one photo per day with optional text to build up a visual diary. Wikis support the collaborative creation of content (Godwin-­‐Jones, 2003) and blikis are blogs created using Wiki pages. Learners can create a shared history of learning (Wenger, 1998) through participation in web forums where they can discuss and elaborate areas of interest to the forum members (Armstrong & Hagel III, 1998, Gray, 2003). These types of technologies, collectively referred to as Web 2.0, may be used in a variety of learning contexts. At a basic level, lecturers can simply use them to augment lectures or other forms of one-­‐way information delivery, for example creating podcasts of lectures (Ashraf, 2006). At a more complex level, educators can integrate blogs, wikis and podcasts into their teaching in order to provide a rich collaborative environment to promote learner engagement and debate. (Boulos et al., 2006). Research has been undertaken to assess how collaborative applications such as wikis, blogs and podcasts might be used in educational contexts (Boulos et al., 2006), and to report on their implications for education (Anderson, 146 2007). However, their full potential to support collaborative, constructivist learning in the domain of intrinsically motivated informal learning is yet to be revealed. Much informal learning research has focused on developing technology or applications to support deliberate informal learning episodes (Kadyte, 2004, Vavoula, 2004) , or on self-­‐
directed informal learning (Gorard et al., 2004). However, there is less evidence available yet of the effects of the modern, mobile, connected Web 2.0 technologies on informal learning, and in particular, on their effect on collaborative informal learning. There is a rich potential for GPS technologies to support situated learning, collaboration and group creation and sharing of content. This raises the question of whether location-­‐aware mobile technologies have had a similar impact on the types of learning undertaken by informal learners. In particular, are mobile technologies being used to: •
augment perceptions of physical space? •
facilitate the transition between contexts? •
provide contextual access to situated content? •
support learner interaction through knowledge sharing and narratives? •
create new sites for learning? •
promote and support collaboration? In this chapter, we address these questions by looking at how online members of the Geocaching community have used the affordances of electronic devices and Web 2.0 technologies to augment the physical and virtual spaces surrounding them, revealing whether and how mobile technology is used to support mobile informal learning in which notions of physical location play a key role in community activities. 147 Origins of geocaching Geocaching is a leisure pursuit that involves going out into the countryside and using GPS technologies to hunt for geocaches hidden somewhere in the landscape by other geocachers. This type of treasure hunt-­‐style outdoor pursuit has a long history in the UK. On Dartmoor, in 1854, an activity called ‘letterboxing’ was started in which participants used their map-­‐reading skills to find ‘letterboxes’ hidden in the landscape. These letterboxes contained a log book and a stamp which they would use to stamp a personal log-­‐book to prove a successful find. Letterboxing still persists today. Like Letterboxing, Geocaching involves hiding packets, or caches, in the landscape. However unlike Letterboxing, Geocachers use Web 2.0 technologies to co-­‐ordinate their activities through a website and web forum, uploading a description of the hidden cache, together with its GPS co-­‐ordinates to the main Geocaching website. Other Geocachers can then view the cache description on the website and download the co-­‐ordinates to their GPS device or smartphone to guide them to the general location. Geocaching is also sometimes referred to by other names such as GPS Stash Hunt, Navicaching, Terracaching, and GeoStashing. All geocaching activities are co-­‐ordinated via websites such as www.Geocaching.com, www.navicache.com and www.terracaching.com . This chapter focuses on the community surrounding www.Geocaching.com as one of the most popular and most easily accessible (with free membership). The Geocaching website and associated web forums act as a repository for the collective resources of the Geocaching community and provide an online record of the interactions that members have with each other, with the website and forums and, through their collective narratives of place, of their experiences of the physical locations in which the Geocaches are hidden. 148 Each Geocache has its own webpage. When a Geocacher finds a cache, they log the fact on the website. This log is added to their profile and their number of total ‘finds’ increases. Many Geocachers find that seeing the numbers go up acts as an incentive to find more geocaches. The log includes a short text area where the Geocacher can contribute their description of the experience to a growing thread of short accounts related to that Geocache. In this way, Geocachers are using a range of technologies to augmenting their experiences of location, allowing them to share with each other, connecting physical and virtual spaces through the creation of collaboratively created accounts of the location. Sometimes the account is quite short – ‘TFTC’ (Thanks for the Cache) – sometimes it can be quite extensive, for example, on 17 August 2013, the following account was posted to a short multi-­‐cache (a cache where you go to co-­‐ordinates of one or more caches, solve a puzzle related to each, then use the answer(s) to work out the co-­‐ordinates of the actual geocache): Well cheats never prosper! I looked at the description and with some quick maths narrowed it down to three possibilities. I picked the most likely and was rewarded with the feature mentioned in the hint. But I couldn't find the cache! So I did it properly, visiting what is a very interesting feature, and ending up back at the same point!! Somehow you look differently when you're sure you're in the right place and this time the cache wax soon in hand. Cheats never prosper. TFTC and have a fav point for bringing me somewhere very interesting! (Geocaching Website August 2013) The geocaching community A traditional Geocache consists of a container of some sort. Usually when a Geocacher hides a cache, they load it with some contents. Each cacher who subsequently finds the cache may take something out provided they put something back in of equal or greater value. Sometimes, Geocachers simply add something without removing anything. Each Geocache 149 contains a log book which must be signed and dated by everyone who finds the Geocache and wishes to log it. It is then important to re-­‐hide the Geocache in its original location, taking care that no non-­‐Geocachers or ‘muggles’ see where the cache is hidden. People discover Geocaching in many different ways. Interest may be triggered by the acquisition of a GPS-­‐enabled smartphone, they then browse the web looking for interesting things to do with the GPS capability. Alternatively, they may have read about Geocaching online or in a magazine. Those who actively hike regularly may stumble across a Geocache during their walks and follow up the web address to find out what it is all about. A common route into Geocaching is to hear about it from a friend or acquaintance who already takes part. In these instances, however, reactions can be mixed. Some people latch onto the excitement and challenge of the ‘hide and seek’ that is Geocaching. Others respond with ‘Why on earth would you want to roam around the countryside looking for little Tupperware boxes?’ Both positive and negative reactions miss the essence of Geocaching, that is, it is an outdoor activity that relies on individuals sharing their knowledge of location with each other using Web 2 and mobile technologies. In this community-­‐based knowledge sharing activity, learning opportunities arise both when searching for a Geocache (solving clues, learning about history, discovering locations of interest that you were unaware of) and when hiding a Geocache for others to find (researching the location in order to write an interesting description, creating puzzles for others to solve in order to locate the cache). Geocaching is not an insignificant phenomenon. On 27 November 2007, there were 40,284 Geocaching account holders registered with the main Geocaching.com website and 489,646 active caches worldwide (source Geocaching.com website 2007). By 3 September 2013, just under six years later, the number of Geocachers had grown to over 4 million and the number of active caches to over 2,208,504 (source Geocaching.com website 2013). 150 In 2007, Clough (2009) conducted a worldwide web survey of 659 Geocachers to investigate about the learning opportunities surrounding the activity of Geocaching. When they first started Geocaching, only 4 per cent (n=659) of the survey participants expected to learn anything. However, when asked ‘Did you feel that you or a member of your caching group ever learned something as a result of searching for a cache?’, 89 per cent (n=659) selected ‘Yes’. When asked for details, participants reported learning about a wide range of topics. For example: ‘Certainly, we have learned about history, geology, celestial navigation, and nature’ (Survey response 248). Participants were invited to provide some textual detail about what they felt they had learned through looking for Geocaches, and between them they provided over 107,000 words of textual description of the sorts of learning opportunity that they had discovered through Geocaching. These descriptions give us insights into the ways that community members adopt technologies in ways that are unconstrained by expectations about what they ought to be doing and what they ought to be learning, and instead use them to augment their community activities, creating rich engaging learning opportunities. Learning opportunities through geocaching The most obvious learning opportunity arising from membership of the Geocaching community is that of learning more about Geocaching, or how to go about it. Becoming a member can act as a trigger for informal learning, for example: I have read two books specific to GPS technology and Geocaching since I have started (Survey response 538) Certain types of Geocache involve a deliberate learning goal, created by the person who set the cache. For example, the aim of Earthcaches is to teach people something about the forces that shape the landscape. Earthcaches are a particular type of virtual cache in which teaching and learning opportunities come to the fore. As might be expected, in their 151 responses to the web survey, 100 per cent of Geocachers who had hidden an Earthcache had a learning aim in mind for those who found the cache. The following quote is typical: I wanted to encourage people to visit the coast of Suffolk and two of the places I found most interesting myself were because of the geology. I though other people may want to visit to so I created the earth caches. With the learning activities I tried to create something quite simple but fun to do so that people wouldn't be put of visiting the areas. (Survey response 157) The success of this aim was reflected in the web survey responses in which 74 per cent (n=335) felt they had learned as a result of seeking an Earthcache. We went to an Earthcache that involved dinosaur tracks and we have several small children and they learned from that experience. (Survey response 374) Earthcaches are quite often very interesting and its definitely a way to improve knowledge and also it makes learning fun. You definitely remember things that you have learnt about, i.e. rocks and glacial formations when you have visited a site and seen an example. (Survey response 382) These learning opportunities may extend beyond the experience of seeking the Earthcache, resulting in intentional informal learning opportunities that take the form of research both before and after the event: In Colorado Springs, caches led us to Garden of the Gods, which we then explored more fully, including the museum. (Survey response 52) Garden of the Gods Earthcache is a good example. I did a little bit more reading both before and after about the area and the geology. (Survey Response 109) Solving the challenges devised by the creators of puzzle caches may also result in learning opportunities: 152 We think that puzzle caches which require you to search the internet are often excellent for expanding your knowledge. We have often gone beyond the answer required to find out more just for our own interest. (Survey response 211) Some "hightech" caches have required to learn something new in mathematics and information technology. Thanks to pair of caches, I came to know birds and genetics. (Survey response 490) However, even the traditional cache consisting of a box or container hidden somewhere in the landscape can present learning opportunities linked to the location. Geocache creators often put considerable effort into creating caches that give an interesting and educational experience to the Geocachers who seek them. The first part of this experience involves reading the Geocache description. This may present a learning opportunity in itself. Geocaching can also trigger deliberate informal learning activities that complement the Geocaching activity: Not only have we picked up interesting bits of history, but we have actually gone out of our way to develop skills for Geocaching. My wife and I have taken classes to learn to rappel for Geocaching, we have also learned how to kayak, studied plants and animals and trailcraft, we have taken classes on field first-­‐aid in order to help out other people we hike with. Geocaching has really been a great inspiration to learn for us. (Survey response 71) Finding the Geocache and experiencing the location also inspire follow-­‐on research. 