Using Augmented Reality and Gamification to Make History Field Trips More Engaging for University Students
The Hong Kong Polytechnic University
ABSTRACT
ARCH Project explores how augmented reality (AR) activities can be integrated into a field trip setting in order to address history and culture learning goals and enhance the learning experience for university students. The activity supplements the instruction of two tertiary courses focused on history and cultural conservation, with a goal to addressing relevant content learning objectives as well as boosting students’ authentic enquiry, active observation, and a sense of belonging to a real-world local community. The navigation of the field trip environment is supported by three main components: 1) Interactive map with all relevant cultural and historical locations marked as clickable destinations bringing up basic facts; 2) Learning content and knowledge quizzes hidden behind trigger images in each location, displayed as digital overlays via Aurasma, an AR development platform; 3) Learning profile visualising students’ progress by rewarding them with digital tokens. The article presents preliminary data from prototype development. Software prototyping and focus group methodologies were employed to gather feedback from students and teachers. The findings support the view that AR has a positive effect on students’ motivation and engagement. While the affordances of mobile technology and AR platforms are helping to make AR an increasingly achievable tool in teaching and learning, the challenge of designing and implementing the overall AR experience remains significant at all levels: designers, teachers, and students. Cultural challenge of overcoming students’ scepticism over the usefulness of AR for their studies, and the managerial challenge of designing, integrating and managing the AR experience are discussed. To identify the impact of this project and explore its effectiveness for enhancing student learning experience an evaluation will be carried out after project implementation.
KEYWORDS
Augmented Reality, Field Trip, Mobile Learning, Location-based, Experiential Learning, Gamification in Education