Iulian Radu

Augmented reality in education: a meta-review and cross-media analysis

Abstract Augmented reality (AR) is an educational medium increasingly accessible to young users such as elementary school and high school students. Although previous research has shown that AR systems have the potential to improve student learning, the educational community remains unclear regarding the educational usefulness of AR and regarding contexts in which this technology is more effective than other educational mediums. This paper addresses these topics by analyzing 26 publications that have previously compared student learning in AR versus non-AR applications. It identifies a list of positive and negative impacts of AR experiences on student learning and highlights factors that are potentially underlying these effects. This set of factors is argued to cause differences in educational effectiveness between AR and other media. Furthermore, based on the analysis, the paper presents a heuristic questionnaire generated for judging the educational potential of AR experiences.

Examining values: an analysis of nine years of IDC research

Explicitly examining the values held by a research community provides a tool in which participants can define its culture, conduct informed research, and reflect on their design process. We conducted a content analysis of the values expressed in the full text of IDC papers between 2002 and 2010, as well as a survey of the first authors of these papers. We discuss the types of contributions IDC papers make, the behaviors and qualities they seek to support in children, the audience for which IDC designs, the role of the child in creating these designs, the theories and models that inform this research, and the criteria that inform IDCs technical design choices. Based on our findings, we discuss trends, core values, and implications for the community and highlight opportunities for future IDC contributions.

BragFish: exploring physical and social interaction in co-located handheld augmented reality games

In this paper, we present our research on social interaction in co-located handheld augmented reality (AR) games. These games are characterized by shared physical spaces that promote physical awareness among players, and individual gaming devices that support both public and private information. One result of our exploration of the design and evaluation of such games is a prototype called BragFish. Through BragFish, we aim to investigate the connections between the observed game experience (focusing on social and physical interaction) and the designed affordances of our AR handheld game. Our evaluation of BragFish shows that most of our participants form strategies for social play by leveraging visual, aural and physical cues from the shared space. Moreover, we use this as an example to motivate discussions on how to improve social play experiences for co-located handheld games by designing for shared spaces.

Pre-patterns for designing embodied interactions in handheld augmented reality games

The game industry and related research communities have shown a surge of interest in reality-based interfaces that create “embodied” game play experiences. Handheld AR (HAR) is a reality-based interface that renders digital objects onto a players perception of the physical world. HAR creates a hybrid space in which players can leverage their existing physical and social skills to interact with the game system and with each other. Although HAR has received some attention in the world of handheld gaming, there is little research that summarizes and communicates design principles and implications across multiple examples. In this paper, we analyze and generate design lessons from dozens of HAR games, drawn from academic and commercial AR games, and also our years of experience designing and teaching HAR game design. We summarize our experience in this new field into a set of design “pre-patterns” as a means of formalizing significant design lessons derived from these existing practices into repeatable principles and solutions. We contribute to both the game and interaction design communities with pre-patterns that support embodied game play.

Using children's developmental psychology to guide augmented-reality design and usability

Augmented reality (AR) designers have great potential to enrich childrens lives through AR experiences in education and entertainment. A significant difficulty in designing for children is that tremendous physical and cognitive development occurs across the first 10 years of life, and the changes in childrens capabilities and limitations impact how these users respond to AR designs. Currently, little is known about how developmental changes relate to AR designs, or what AR designs are effective for young children. In this work, we focus on children 6-9 years old, presenting several concepts from developmental psychology and discussing how these relate to AR designs. Specifically, we investigate childrens skills in the categories of motor abilities, spatial cognition, attention, logic and memory, and we discuss the relationship of these skills to current and hypothetical AR designs. Through this work, we intend to strengthen the fields understanding of AR usability and design, resulting in the generation of effective AR experiences for young users.

Augmented-reality scratch: a children's authoring environment for augmented-reality experiences

In this paper we introduce AR Scratch, the first augmented-reality (AR) authoring environment designed for children. By adding augmented-reality functionality to the Scratch programming platform, this environment allows pre-teens to create programs that mix real and virtual spaces. Children can display virtual objects on a real-world space seen through a camera, and they can control the virtual world through interactions between physical objects. This paper describes the system design process, which focused on appropriately presenting the AR technology to the typical Scratch population (children aged 8-12), as influenced by knowledge of child spatial cognition, programming expertise, and interaction metaphors. Evaluation of this environment is proposed, accompanied by results from an initial pilot study, as well as discussion of foreseeable impacts on the Scratch user community.

Cyberchase shape quest: pushing geometry education boundaries with augmented reality

Cyberchase Shape Quest is an augmented reality math app from PBS KIDS and THIRTEEN that exposes elementary-school children to three-dimensional immersive puzzle worlds, teaching geometry and engaging spatial cognition skills through the use of augmented reality (AR) technology. Designed for children 6-8 years old, the app features 3 games, Patch the Path, Feed the Critters and Hide & Seek. In Patch the Path, players to use a tablet devices camera and a printable game board to interact with 3D puzzles within five different virtual environments, over 30 different levels. While playing, children must engage their spatial memory, visualization, and planning skills to successfully complete each level of the game. In this demo, we focus mainly on Patch the Path, highlighting the game design and the roles of prototyping and formative research during development.

Comparing Children's Crosshair and Finger Interactions in Handheld Augmented Reality: Relationships Between Usability and Child Development

Augmented reality technology is a unique medium that can be helpful for young childrens entertainment and education, but in order to achieve the benefits of this technology, augmented reality experiences need to be appropriately designed for young childrens developing physical and cognitive skills. In the present study we investigated how 5-10 year-old children react to typical handheld augmented reality interaction techniques such as crosshair selection and finger selection, in AR environments that require them to change perspective or not. Our analysis shows significant impacts of age upon AR performance, with young children having slower selection times, more tracking losses, and taking longer to recover tracking. Significant differences were also found between AR interaction technique conditions, with finger selection being faster than crosshair selection, and interactions which required changes in perspective taking longer, generating more tracking losses, and more errors in selection. Furthermore, by analyzing childrens performance in relation to metrics of physical and cognitive development, we identified correlations between AR interaction techniques performance and developmental tests of spatial relations, block construction and visuomotor precision. Gender differences were analyzed but no significant effects were detected.

Discovering educational augmented reality math applications by prototyping with elementary-school teachers

In recent years, augmented reality (AR) applications for childrens entertainment have been gaining popularity, and educational organizations are increasingly interested in applying this technology to childrens educational games. In this paper we describe our collaboration with teachers and game designers, in order to explore educational potential for AR technology. This paper specifically investigates the topics of: What mathematics curriculum topics should technological innovations address in the Grade 1-3 classrooms? Which of the topics are suitable for AR games? And, how can we facilitate an efficient dialogue between educators and game designers?

Participatory Design of STEM Education AR Experiences for Heterogeneous Student Groups: Exploring Dimensions of Tangibility, Simulation, and Interaction

In this paper, we present the results of a multi-year participatory design process exploring the space of educational AR experiences for STEM education targeted at students of various ages and abilities. Our participants included teachers, students (ages five to fourteen), educational technology experts, game designers, and HCI researchers. The work was informed by state educational curriculum guidelines. The activities included developing a set of design dimensions which guided our ideation process, iteratively designing, building, and evaluating six prototypes with our stakeholders, and collecting our observations regarding the use of AR STEM applications by target students.