73 per cent (n=659) responded ‘Yes’ when asked whether they had been inspired to follow up something encountered while Geocaching, for example a cache placed in an historical site or an area of great natural beauty. We have also bought a book about wild flowers and reptiles so that we can identify plants reptiles that we see on the trail. (Survey response 108) Many times we have come back and 1) looked up initials on a gravestone; 2) researched a specific park area for more information regarding its background; or 3) researched a specific 153 event referenced in a cache site. Mostly it is internet research; however several books have been purchased in the efforts. (Survey response 612) A virtual named We Three Kings inspired me to read the War of the Copper Kings and learn more history about Montana. We also enjoyed a Gandhi inspired cache in a peace garden which inspired my husband to pick up Gandhi's autobiography. Another cache, a virtual in New Orleans whose name I cannot remember, inspired me to read the book A Confederacy of Dunces by Toole. (Survey Response 49) Many caches have sent me to google a subject, read a book, or watch a documentary. For example I’ve done research on SC’s role in the American Revolution after visiting several sites while caching. A cache in Washington DC involved free Blacks in the district, their church, and the underground railroad, and another in Germany was an old Roman encampment protecting trade routes. Each had me doing much reading before and after. (Survey response 245) However, many learning opportunities that occur when Geocaching are unintentional learning opportunities. That is to say, the Geocacher did not set out with the intention of learning, but was presented with an unexpected learning opportunity as part of the experience. One cache my family and I found on vacation had a magnificent birds nest within sight of the cache. After snapping several photos, we researched bird-­‐watching sites to identify the type of bird it was. We thought it might have been an eagle but after about an hour we decided it was an Osprey...we would have NEVER done anything like that without caching. (Survey response 455) Some Geocaches have taken me to beautiful places I didn't know existed. Such as neat nature preserves, historical sites, etc... Return visits allowed me to further explore the area. (Survey response 473) Augmenting active learning 154 Geocaching is an activity that involves using information provided by others to get outdoors and hunt for Geocaches in the landscape. This requires using a variety of tools. Technological tools include the Geocaching website through which the cache is selected and from which the information is downloaded, as well as mobile devices including some form of GPS device with which to navigate across the landscape to locate the cache and maps, either electronic or paper. Combining these artefacts in the real-­‐world context of a Geocache hunt offers many informal learning opportunities. Primary amongst these is how to use the tools effectively. This was reflected in the free-­‐text survey responses to the request for details about what people had learned when Geocaching. Learning how to use a GPSr and map and compass skills. (Survey response 121) Better familiarity with land navigation techniques without the use of a GPS (Survey response 325) It helps brush up your map reading skills (Survey response 157) How to navigate better and use of maps (Survey response 202) By logging the find, and posting photos on the related website, a Geocacher reflects and reports on their experience. However, Geocaching as part of a family or friendship group offers additional opportunities for discussion and reflection during the activity I know my children have learned a great deal. While out in nature, I have a great venue in which to teach my children about animal and plant life, history, geology, history, technology, and even mathematics and cryptology. (Survey response 106) We use Geocaching in general as a way to teach our son about the outdoors. And caching often makes us find out interesting little snippets of local history / geology. (Survey response 278) I think that most caches teach our children something about the world about us, whether geology, history, nature, etc. There is also the aspect of learning about conservation and 155 caring for the things about us; and about how to be safe when out and about; and of course navigation, distance, bearings and reading maps correctly. Probably the best thing is that we interact with our kids whilst out caching and share the experience as a family. (Survey response 229) Authentic learning opportunities Geocaching presents real-­‐world challenges. These vary according to the cache, but they often involve learning opportunities in a range of subjects. For example: Puzzle caches in particular have given me the opportunity to learn about different languages, encryption methods and historical information. For example, a cache in my area is related to the methods of encryption used in WWII and the method that British soldiers were able to break the Lorenz cipher. I have not solved this puzzle yet, but I have learned a lot about history which I had either never learned, or forgotten. I also solved a puzzle which required learning the Babylonian number system. (Survey response 53) Yes – a magnet based cache in particular stands out. I only did science to GCSE level, but I don't ever remember being taught that magnetic power was accumulative. I did a cache where there was a +3 magnetic power holding a cache in place, and you could only swap the polarity on two of the magnets. Where could you find something else to remove the magnetic power out here in a wheat field? We did it! (Survey response 136) Because Geocaching is set in the real-­‐world context of seeking out hidden locations in the landscape, the problems and challenges encountered are authentic. In addition, when setting the Geocache, community members use features of the landscape in order to increase the challenge and adventure, thereby ensuring that the experience is enjoyable. Cooperative learning opportunities If a Geocacher is seeking a Geocache in the company of others, then it is easy to see how this would result in cooperative informal learning. For example: 156 When hunting caches with groups it requires lots of teamwork. Whether we find it together or don’t find it all, the team enjoys the success and not one individual. (Survey response 567) At times caching partners are very knowledgeable in geology, biology, botany and other things, even just the history of the area. As we hike each person imparts his/her knowledge of the area or surroundings. (Survey response 266) Our family learned to work as a team...and to use each others unique talents effectively. (Daughter has quite a knack for sniffing out elusive micros, husband has a knack for being "right on top" of a cache but not finding it, so we just watch wherever he starts going around in circles.) We have also learned to be patient. Sometimes you just need to stop and think before you find a cache. (Survey response 31) These quotes demonstrate how groups of Geocachers interact with others in activities where collaboration results in success, engage in negotiation in which all members’ ideas are valued and distribute roles and responsibilities throughout the team. However, in these examples of collaborative Geocaching, there are no obvious interactions with experts to validate any learning activities. This expert reference is provided by the Web 2.0 technologies, taking place in virtual space rather than in physical space through use of the cache description (written by the ‘expert’ who set the cache) and by viewing the logs and images of Geocachers who have gone before. There may also be direct email communication with the cache owner, for example when it is necessary to solve some form of challenge related to the cache location and email the response to the cache-­‐owner in order to log the find. There are also collaborative learning opportunities encountered by Geocachers who cache alone. They are not obviously interacting with others such that interaction results in success in the same way as groups of Geocachers. However, other members of the Geocaching community cooperatively created the information that they use to inform their experience of location. When they log their find and upload photos, they are contributing to that 157 narrative, creating a richer picture of that location for others. This contribution may even evolve into changes to the cache description and learning opportunities for the person who hid the cache: Visiting a cache early in the morning in winter I was joined by an elderly gent who was at the same spot to do Tai Chi. We chatted I told him what I was up to and he explained some of the historical significance of the site. The cache setter had not known of the significance of the place. It was both an ancient route out of the city and had featured in a book by R L Stevenson. I posted this in my log and the setter subsequently amended the cache page. (Survey response 217) The role of the cache hider moves from that of consumer of information about the location to contributor. This is not so much an ‘acceptance and distribution of roles and responsibilities’ (Preece and Shneiderman, 2009) as an inherent distribution of roles and responsibilities enabled by the way in which the Geocaching community augment their community activities through the use of mobile and Web 2.0 technologies. Augmented community-­‐based learning Learning opportunities when finding a Geocache begin with the consumption of information from within the Geocaching community, reading the cache description and downloading the related co-­‐ordinates. Further learning opportunities emerge as Geocachers move through the landscape, using GPS to navigate, using maps, referring to the cache description and logs. Connected mobile and Web 2.0 technologies provide Geocachers with media through which to access and contribute relevant information and GPS-­‐enabled mobile devices act as tools to guide them through the landscape. These technologies are not used in isolation, but are deployed in combinations according to the preferences of individual Geocachers. This suggests a temporal element to the learning opportunities that may vary according to the technology choice of the Geocacher. 