The creation of an innovative and
transformational educational experience beyond the constraints of a physical
place (classroom) that engaged and motivated students to get immersed in their
learning process is what I found more striking. However, video games (in
general) have this effect on students (and even adults!...like me). A good video game can
provide rich opportunities for students (players) to experience problem-solving
and goal-pursuing processes.
As an educator I’m prone to learn
how to implement new technologies in my practices. But, wait... Do all teachers (on top of EVERYTHING they do on a daily basis) have to
become programmers now? Well, NO! ARIS is an online platform that allows
teachers (without programming background) to create Augmented Reality games for
educational purposes from scratch.
Having this support in mind, for me the main finding of this study is the considerations teachers must have when using these online tools which
most of the time are overshadow because of the novelty of the technology…
Support for teachers – AR games researched in this study required research
team members to help teachers throughout the gameplay sessions in order to
distribute and collect all hardware, keep groups together, answer content and
handheld interface questions, and provide alternative handhelds to students
whose machines had crashed (hardware and software problems). All these factors directly
impact the feasibility of scalability.
Students safety - While playing a game teachers and researchers had
to corralled students who were so immersed in the game that ignored the
physical space around them to focus exclusively on the data being presented via
the handheld which incorporates a safety issue to be considered.
Blurry novelty - students
can become so engrossed in beaming information to each other that they run out
of time to complete important activities
GPS failures - due to software instability
or handheld device wrong configuration
Students cognitive load - students
may report feeling overwhelmed and confused with complex tasks and large
amounts of material.
Outside use - some devices are not designed
to be used outside due to their screens that are difficult to read on bright
sunny days or because their audio tends to wash out and become difficult to
hear in large open areas.