158 Seeking, finding and logging Geocaches represents a regular contribution to the community. When a Geocacher finds a Geocache, their experience of the cache location is guided by the description given by the Geocacher who hid the cache and informed by the accumulated narratives of other Geocachers who have previously found it. This connection is instantiated when the find is logged on the website. Thus, by simply going Geocaching, a Geocacher is contributing to the community by extending the narrative associated with a Geocache. This commitment is even stronger when a Geocacher hides a Geocache for others to find. In order to create a Geocache, a Geocacher needs to collect together information about the location, double-­‐check the co-­‐ordinates to be sure that they provide an accurate guide and finally upload all this information using a web-­‐form to create the Geocache description. Placing a Geocache in a location is an invitation to other members of the Geocaching community to visit that spot. Often, caches are placed in places of outstanding natural beauty or historical significance, but they may also be placed in quiet ‘hidden corners’ that might easily be overlooked. When asked, ‘Do you hope that Geocachers seeking and finding your Geocache(s) would learn something in any way?’ 71 per cent (n=659) of web survey participants responded ‘Yes’. When asked what they hoped people finding their caches would learn, participants described introducing people to the history of an area, local geography and nature. The learning opportunities when setting Geocaches involve researching the planned cache location in order to provide contextual detail for Geocachers trying to find the cache. Geocachers described how they would research information to place on the cache page: [I learn] bits and bobs about areas and nature – I learn more setting my own caches as I research them to add info to the cache page (Survey response 213) Doing a little research led me learn more about and appreciate the area myself. (Survey response 372) 159 Participants’ descriptions of how they went about creating Geocaches described their efforts to provide more detail about the Geocache. The research undertaken in order to create a cache depends on the location and type of Geocache. For example, Earthcaches require geological or geographical knowledge: I did a lot of research about the areas which gave me a greater understanding of why the geology was like it was. (Survey response 157) I researched Sites of natural National importance, SAMs and SSSIs and selected two major locations: Severn Bore (natural large wave on Severn Estuary under specific conditions) and Glaciers in Southern England. (The Wombles) I had to do research to find out why these areas existed so I could craft my pages to educate the visitors. I knew nothing going in, so everything I learned about karst geology and piedmonts is a direct result of these caches. (Survey response 71) Setting traditional Geocaches or multi-­‐caches may require some research into the history of an area: I have begun researching ghost towns in Texas after visiting a cache located at one and as a result have placed caches in 20 ghost towns in my area to bring others to visit them. Am working on more currently. (Survey response 460) I always try to hide caches that have some meaning, something to learn or something to see. My best cache is hidden in a local cemetery where a B-­‐25 bomber crashed during WWII on a training run to Florida. Its truly amazing how many locals are totally unaware that this event ever occurred in our little town. I get lots of positive feedback from the finders of this cache. (Survey response 260) These quotes suggest that the journey from novice Geocacher to experienced Geocacher is punctuated by a series of informal learning opportunities that form an integral part of the membership trajectory. By engaging with these learning opportunities, Geocachers can not only become valuable members of the community by becoming more able to contribute to 160 the information resources, but they may also experience personal gains in terms of enjoyment of the outdoors, increased fitness and productive family time. They may also encounter opportunities to learn more about location and technology whilst developing the skills and techniques necessary for successful Geocaching. As Geocachers engage more deeply with the Geocaching community, they are presented with additional informal learning opportunities, some of which are closely related to the community activities, such as technology-­‐related learning about GPS and interpretation of navigational co-­‐ordinates, and some of which are incidental to community activities, such as learning more about a particular location. As Geocachers find more Geocaches they may develop a desire to give something back to the community. One way of doing this is by creating Geocaches for others to find. A key characteristic of community membership is a shared sense of community, characterised by an altruistic desire to support the group and give something back to the community (Preece & Shneiderman, 2009). The Geocaching web survey found this altruism demonstrated by participants who described the efforts they had made to research information to add to their descriptions when hiding caches. It was also illustrated by the creative efforts involved in thinking up and creating novel new ways of using location in Geocaching. These efforts resulted in learning opportunities not only for the Geocachers who created the Geocache but also for the Geocachers who set out to find them. Conclusion This research into the Geocaching community illustrates novel ways in which its members use technology to augment their perceptions of location by combining the affordances of mobile and Web 2.0 technologies. Geocachers not only make use of the rich resources hosted on the Geocaching website, they also put efforts into creating resources that are external to the main community website. These resources include Geocaching blogs and 161 YouTube videos and external websites explaining all aspects of Geocaching and deploying the social affordances of Web 2.0 technologies to share information outside the Geocaching community. In looking at how the online community of Geocachers use mobile and Web 2.0 technologies to connect the virtual world of the Internet with the physical landscapes around them, it is apparent that the technologies act as an enabler, permitting people to create and share persistent representations of locations that have developed over time into a temporal narrative of place. Prior to the arrival of the social web and GPS technology, people participated in location-­‐based activities such as orienteering and letterboxing which employed some of the elements that were subsequently incorporated into Geocaching (for example, hunting for locations using a map and a compass and searching for hidden containers). However, location-­‐aware and Web 2.0 technologies have augmented location-­‐
based activities, adding a new virtual dimension to the experience of space. This new dimension arises from the use of Web 2.0 and mobile technologies to cooperate in the creation of a ‘persistent digital narrative of location’ (Clough, 2009) that could enhance the experience of others visiting that same location. The term ‘persistent digital narrative of location’ refers to the record of a location that is built up over time through the contributions of many individuals and which resides in the virtual spaces of the internet. The virtual locus for this digital narrative is the Geocache web page; however, it extends beyond this page through links to websites, blogs and vlogs, connecting contributing individuals in a dynamic virtual network with physical location as the focal point. Mobile technologies enable individuals to participate in and contribute to this narrative by taking the power of technology out into the field. For example, GPS devices pinpoint location based on co-­‐
ordinates, digital cameras capture a visual record of experience of location with embedded 162 GPS co-­‐ordinates, which can be added to enhance the multi-­‐modal narrative and connected mobile devices offer the potential to share these experiences whilst at the location. In this way geocaching exemplifies our definition of augmented learning. Digital devices are able to extend learners’ interactions with and perceptions of their immediate environment. These devices uses to participate in, and bring to life, a constructed narrative of ‘different times, spaces, characters and possibilities’ (Chapter 1, p1). By augmenting the location geocaching augments the meaning of the location. If augmentation can add an extra dimension to the spaces in which learning take place, what are the implications for the learners themselves? The next chapter investigates the implications of augmenting learners, and discusses what will be involved when we take on the challenge of educating the transhumans. 163 Chapter 8: Augmenting learners: educating the transhuman As augmenting technologies develop, they can become an increasingly integral part of our embodied, distributed and disembodied identities. This has a potentially profound impact on the social positioning and agency of currently disabled learners and those with learning difficulties. This chapter presents a critical analysis of augmented environments and of transhumanism (the development of mental and physical characteristics through technological means), in the context of creating inclusive educational experiences. This analysis makes use of examples that encompass augmented sensory technologies and more ‘hardwired’ augmentative approaches to transforming learners and learning experiences. Within this context, the ways in which inclusive education will be reconstructed by and for transhumans are discussed. In the previous chapter, we focused on the development of informal learning communities in the augmented liminal spaces between real and virtual settings. The use of augmented environments to support these learning communities may already have begun to move towards the ‘fossilization’ described in Chapter 1. We picked out ways in which augmentation can make distributed expertise, collective intelligence, collaboration and sharing integral parts of everyday life. In this chapter we focus much more on the experiences of individual learners and the impact of augmentation technologies on groups with learning difficulties and physical impairments. This area has yet to be assimilated into our common experiences and therefore these developments can be viewed while they still seem strange and unusual rather than mundane and everyday. At this point in history, we can more easily reflect on how augmented 164 environments might mediate our understanding of the world and of ourselves. Whilst augmentation will transform the lives of learners, its most profound effects will be seen on those currently labeled as having learning difficulties and physical impairments. The extent to which our conceptualization of ‘special educational needs’ will remain viable is debatable and our current policies concerning ‘inclusive education’ will certainly need to be transformed. Transhumanism, disability and technology Transhumanism is a broad perspective, which is concerned with human development in the context of technology. It can be defined as: •
The intellectual and cultural movement that affirms the possibility and desirability of fundamentally improving the human condition through applied reason, especially by developing and making widely available technologies to eliminate aging and to enhance human intellectual, physical, and psychological capacities. •
The study of the ramifications, promises, and potential dangers of technologies that will enable us to overcome fundamental human limitations, and the related study of the ethical matters involved in developing and using such technologies (Allenby, 2007) This empirical quest to improve the human condition has its roots in the enlightenment and in rational humanism (Bostrom, 2005), and the term itself was coined well before Julian Huxley introduced the concept of augmented reality technology. Huxley presented a view that the human race could improve itself through the application of science and technology, potentially creating new possibilities for being human (Huxley, 1927). Later, he emphasised the impact of the technologically mediated social environment – allowing humans, and indeed humanity, to realize their potential and even ‘transcend themselves’ (Huxley, 1957;Huxley, 1968). Within modern transhumanist discussions, it is common to refer to augmented humans as H+. 165 A key perspective for those concerned with social and educational inclusion has been the development of the social model of disability (Shakespeare, 2006). This perspective views people as being disabled by aspects of their environments. Whilst later disability researchers such as Shakespeare have brought about more interactive and embodied views of disability and impairment (Shakespeare, 2008), the social model has been used by disability activists to highlight and challenge disabling environmental barriers. A key issue for disabled people in the near and emerging future is how social and educational policies manage enabling human enhancements. Given the potential of augmented reality technologies to transform lives, and their increasing relevance and practicality within our lives (Bostrom, 2005), it is essential that this issue is addressed. This is particularly important because, to date, disabled people have been at risk of being excluded from the benefits that new technologies can bring (Sheehy, 2003). Access to forms of enhancement technologies will become an increasingly political issue, as such access will be crucial in ensuring equality of experience and opportunity for currently disabled learners (Wolbring, 2009). The groundwork for developing this access was laid in the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, which by September 2013 had been signed by 156 countries and ratified by 133. This Convention declares that States Parties: Article 4(g) undertake to undertake or promote research and development of, and to promote the availability and use of new technologies, including information and communications technologies, mobility aids, devices and assistive technologies Article 20 shall take effective measures to ensure personal mobility with the greatest possible independence for persons with disabilities including by […] (b) facilitating access by persons with disabilities to quality mobility aids, devices, assistive technologies and forms of live assistance and intermediaries, including by making them available at affordable cost […] (d) Encouraging entities that 166 produce mobility aids, devices and assistive technologies to take into account all aspects of mobility for persons with disabilities Article 26 1-­‐3 shall take effective and appropriate measures, including through peer support, to enable persons with disabilities to attain and maintain maximum independence, full physical, mental, social and vocational ability, and full inclusion and participation in all aspects of life […] shall promote the availability, knowledge and use of assistive devices and technologies, designed for persons with disabilities, as they relate to habilitation and rehabilitation. (United Nations, 2006) Typically, the type of planning that results from such imperatives has focused on physical impairments, but the reach of augmented reality technology extends this explicitly into the sphere of education and learning disabilities. For example, if people are disabled by short-­‐term memory impairment, with a consequent impact on their reading ability or the degree to which they can function independently, public policies could in future prioritise augmented reality solutions for them. Consequently, it has been argued that the potential of human technological enhancements will require liberal societies to adopt and promote them, not only to maximise health but also to reduce inequality (Fraser, 2001). Such arguments have been based on a premise of removing the effects of disabilities, but augmented reality raises the issue of what will happen when technologies go beyond equalization and offer competitive advantage to ‘disabled’ learners. Debates regarding new technologies and disabilities are largely hidden from the public within academic, technical or disability activist communities. However, one area where this debate has surfaced more generally has been in relation to disabled athletes and enhancement technologies (Van Hilvoorde & Landeweerd, 2010). The publicity surrounding enhanced athletes competing with non-­‐enhanced fellow sportsmen and women is particularly relevant to this 167 chapter. This topic flags issues and attitudes that have yet to be considered within mainstream education but which will become an issue in learning situations, if augmented reality is used to support disabled pupils within a competitive mainstream education system. There is a parallel between the advantages and transformations that augmented reality can offer disabled learners, and the use of modern prosthetic legs in sports events. At one time, the prosthetic options for disabled children who lacked lower legs simply enabled them to walk with reasonable confidence. However, increasing refinements in the production of prosthetic limbs for Paralympians has moved their new ability beyond merely walking. The extent of this change has led to public arguments regarding whether it is fair for these previously disabled, now seen as enabled, athletes to compete with non-­‐augmented peers. As long ago as 2007, The New York Times covered the story of Olympian athlete Oscar Pistorius, who uses prosthetic legs, with the headline An Amputee Sprinter: Is He Disabled or Too-­‐Abled? (New York Times, 2007) Pistorius highlighted how his identity had been influenced by his technology, ‘There’s nothing I can’t do that able-­‐bodied athletes can do […] I don’t see myself as disabled’ (New York Times, 2007). The newspaper commented on the possible (un)fairness of the situation if his enhancements enabled him to beat other athletes. The argument, in sport, has been between seeing this as a form of ‘techno doping’ and the view that banning such athletes amounts to a form of discrimination, based on a normative view of what athletes should look like. It seems that, in general terms, giving disabled people technological support is accepted without question as long as they are not enabled to perform better than their peers. It is only then that public debates begin, when the distinction between able and disabled is challenged, with potentially emancipatory consequences. 168 Elite sport is built on three notions: differentiation, categorization and selection (Van Hilvoorde & Landeweerd, 2010). These parallel the processes influencing the lives of children with special education needs. Internationally, they are subject to the same notion’ within their school lives, and are typically segregated within the education system based on a categorization of a within-­‐
child ability or deficit (Rix, Sheehy, Fletcher-­‐Campbell, Crisp, & Harper, 2012). In the context of sport If one were to grant a disabled person’s desire to become part of ‘normal’ elite sport by enhancing one or more aspects of his body, this may be framed as a way of ‘inclusion’ or ‘integration’ (Van Hilvoorde & Landeweerd, 2010) In terms of educational definitions, changing the child to fit the environment would be classified as a form of integration, rather than inclusion. However, the ubiquitous and transformative nature of technologies makes a more nuanced consideration necessary. For example, a girl who uses spectacles to correct her vision in the classroom is not typically regarded as being integrated within the classroom. The issue would only arise if her eyesight required ‘special’ glasses, and/or she belonged to a category of children deemed as ‘special’ (visually impaired) rather than ‘merely’ short sighted. What examples such as this illustrate is that enabling technologies can challenge a musicalized construction of children’s identity. Personalised technologies can be seen as having the potential to enable performance at a level not achievable without them and, unlike our spectacles example, at levels beyond that of others. Augmented reality gives us the ability to operate at levels beyond those of non-­‐augmented peers and in ways that were not previously possible. Disability therefore becomes a characteristic that varies according to the technology and augmented environment that a person uses and inhabits. This situation will increasingly 169 prioritise the issue of unequal distribution of technology and calls for ‘distributive justice’ (Van Niekerk, 2004). A new social group may emerge the techno poor impaired and disabled which are species-­‐typical ‘healthy’ people but who cannot afford or do not want certain enhancements and who therefore will be perceived as impaired (techno poor impaired) and will experience disablement (techno poor disabled). (Hockenberry, 2001) The ability divide will arise because enhancement technologies will become useful for all, including those seen as non-­‐disabled. This creates an interesting redefinition of disability and learning difficulty. Currently disabled people could play a key role in developing the enhancements that will have an impact on our shared futures. Through an intimate use of technology, they challenge the barriers between human body and technology and between disability and ability, but they are not consistently represented in the enhancement discourse (Wolbring, 2009). Beyond the linear As we discussed in Chapter 1, from a Vygotskian perspective, augmented reality is a technology that can transform our interactions with the world and thereby ourselves (Pea, 1985). This is not therefore simply accessing ‘more knowledge’ or increasing our range of functional behaviours. It has been argued that our species’ early tool use ‘gave rise to uniquely human traits such as advanced intelligence and speech’ (Crain, 2005) p. 196). We do not just gain more or go further faster, we move beyond the linear in our development as our technologies progress. The advent of augmented reality introduces the potential to create new ways of reading our natural world; it consequently provides a new influence on, and opportunities for control of, our own development. Augmentation of the human experience is not simply an incremental and 170 additive process of plugging into extra data or sensory information. Rather, it has the potential to become a transformational process and there is therefore a fundamental relationship between augmented reality and transhumanism. The impact of this relationship on education and learners will be profound. With this backdrop, we can discuss the group that highlights this issue most clearly, the learners who traditionally have been stigmatized as ‘other’ through physical impairments or learning disabilities, and who are central participants in what has become known as inclusive education. Inclusive education The movement towards creating inclusive education has developed from a belief that all children have the same rights and should have access to equal opportunities. Its starting position has been that All children have the right to be educated together, regardless of their physical, intellectual, emotional, social, linguistic or other condition, and that inclusion makes good educational and social sense. (United Nations, 1990) This concept has become a worldwide phenomenon (Lindsay, 2003), reflected in the educational policies and legislation of many countries (Rix et al., 2012). However, the existing ‘physical’ education systems seem resistant to change. For example, in the United Kingdom, the proportion of pupils who receive segregated education has remained relatively unchanged (Hick, 2010). Indeed, some educational technologists argue that movement towards inclusive education ‘has been halting and minimal in all but a handful of countries’ (Abbott , 2007, p11; Abbott & Cribb, 2001). Ironically, this segregation of learners continues at a time when digital, social and communication technologies are becoming ubiquitous in children’s lives (Ferguson, 171 Faulkner, Whitelock, & Sheehy, 2011). Significant issues in this stasis have been the barriers to developing inclusive teaching approaches in our educational systems, coupled with a political impetus against the promotion of shifts toward inclusive schools (Sheehy & Greene, 2011). A picture of what inclusive education might look like has been developed from a systematic review of international research (Sheehy et al., 2009). Five characteristics emerged that were associated with successful learning experiences for diverse groups of learners, albeit within traditional school structures. These characteristics are: Prioritising social engagement Social interaction is treated as an important means of knowledge development. Whilst commercial augmented reality board games (such as the PS3 game Eye of Judgment™) are relatively passive, using augmented reality as a novel enhancement, there is evidence that more interactive and social augmented reality games are likely to emerge (Xu et al., 2008). This development may allow us to scaffold the types of interaction associated with inclusive approaches to learning. Augmented reality can also allow learners to collaborate with one another, sharing and working with virtual objects, but using their natural gestures and speech in real time (Kaufmann, 2003). Kaufman (2003) notes that this approach can be expanded to allow geographically diverse groups to share and work on the same objects. The ARISE project (Augmented Reality in School Environments) focuses on developing collaboration (Pemberton & Winter, 2009). In an successful pilot project, learners from two countries interacted remotely to ‘present, discuss and manipulate virtual objects relating to their local culture’ (Pemberton & Winter, 2009). Presenting materials flexibly in a range of modalities. Learning activities are presented in different ways (visual, auditory and kinesthetic), in order to make subject knowledge accessible to a diverse range of learners. Furthermore, individual mobile devices, including phones, can 172 present differentiated information tailored to individual users – for example talking personal digital assistants (PDAs) for blind users or symbol-­‐based inputs to help overcome literacy barriers. Providing authentic activities. Teachers use activities that learners find meaningful and that educators consider appropriate to the curriculum area. In this book we have seen extensive examples of both site-­‐dependent and site-­‐independent applications that engage learners through gaming and/or authentic problem solving. Both of these factors are associated with successful learning experiences for groups of diverse learners (Sheehy et al., 2009;Vilkonienė, 2009). One feature of authentic activities, typically reported by children and less so by adults, is that of being ‘fun’ (Gillen et al., 2009). Augmented reality can offer a high fun factor. In the popular first iPhone augmented reality game, AR Defender (www.ardefender.com), users defend a virtual tower from attack by moving their camera and shooting weapons. There are many other popular games, which typically use a mobile phone as their portal. Some are played on boards that trigger augmented game content; others use GPS to trigger content and interactions within a person’s geographical location. For example, the game My Town allows players to drop virtual items for other players, or to chase virtual objects (See Tan, 2010 for a review). More vocationally, augmented reality can have a profound impact by annotating real-­‐world technical and professional activities with virtual aids to develop an apprentice’s skills (Macaes, Pimenta, & Carvalho, 2011) . Participating in a pedagogic community. Teachers form links with others who have a shared view of how their students learn about a particular curriculum area. This gives them a clearer understanding of how to teach a curriculum subject and an understanding of why they are doing so. The pedagogic community is less well developed in relation to augmented-­‐reality practices, 173 although the handheld-­‐learning community (Clough, Jones, McAndrew, & Scanlon, 2007) is developing networks that will have an increasing influence on pedagogy as this approach becomes mainstream. Scaffolding student learning. Learners’ understanding is developed through planned scaffolding of the subject’s cognitive and social content. This is the most significant aspect when illustrating the transformative interaction between inclusive education and augmented reality technology, and the relationship of these to transhumanist issues. An important issue here is the distinction between scaffolding and distributed cognition, which will have a profound impact on the ways in which disability and special needs are (re)constructed. Scaffolding v distributed cognition and the notion of learning difficulties Scaffolding was introduced in Chapter Two, and is seen in interactions which allow learners to engage with tasks and concepts that are currently beyond their independent work (Davis & Miyake, 2004). It operates both between people and between people and artefacts, by simplifying a task to allow access and by ‘problematizing’ it, drawing learners’ attention to essential features and issues (Reiser, 2004). Implicit in this model is the idea that learners, supported through scaffolding to work at a higher level than they would be able to do on their own, will eventually internalize the relevant skills and be able to reach this level by themselves. The scaffolding is considered to be temporary and can be faded out (Stone, 1998 in Davie and Miyake, 2004). The use of the term ‘scaffolding’ is found throughout discussion of special education pedagogy, and carries with it an implication that learners will have failed if they do not reach complete independence in their learning tasks and/or daily activities. 174 In contrast, a distributed cognition perspective views the medium of the learning interaction in broader social, technological and cultural terms. The term ‘distributed cognition’ refers to a process in which cognitive resources are shared between a social group and their technologies – as when people work together to perform a complex task such as navigating a ship (Hutchins, 2006). As with the scaffolding framework, each individual is able to operate at a level they could not reach alone. But, importantly, the learner is part of a system of distributed cognition and the system is not seen as temporary. This system ‘encompasses the organisation of tools within their environment and the representations of information by mediating technologies’ (Gillen, Ferguson, Peachey, & Twining, 2012). Not only is there no expectation that we will ‘fade out’ the distributed support, such removal would be as meaningless as aiming to travel swiftly through gradual removal of a car, or developing time awareness through clock fading. The advent of augmented reality highlights the distributed nature of cognition and ability in the modern world. It also removes us further from the view of ability and disability as being essentialist and embodied. Our identities, abilities and capacities are distributed and enabled by a range of technologies and social communities. Many of these abilities can never be internalised, and are not expected to be so, but exist through technologically mediated interactions. The concept of scaffolding has been extended to encompass support for learning offered by a group of persons, text, and software (Granott, 2005) and augmented reality learning interactions can be described as scaffolded i.e. meaning making beyond the child’s current level, in a culturally desirable activity (Stone, 1998). However, augmented reality mediated abilities might be better conceptualised as distributed cognition/performance. We do not develop or 175 expect to develop these capabilities when the technology is ‘removed’ or ‘faded’. There is a sense in which one’s identity might be seen as distributed, even with everyday technologies. the mobile user is becoming a kind of cyborg. The young users in our research […] experience a kind of symbiosis with their mobiles, in which the physical devices come to be understood as a representation of personal meanings and identities. (Stald, 2008 cited in (Facer, 2012) Location, location As we have seen in preceding chapters, a key feature of augmented reality technologies is locational awareness and the ability to trigger objects and actions at specified locations. This affordance allows educational activity to be embedded within the real world. Using augmented reality in teaching allows new forms of content delivery (Arvanitis et al., 2007) that can support a diverse range of learners in an inclusive classroom and beyond. Some current approaches using ‘backpack’ augmented reality devices to trigger streamed video can be uncomfortable, but have allowed both physically impaired pupils and their peers to learn successfully, and to the same degree, as they explored their augmented environments (for detailed analysis see Arvanitis et al (2009). Location-­‐related activity has become commonplace when using smart phones. We are able to use them in: •
Labeling •
Simplifying •
Instructing •
Providing information 176 •
Connecting to others, who have been there (asynchronous) or wish to talk about it now (synchronous). These features are illustrated in the example of a girl who has missed a traditional school field trip and now heads to the botanical gardens with her PDA – now more likely to be a smartphone or tablet device. Starting from the main gate, she faces east and observes a striking cedar, in front of which is a sign that tells her the tree is more than 500 years old. Josie plugs in her headphones and selects a recording of the professor giving his theory about the role that trees like this one play in the ecosystem. As she approaches the cedar, the GPS in her PDA notes her location and makes the appropriate files available. Browsing through the notes associated with her current GPS coordinates, Josie discovers that a classmate has decided to do his term project on the skunks making their home in the tree. She also learns from a previous year’s student project that the skunks living in the tree displaced a young raccoon. As she moves through the garden, she selects photos and movies of other trees, depicting the history of the garden, seasonal differences, and changes that have occurred. (Educause, 2005) Squire evaluated a local augmented-­‐reality game, played on handheld mobiles. This type of play was seen as supporting a particular approach to learning and influenced students’ perceptions of themselves. Most noteworthy to teachers was how the technology-­‐enhanced curriculum enacted students’ identities as problem solvers and knowledge builders rather than as compliant consumers of information, reinforcing for them the schism between what is expected of students in school and how they interact outside of school. (Squire, 2010) Creating ways in which students can engage with the real augmented world(s), outside the classroom, through augmented scaffolding can change the way in which they see themselves as 177 learners. This approach challenges traditional classroom paper-­‐based or even ‘monitor-­‐based’ pedagogies, with mobile technologies that are typically banned in schools. The location-­‐aware apps that are now guiding us in our cars can offer independence to people for whom map reading and remembering are problematic. The impact is on us all but is potentially greatest for those who experience barriers to engaging with different aspects of the world. That this technology is becoming ubiquitous removes the stigma of early devices and applications (Sheehy et al, 2005). Young people with learning disabilities and physical impairments report that they feel constrained in where they can go, in comparison to the relative freedom of their peers (Keegan, 2011). They are likely to have had explicit school-­‐based tuition focused on navigating safely round their locality, and many years of being taught a ‘sight word vocabulary’ to help them do this. Another way of supporting learners in this context is through using GPS-­‐enabled mobile phones. At a simple level, a person with a mobile phone is (map) locatable. This will give some carers the confidence to allow young adults with severe learning disabilities to travel across cities independently for the first time. More importantly, it may be able to given the young people themselves the ability to do this through the use of guided voice navigation. Used more formally, this type of tool allows people to plan and rehearse their own routes to ‘work, leisure and learning opportunities, and then to carry these out independently in a safe manner’ (Brown et al., 2011, p12). Clearly, a balance is needed. Virtual-­‐world experiences have a distinct advantage, as interactions within these environments are physically safe. A child can explore a volcano within a purely virtual environment, whereas crossing a quiet road may remain dangerous even in the presence of an ‘intelligent’ augmented reality teacher. 178 This is an important example in terms of inclusion. Work in virtual worlds has suggested these have many positive features for previously excluded groups of learners (Sheehy, 2010). However, it is not clear whether real-­‐world inclusion is undermined by the creation of purely virtual spaces visited by avatars representing young people for whom access to real-­‐life spaces is seen as problematic. This potentially creates a virtual ‘second best’ alternative. One of the strengths of augmented reality technology is that it can support access to the real world, allowing users to develop skills and confidence there. An augmented reality approach allows them to develop and practise the skills they need first hand. For children with learning difficulties this is advantageous as they typically find it difficult to generalise between different contexts. Augmented technologies not only map but also label the physical world. This can make environments accessible – by providing information for users that they may struggle to retain or access on their own. Early-­‐days augmented reality applications are demonstrating the most effect for people with special educational needs. Young people who experience difficulties with reading traditional text can have it read to them through their mobile phones (Capturatalk, 2009). Environmental information can be presented in a form that increases its accessibility – voice, signage or symbol systems. Augmented reality can translate text in the environment for users, translating foreign words and signs into their own language, as is the case with Word Lens (Sorrel, 2010). In addition, augmented reality can extend the sensory range of information available, transforming information that is typically beyond the reach of human senses (such as X-­‐ray star charts and infra-­‐red maps) or, as indicated later, transforming environmental data into forms that compensate for sensory impairments. An individual’s world can be augmented with 179 information that is beyond the knowledge of a single person, and indeed a single lifetime. By networking data, the environment is augmented by the experiences of multiple others. This can also produce impressions of something that happened in the past, in a more accessible format that descriptive text While alternative communications technology has been around for many years, it is only relatively recently that locational awareness has been integrated with it. Now location-­‐aware software can interact with social technologies and scaffold our social behaviours. Frank DeRuyter says designers need to think in the broadest possible terms when they approach human-­‐interface technology. ‘We’re just beginning to realize the importance of integrating movement technology with communications tech. We see that a GPS device can powerfully increase the functionality of a communications board. When people roll their wheelchairs into a grocery store, the GPS will automatically change the board’s stored phrases and icons into ones relevant to shopping. Shifting context as you move – that’s what the brain does. Now we can do it, too.’ (Hockenberry, 2001) Near field communication (NFC) uses short-­‐range wireless where physical input might be needed for security, and has been developed with a specifically commercial intent. For example, you regularly frequent a large coffee chain, let’s say Starbucks, but you haven’t stopped in for three weeks. […] Just imagine – maybe you’ve done something as simple as move office and there’s no longer a Starbucks on your way to work. The NFC app can recognise a store close to your new journey and offer a tailored discount. (Pleeth, 2010) These personalised applications have the potential to enhance the independence and care of people with physical impairments or learning difficulties. The technology will recognise individuals and allow them to pay and access services without need to recall or type PIN 180 numbers. It can also monitor an individual’s interactions and check that all is well. As with augmented reality, with which NFC could be integrated, these applications support independence in the physical world through supporting and enhancing the personal data exchanges that support modern lives. The Teacher Embodiment and Learner Affordance Framework (Sheehy, 2011) maps the nature of different uses of the virtual in education (see Table 8.1). The framework sets out different approaches to creating teaching support (from virtual or physical teachers) within virtual or physical environments. The framework also acknowledges the degree to which the teaching interaction relies on artificial or human intelligence. For example, in the case of the GPS/Satnav examples above we are looking at ‘Virtual teacher, physical setting, low AI’ (see Table 8.1). The ‘teacher’ augments the learners’ world and interacts with their location and their movement. In the past, users have been stigmatized when only disadvantaged groups use portable new technology, but this is not the case when the technology is considered mundane. Table 8.1 The Teacher Embodiment and Learner Affordance Framework (TEALEAF) (Sheehy, 2011 p165), Virtual teacher Physical teacher Virtual setting Virtual teacher, virtual setting, high AI Physical teacher, virtual setting, high AI Teacher is a bot with artificial intelligence that interacts with learners’ avatars in a virtual environment. Teacher is physically embodied bot operating within a virtual space. For example, an AI console teaching virtual oil-­‐rig machinery operations. Virtual teacher, virtual Physical teacher, virtual High AI Virtual 181 setting setting, low AI setting, low AI Virtual representation of the teacher interacts with Low AI
representation of the learners in a virtual environment. Human teacher appearing in a virtual environment, able to interact through talk and sharing virtual materials e.g. class walk-­‐
throughs of reconstructed historical sites. Physical Virtual teacher, physical setting setting, high AI Physical teacher, physical setting, high AI Teacher is in a physical space. May be an embodied AI bot. Able to interact with physical objects. High AI Teacher is a bot with artificial intelligence that interacts with the learners via a screen or audio message or within the learners’ augmented environment. Tutor and learners may share augmented objects Physical Virtual teacher, physical setting setting, low AI Physical teacher, physical setting, low AI Traditional way of teaching learners of all abilities. Low AI Virtual representation of the teacher appears through augmented reality and works in the learners’ physical environment. A variety of virtual teachers who augment physical spaces are being developed. Examples include ‘Sam’, who can appear as a life-­‐sized 2D animation projected onto a surface. He is surrounded by real-­‐life objects and can respond to their movement (Tartaro & Cassell, 2008). This approach has proved helpful in teaching appropriate social responses to children with autism. Individuals with autism find ‘him’ enjoyable to work with. This may be because his responses are consistent and predictable, he is always available for practice, learners can work with him at their own level and pace (Milne, 2010) and his appearance can be changed to suit 182 individual preference. For some, this approach has been more successful than tutoring with ‘real-­‐life’ peers (Tartaro & Cassell, 2008). In ‘traditional’ augmented reality, the virtual object is perceived to a much greater extent as being in the learner’s world, rather than appearing as 2D on a real surface. There is a simultaneous perception of real-­‐world and virtual information. An early example of this type of experience was The Magic Book (Billinghurst, Kato, & Poupyrev, 2001 – see Chapter 3). Having the real world visible in these interactions has the advantage of offering a stronger sense of control for some learners who feel vulnerable or unsafe when they are ‘locked’ within purely virtual environments (Kaufmann, 2003). Even these early augmented reality applications are intuitive to use (Goldiez, Ahmad, Stanney, Hancock, & Dawson, 2005) and appear to be motivating for younger children or those with severe learning difficulties (Richard, Billaudeau, Richard, & Gaudin, 2007). There is also evidence that augmented reality produces improved learning outcomes for a diverse range of learners, including those with poor motivation, special educational needs and gifted students (Vilkonienė, et al., 2007; Vilkoniene, et al., 2008 cited in (Vilkonienė, 2009)) An interesting feature of augmented reality occurs when learners and teachers are able to share and manipulate virtual objects. These virtual objects can be programmed to behave in predefined ways. Unsurprisingly, many applications are being developed with these features including ‘augmented reality games, maps, and materials based on maths and English’ (Dede, 2009 – see Chapter 3). As more computer augmentation is added to the real world, the demarcation between virtual and augmented becomes a continuum. Rapid advances in technology have contributed to this blurring of realities. (Goldiez et al., 2004, p1). For example, a strength of virtual worlds as 183 learning spaces has been the embodiment possibilities for teachers as avatars (Sheehy, Ferguson, & Clough, 2011). However, the disembodied augmented reality of information overlays is being extended with the possibility of avatars stepping out of the monitor and operating, through augmented reality, within the learners’ environment. The precursors for this are already in place. Exhibitions have been featuring this technology, for example, in museums. Virtual characters from the old days are visualized in their real surroundings. There is also a real person in this clip to demonstrate how real actors can be mixed and act together with virtual characters. By putting on ‘magic glasses’, museum visitors can travel back in time and experience how people lived in the 17th century. (Fresh Creation, 2007) The creation of more intelligent systems has become part of practical tutorials. A virtual instructor, defined for this tutorial, is an artificially intelligent agent that may be represented in the form of a three-­‐dimensional graphical character with capabilities to provide a personalized learning experience tailored to human learning needs (Doswell, 2008) Given the rapid increase in augmented mobile technologies, this type of development will become available to wider groups of educators in the near future. When virtual worlds emerge from the screen and augment the physical world, this not only increases the sensory experiences of learners, but also enables the provision of direct support for real-­‐world activities, accessible on demand. There is an argument being developed that virtual world AI avatars can be more inclusive than traditional human teachers. See, for example, ‘Why digital avatars make the best teachers’ (Bailenson, 2008). The strength of this argument for augmented reality AI teachers remains to be seen but the beginnings are promising. We already have semi-­‐autonomous Chatbots that 184 operate in virtual worlds and online. As their degree of responsiveness increases, these may be combined with augmented technology to produce AI teachers, both 2D and 3D, who accompany learners and support them in the physical world. The form that such augmented reality teachers will take is intriguing, but the options are as wide ranging as they would be within purely virtual worlds. Another way in which our reality can be augmented is through robotics and the use of telepresence robots. Sheehy and Greene (2011) have argued that telepresence robots have ‘inclusive affordances’ and offer ways of tackling socially constructed or geographical barriers for children with severe learning difficulties. They found that off-­‐the-­‐shelf, webcam-­‐enabled robots could allow segregated groups of children in mainstream and special schools, who would never meet in the physical world, to visit each other’s schools and interact (Sheehy & Greene, 2011). Our experience of the world is being technologically extended through connection to virtual and remote physical environments (Schnädelbach, 2009). Telepresence robots allow transmission of sound and vision, and permit the augmentation and transformation of this data. They can be controlled through biofeedback (Robodance, 2010) or physical gestures, allowing access and control for a wide range of children and adults. Their augmented experience allows them to interact in the physical world at a distance. Children wearing head-­‐mounted displays or smart mobile devices could be looking at their current environment and simultaneously receiving information about it, or they could be exploring a distant physical environment through telepresence. These tools transform individuals’ perception of the environment. What was distant and inaccessible is now reachable and can be interacted with. Their perceptions of the world and themselves have changed. They are navigating their world in a new way and there is evidence 185 that this is associated with physical changes in brain structure related to how we navigate and map our environments (Good et al, 2000). Similar changes are likely to occur for those mediating their environments through augmented reality. There is an interaction between technology, our abilities, sense of self and our brains’ structures. This interaction can create ‘new’ human abilities, for example the sub-­‐vocal speech devices (Audeo Development Partnership, 2010) that process neurological information into synthesized speech or employ it to control wheelchair movements. Augmented reality transforms the learners of the world and their abilities within that world through a technology that is accessible to previously disabled groups. The inclusive classroom It is well known that predictions of the future can fall short or be at odds with what actually develops, even when made by those who are experts in their fields. ‘But what ... is it good for?’ – Engineer at the Advanced Computing Systems Division of IBM, 1968, commenting on the microchip. ‘There is no reason anyone would want a computer in their home.’ – Ken Olson, president, chairman and founder of Digital Equipment Corporation, 1977 From http://www.etni.org.il/quotes/future.htm accessed 24.03.02 So it is with this significant caveat that we can explore what inclusive education might look like for augmented learners of the future. As we have discussed, what appears fairly certain is that access to technologies, and hence being ‘disabled’ within a technological society, will be patterned along social and financial lines. Within this context, the increasingly ubiquitous nature of augmenting technologies may herald a move towards genuinely ‘universal design’ in 186 education. This universal design will result in the development of products and environments that can be used and experienced to the greatest extent possible without adaptation, by people of all abilities and ages (Universal Design Institute, 2003). We are beginning to see this with the widespread use of smart phones by young people – although this is discouraged within formal education environments – which carry many of the augmented reality applications we have described so far. If augmentation transforms our social relationships with space and information, will this change the classroom model that has persisted for so long? Such a significant technology will destabilize existing institutions and power relationships (Allenby, 2007). For example, in the context of ubiquitous computation, Conrad Wolfram suggests that there are four stages to mathematics: (1) identify real-­‐world problem that mathematics can help to solve (2) operationalize problem (3) perform calculations (4) check results and apply solution. For thousands of years, step 3 has been the challenge. Now the computer can handle step 3, we need to stop focusing on that step in our mathematics lessons and start addressing the other steps (Wolfram, 2011). The same process will apply to augmented reality, forcing a fundamental rethink of what we learn, why we learn it and where such learning occurs. The curriculum is possibly the first aspect of the current school model that has some degree of flexibility and that may be a first indicator of change. There has been a drive to teach ’21st-­‐
century skills’ to learners, although the extent to which such initiatives develop new pedagogies or actually teach new skills has been critiqued (Rix, 2010). The arrival of augmented reality does, however, appear to offer a way to implement such a change. For example, Karen Schrier’s Reliving the Revolution aims to ‘teach 21st-­‐century skills, such as interpretation, multimodal thinking, problem-­‐solving, information management, teamwork, flexibility, civic engagement, 187 and the acceptance of diverse perspectives’ (Schrier, 2006, see Chapter 2). Because it is based in augmented reality, this type of learning activity can potentially be made accessible to a diverse range of 21st-­‐century learners. If learners are to remain inside defined classroom spaces then this environment can provide augmented responses and interactions for both teachers and learners. It is possible, although currently expensive, to augment a classroom to activate and configure equipment and displays of information in response to teachers’ and pupils’ activity (Cooperstock, 2001). This type of system could also be responsive in the format of information presented to learners, particularly helpful for those currently designated as having special educational needs, and could broaden the composition of a class group through a ‘Shared Reality Environment’ allowing ‘physically distributed users the sensory experience of being in the same space’ (Cooperstock, 2001). The teaching opportunities afforded by augmented reality include making the hypothetical or hidden visible aspect of subjects more accessible. AR technology allows for viewing things in a natural environment that otherwise would be impossible to show, such as labels on parts of an engine or forces on the poles of a magnet. (Shelton, 2002, p3). Being able to integrate interactive, virtual, visual labels and audio tracks within learning environments offers teaching opportunities for all learners, and is particularly helpful for pupils with learning difficulties, whose cognitive abilities may not allow them to visualise abstract or hidden parts of systems or processes (Lin, Lin, & Chen, 2012). The information that is presented to learners can be tailored to their location, their needs, their age and their emotional state. For example, the emotional state of pupils learning English can be monitored physiologically through an augmented environment that provides emotionally sensitive teaching support, in order to improve learning (Tseng, 2011) 188 However, implementing such technologies at a classroom level is less likely to occur than the augmentation of the experience of individual learners outside the formal education system, which they then begin to bring into the schools and colleges as part of themselves. Digital body jewellery, intelligent contact lenses, context-­‐sensitive digital prosthetics are all already in development. Over the next two decades it is reasonable to assume that individuals will have the capacity to augment themselves with ever more powerful and ever more intimately embedded computing devices. When combined with the development of ubiquitous computing systems that allow the individual to draw upon massive computational and informational resources on demand, such augmentation begins to change our understanding of the boundaries of ‘the individual’. (Facer, 2012) These augmented individuals will enter the classroom and remain augmented, unlike current learners who are typically required to leave their smart phones inside their lockers or outside the school gates. They will include learners with specific physical impairments, for whom such technologies will become an essential part of their academic lives. Their ‘individual’ technologies will challenge the barriers that might previously have excluded them from mainstream schools. Learners who are blind, for example, may benefit from approaches such as NAVIG (Navigation Assisted by artificial Vision and Global Navigation Satellite System). This project aims to increase the autonomy of visually impaired users in both known and unknown environments (Katz et al., 2012). Augmentation of the ‘seen’ environment can be helpful for blind children in localizing specific objects. For example, a sound-­‐rendering system can transform the visual data of objects and places into auditory information, thereby overcoming a major difficulty currently experienced by visually impaired learners (Dramas, Oriola, Katz, Thorpe, & Jouffrais, 2008). 189 The vOICe for Android application could potentially provide camera-­‐based sensory substitution and augmented reality for blind people. In real time, it acts as a universal translator for mapping images to sound. giving even totally blind people live and detailed information about their visual environment that they would otherwise not perceive. It may also serve as an interactive mobile learning app for teaching visual concepts to blind children. (Meijer, 2011) In addition to sound, tactile translation can also be created, for example through a tongue sensor (see WicAB’S Brain Port; (Meijer, 2011). Translating colours through augmented reality is also a possibility. Colour blindness is relatively well-­‐known condition, only disabling in certain specific environments and tasks, which can cause difficulties in everyday life and educational settings. Supporting color-­‐blind people provides an interesting application of augmented reality (Manaf, 2012), in which colour recognition is translated to sound for objects touched with fingers. In augmented reality it is common to think about perceptual immersion, ‘the degree to which a virtual environment submerges the perceptual system of the user’ (Biocca & Delaney, 1995, p. 57). However, these augmented reality examples show that, for learners with sensory impairments, this ‘submersion’ can potentially act as a transformation of the way in which they experience the world. For children with cognitive impairments, scaffolding their learning interactions sensitively and contingently is essential (Sheehy et al., 2009) and many ‘learn to read’ applications are being developed (Juan, Llop, Abad, & Lluch, 2010) building on the ability of augmented reality to scaffold children’s interactions with letters. Augmented applications already appear to be accessible and engaging for a wide range of children. For example, Richards and colleagues designed an augmented-­‐reality matching game with plants, based around an augmented reality 190 book (Richard, Billaudeau, Richard, & Gaudin, 2007). Children with severe learning difficulties were given visual, olfactory or auditory cues to support them and were able to enjoy and complete a series of tasks successfully. For children with physical and cognitive impairments, there is often an overlap between therapeutic and educational interventions. Augmented reality applications for the rehabilitation of physical impairments are at an early stage of development, but systematic research reviews suggest this is a promising future area (Regenbrecht et al., 2011). The ability to ‘hold’ and manipulate augmented objects is beneficial for children with low mobility and poor or deteriorating physical skill, and a novel application makes use of music in this context to support the learning of children with muscular dystrophy (Correa, Klein, & de Deuse Lopez, 2011). GenVirtual augments the environment with musical sounds, which are played through movement of the hands or feet. There are no joysticks or button controllers, making the sounds accessible and playable by children with severe motor impairments. They can also play interactive games designed to improve, for example, concentration and sequencing. Other rehabilitative games involve the placement of virtual objects in different areas. The nature of the objects and what they are being placed on varies between different applications. This allows the physical and motivational aspects of games to be tailored for particular individuals (Chien-­‐
Yu, Chao, & Wei, 2010), however these affordances will be useful in the education of all learners. Conclusion The development of augmented reality allows the scaffolding of learners’ interactions with the world. This affordance is particularly useful for children with physical or cognitive impairments. 191 It is both a key feature of inclusive pedagogy and something that may act to remove barriers to their inclusion within the mainstream education system. Augmenting our abilities and experiences will challenge the concept of disability and highlight the financial and attitudinal barriers in the lives of learners in a technological society. Whilst the formal school system may be slow to change, the increasing use of augmenting technologies in our lives will create a pressure for transformation in the curriculum, how it is taught and the physical spaces that it defines as being educational. Learners will be able to access and explore together new representations of the world around them and to do this with within that world, scaffolded by such augmented representations. These transhuman learners will challenge the notion of what it means to be able:disabled in society. 192 Chapter 9: Conclusions, and where to start This book began with the premise that our experiences of the world are augmented in many ways that help create our reality, yet they become invisible over time. Currently, technology is creating a convergence between the virtual and the physical world. Development of the former is shaped by realities of the physical world, and the latter is becoming progressively augmented by the virtual. We identified this as a good time to explore the diverse ways and situations in which learning is being augmented through new technologies, as our perceptions of this augmentation has yet to become fossilised (Holland & Valsiner, 1988). Our definition of augmented learning was that: Augmented learning uses electronic devices to extend learners’ interaction with and perception of their current environment to include and bring to life different times, spaces, characters and possibilities. Having presented an analytical overview of the current state of augmented learning and the ways in which its affordances are employed, begs the question of whether it is possible to make any predictions about how augmented learning will develop in the future. In general terms we would predict an increasing transformation of what is learned. The technological augmentation of our world will reconstruct learners’ experiences of topics and issues. By offering a re-­‐organised, re-­‐
articulated space, augmented learning can provoke learners to attain fresh understandings of time and space. Learners will enter the classroom with technology that augments their abilities and learning opportunities and this augmented scaffolding will transform their conceptions of themselves as learners and of their own potential to act in the world. The educational research literature reflects this sense of an immense potential to improve and trasnform existing practices. However, there is also a tension with regard to the realisation of this potential, akin to the story of the person lost in the countryside asking for directions and being told 193 ‘you don’t want to start from here’. This position implies that innovations in augmented reality learning are most likely to flourish away from formal educational systems. In spite of a great amount of research during the last two decades, adopting augmented reality in education and training is still quite challenging because of issues with its integration with traditional learning methods, costs for the development and maintenance of the augmented reality system, and general resistance to new technologies (Lee, 2012, p14) An interesting consequence of this would be that augmented reality might flourish in systems with less developed infrastructures, which could bypass the stage of financing costly buildings and brick-­‐
contained learning spaces and go straight for augmented and virtual spaces. Another perceived barrier to innovation and change is educators’ general lack of the technical skills that are currently required for the design and implementation of augmented reality, such as programming and 3D modelling skills. Unless tools become usable without such skills, AR interfaces most likely will not catch on in the mainstream curriculum (Billinghurst & Duenser, 2012, p62). However, we believe the evidence and examples presented in this book indicate not only that ‘here’ is a good place to start from, but that we have started already. While the skills for complex 3D modelling may remain inaccessible to most learners and educators, simple gateways for the creation of augmented reality are appearing. Today, several user-­‐friendly, open source platforms for creating such experiences are available for all to download and use. Essentially, advances in requisite hardware and software mean that practitioners and/or students are now able to design and use AR enhanced learning environments (Wasko, 2013, p20). Some informal communities already make augmented learning an enjoyable, and central, part of the ways they interact with one another and map their physical and psychological landscapes (Chapter 194 7) and the opportunity for creating augmented reality location games and augmented reality books is now freely accessible to anyone with a smart phone or tablet (Chapter 3) and some imagination. The creation of augmented reality resources appears to be on the verge of becoming a part of the mainstream. ‘The early adopters in K-­‐12 are all over augmented reality,’ remarks NMC CEO Larry Johnson. ‘Individual teachers, individual programs, individual departments using AR are popping up around the country, and what we’re seeing is very exciting, but it’s definitely not yet at the point where we can describe its use as widespread.’ As the technology’s profile is being bolstered by consumer applications like Project Glass, its impact on curriculum is also getting a lift, mainly from applications that leverage technology that students are already using. (Demski, 2013) Lee’s (2012) barrier of ‘maintenance of the augmented reality system’ is likely to be reduced when resources can be freely accessed or created through robust everyday mobile technologies. In terms of attitudes to augmented reality technology use with schools, there is evidence that augmented reality can deliver what parents and teachers are looking for. In a nationwide survey of the USA (Hart Research, 2012) teachers and parents identified the important goals for modern education as: •
providing more individualized and flexible learning •
offering more hands-­‐on learning opportunities •
helping students become more engaged in their own learning •
making closer connections between the classroom and the real world •
exposing students to experts outside the classroom and different perspectives on issues (Hart Research, 2012, p4) Across the chapters we have seen examples in which augmented reality, and augmented virtuality, explicitly meets each of the above goals. It is possible that the attitudes and concerns that have affected the use of mobile phones in schools, will also apply to augmented-­‐reality phone 195 applications. Furthermore, where augmented reality technology is networked, schools and colleges will need to develop their procedures regarding personal safety and take into account issues concerning access to student data. This might mean that augmented reality experiences will be delivered through ‘approved’ and less ‘everyday’ technologies, which in itself could reduce learner choice and opportunity. It will be interesting to see how the ‘early adopters of K-­‐12’ tackle these issues in the coming years, but it does seem that one can be optimistic that such explorations and discussion are now beginning, as schools seek to ‘leverage technology that students are already using’ (Demski, 2013). We see the use of augmented reality in education as only a part of augmented learning. That such activities can be engaging and motivating emerges across the field of formal and in formal learning. Through its mediation, distinctions between the virtual and the physical are being eroded, and this erosion is leveraged with their increased use for informal learning purposes (Chapter 5). That informal learning offers such rich experiences indicates the extent to which augmentation will be used in the future. It contributes to an ‘architecture of participation’ (O'Reilly, 2007) through shaping the world around us to incorporate constructions of lost or distant events, places and people, and it mediates our interactions with this data to inspire personal experiences occurring in the here and now (Chapter 4 and 5). We are augmenting our lived experience of the world, rather than merely adding, facts in an interesting way. Virtual heritage is not simply a copy of heritage in physical world: it provides opportunities to engage with and interrogate aspects of heritage in new ways and in doing so shapes their reality (Chapter 4). NASA Tweetups (Chapter 6) are not simply text updates but create an emotional sense of a ‘live’ community endeavour and both can be part of the different learning journeys of thousands of people across the globe. More broadly, we have seen how augmented reality can liberate learning from traditional spaces (Munnerley et al., 2012), enhancing real and virtual artefacts wherever they exist. As learning opportunities are increasingly differentiated across different social and physical spaces, so learners 196 will be able to develop their interests in deeper and more personalized ways (Chapter 7). This augmentation supports a more authentic interaction with knowledge and the practice of knowledge creation, constructed through sharing and collaboration, and a critical awareness of ambiguity, conflict and uncertainty. How learners are assessed in these new activities will be an important issue. Augmentation creates a new liminal space in which there is a blurring not only of the virtual and real, but also of the importance of formal and informal activities. This liminal space will create challenges for traditional methods of structuring a curriculum and assessing what learners have gained from their interactions in this space. Those developing ‘serious’ location-­‐based augmented reality games (e.g. Klopfer & Yoon, 2005) and new approaches such as practomime (Travis, 2010c) offer useful directions for the future in this respect by employing methods which do not constrain the affordances of such an exciting and engaging approach to learning. These augmentations are likely to have a profound impact on learner identity, and augmented reality technology potentially transforms learners’ sense of who they are. It offers new ways of reading the environment, new forms of data about the world and also new abilities within this world (Chapter 8). The ubiquitous notion of scaffolding (Stone, 1998), be it of concepts, skills or behaviors, contained within it an implication that the scaffold should be removed and that the ‘non-­‐scaffolded’ outcomes were what ‘counted’. This implication will be challenged in an increasingly technologically augmented world. Our identities, abilities and capacities are distributed and enabled by a range of technologies and social communities. Many of these abilities can never be internalized, and are not expected to be so, but exist through technologically mediated interactions (Chapter 8). The goal should therefore be to learn to use augmenting technologies, rather than to seek to do without them, and ensure an equitable access to them. Indeed Socrates’ concerns, raised more than 2000 years ago, about the negative effects of learning to read are only known to us today because 197 people did learn to read, gradually promoted equitable access to reading and consequently transformed our ability to store, structure and reflect on information and experience. Skills and knowledge that were once the preserve of relatively few are now accessible to many through augmentation. In the virtual world of Second life, some objects are augmented to understand and answer questions in 58 languages (Frederix, 2011). In the real world, Word Lens translates written text using a smartphone’s camera (Wasko, 2013) and we take it for granted that screen text can be translated and/or read aloud to us if we wish or sent to friends anywhere in the world at the touch of an icon. Our lives are increasingly full of augmented abilities and experiences that are likely to remain distributed between us and new technologies. We suggested some educational affordances that were relevant to considerations of augmented reality in education (Chapters 2 and 3). The framework can be used to consider the use of augmentation of virtual and real objects to support informal and formal learning. Authengcity 4 Student-­‐Centered 3 Collaboragon 2 1 0 Shared Knowledge Mulg-­‐Sensory Community Connecgvity Exploragon Key: 4 = Transforms, 3 = Extends, 2 = Supports, 1 =Impairs and 0 = Unknown Figure 9.1 The Affordances of Augmented Learning 198 In using this epistemological framework, we assumed a pedagogy underpinned by constructivist or social constructivist theory, and this is reflected across many of the examples used within this book. This supports the idea that these orientations are useful ones to inform the future development of augmented learning. The framework rating of each affordance might seem to imply that transformation (i.e. a rating of 4) on each axis is a goal. However, this is not intended. For example, the pedagogical goals and preferences of learners may mean that making the affordance more efficient is what is needed. This book is a mediated experience. Language, orthography and your own history are some of the invisible augmentations that you, the reader, bring to our writing. The purpose of this book was to explore the implications and challenges of new forms of augmentation, and the ways in which we can understand and develop it. In terms of the types of augmentation that have been the focus of this book, you might pause at this point to consider how you would map its affordances onto Figure 9.1. Having done this, consider how the purpose of the book might be better achieved through the type of augmentations that we have discussed. For example, would your changes make it a ‘better book’, with QR codes on pages allowing it to display 3D models and videos of the experiments and activities that we refer to? Alternatively, would you wish to transform the structure of the book and use a different set of affordance to consider its merit? The pedagogy is as important as the technology and, for example, you may wish to foreground the experiential affordances. Perhaps you wish to devise an activity where the issues presented in each of the chapters are debated in a virtual environment through comments upon texts and activities? Perhaps your choice was informed by awareness of informal social media and the skilled facilitation of learners’ engagement with an issue (Chapter 6) or a wish to extend a particular affordance through a change in pedagogy. Alternatively, you might feel that the existing augmentations of the traditional book form are appropriate for exploring the challenges and implications of augmented learning. This type of decision making is likely to be part of a transformed role for educators, as they seek to create the best learning experiences for their students. 199 Whatever your position regarding the appropriate augmentation of an academic text, we hope that this book will inspire you to seek out personal experiences of the types of augmented learning that we have discussed. This could include exploring some of the virtual world locations through interacting with a ‘mediated’ historical figure or downloading an augmented reality creation app to experiment with your own location game or content or cache enhancement. The educational affordances do not exist within the technology itself but in your use and experience of it and those lie outside the pages of this book. 200
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