The Current State of Mobile AR Gaming and Learning
Perhaps the most well-known mobile AR game today is Pokémon GO, which became a world-wide sensation when it first launched in 2016. As of May 2018, it has garnered over 800 million downloads. Despite widely known and described as an AR game, Pokémon GO's AR aspect is minor and non-essential (indeed, it can be turned off without affecting gameplay). Some scholars argue that it is more location-based entertainment than AR game, since geolocation is actually a core component of gameplay. Despite its relatively crude and inconsequential AR mechanic, Pokémon GO has nevertheless significantly propelled the idea of AR gaming into the mainstream.
There have been numerous studies on the application and potential of mobile augmented reality in education, and it is certainly no stranger in that realm; AR education apps are a dime a dozen. Some examples include Quiver, an AR drawing app, and AR Anatomy 4D+, which helps students learn about the human body. While educational, these apps can hardly be described as games. Developing a true educational mobile AR game would allow us to combine the elements and reap the benefits of both game-based learning and augmented reality.
What Mobile AR Games Bring to Education
Immersion and Engagement
In a traditional learning environment, learning materials are often static (i.e. printed on a page/on a slideshow) and almost always non-immersive (i.e. on a screen or a piece of paper). This means that students require substantial abstraction skills to transfer knowledge from a 2D interface to the real 3D world. Students who lack these skills would be in a disadvantage. AR allows learning information to be intuitively imposed on reality, which helps with the acquisition, processing, retention, and application of knowledge in the real world. Moreover, the fun factor involved in AR is of significance. In a mobile culture where gaming plays such a pronounced role and where students are often accustomed to the visual stimulation and interactivity offered by those game, incorporating AR gaming into education is incredibly useful in attaining and keeping students' interest and attention. AR also provides a platform where learners are able to control the direction and pace of their own learning, allowing for a more organic, personal learning experience.
In a traditional learning environment, learning materials are often static (i.e. printed on a page/on a slideshow) and almost always non-immersive (i.e. on a screen or a piece of paper). This means that students require substantial abstraction skills to transfer knowledge from a 2D interface to the real 3D world. Students who lack these skills would be in a disadvantage. AR allows learning information to be intuitively imposed on reality, which helps with the acquisition, processing, retention, and application of knowledge in the real world. Moreover, the fun factor involved in AR is of significance. In a mobile culture where gaming plays such a pronounced role and where students are often accustomed to the visual stimulation and interactivity offered by those game, incorporating AR gaming into education is incredibly useful in attaining and keeping students' interest and attention. AR also provides a platform where learners are able to control the direction and pace of their own learning, allowing for a more organic, personal learning experience.
Accessibility and Social Connectivity
While AR game-based learning can be experienced in a more stationary form, its mobile form has its own unique merits. First of all, mobile AR game-based learning is, as its name suggests, mobile. This means that learning can take place anywhere at anytime, without the restriction of hardware and space. This is possible due to the (increasing) prevalence of personal smart devices with AR capabilities, which ensures that an AR game-based learning experience is not only accessible anywhere and at anytime, but also to anyone with such a personal smart device. This negates the arduous space and hardware (thus financial) requirements that stationary AR requires.
As a result of mass accessibility to mobile AR game-based learning, another important future trend of mobile game-based learning can be realised - social collaborative learning. This is another area where mobile AR shows its advantage over its stationary counterpart; with each learner having their own AR device and being fully mobile in the process, collaboration is made easier and more intuitive. Innate internet connection and location-based service on mobile AR devices also allow collaboration on a completely different spatial level, allowing collaboration even while out in the field or across the world.
Rediscovering Fitness and the Outdoors
Traditional learning environments encourages a sedentary lifestyle - either sitting in front of a desk or a computer screen. This kind of sedentary lifestyle has led to many well-documented societal health issues. In an almost unexpected turn of event, Pokémon GO encouraged many of its players to get up and exercise outside because of its geolocation-based gameplay. Niantic Labs, Pokémon GO's developer, doubled down on this trend and made the game more fitness-focused "by linking up to extant fitness apps on your phone like Apple Health and Google Fit", essentially becoming an example of the gamification of fitness. Mobile AR game-based learning can learn from this lesson from Pokémon GO and incorporate fitness elements - not only based on location but also locomotion. With many virtual elements to interact with in the mobile AR world, learners can be required by the game to travel to certain places, move virtual objects around, or physically react to virtual objects - activities that all require the learner to get up and move in the context of a game. AR can even be used to play virtual sports where the lack of space or equipment would otherwise not allow. While out and moving, learners can perhaps rediscover the normally mundane world around them, annotated with fun facts and learning information by AR.
While AR game-based learning can be experienced in a more stationary form, its mobile form has its own unique merits. First of all, mobile AR game-based learning is, as its name suggests, mobile. This means that learning can take place anywhere at anytime, without the restriction of hardware and space. This is possible due to the (increasing) prevalence of personal smart devices with AR capabilities, which ensures that an AR game-based learning experience is not only accessible anywhere and at anytime, but also to anyone with such a personal smart device. This negates the arduous space and hardware (thus financial) requirements that stationary AR requires.
As a result of mass accessibility to mobile AR game-based learning, another important future trend of mobile game-based learning can be realised - social collaborative learning. This is another area where mobile AR shows its advantage over its stationary counterpart; with each learner having their own AR device and being fully mobile in the process, collaboration is made easier and more intuitive. Innate internet connection and location-based service on mobile AR devices also allow collaboration on a completely different spatial level, allowing collaboration even while out in the field or across the world.
Rediscovering Fitness and the Outdoors
Traditional learning environments encourages a sedentary lifestyle - either sitting in front of a desk or a computer screen. This kind of sedentary lifestyle has led to many well-documented societal health issues. In an almost unexpected turn of event, Pokémon GO encouraged many of its players to get up and exercise outside because of its geolocation-based gameplay. Niantic Labs, Pokémon GO's developer, doubled down on this trend and made the game more fitness-focused "by linking up to extant fitness apps on your phone like Apple Health and Google Fit", essentially becoming an example of the gamification of fitness. Mobile AR game-based learning can learn from this lesson from Pokémon GO and incorporate fitness elements - not only based on location but also locomotion. With many virtual elements to interact with in the mobile AR world, learners can be required by the game to travel to certain places, move virtual objects around, or physically react to virtual objects - activities that all require the learner to get up and move in the context of a game. AR can even be used to play virtual sports where the lack of space or equipment would otherwise not allow. While out and moving, learners can perhaps rediscover the normally mundane world around them, annotated with fun facts and learning information by AR.
The Future of Mobile AR Gaming
As useful as mobile AR gaming can be in education today, it is not without its flaws. Firstly, portability is still an issue; while our smart devices are now truly mobile, they still require our hands to hold and operate, which limits how much we can interact with the AR world with our hands and presents legitimate safety issues (as seen from the dangers of Pokémon GO). Secondly, the limitation of AR technology to handheld personal smart devices means that the AR world can only be seen through the relatively tiny screen instead of our whole field of vision, significantly decreasing the sense of immersion and the possibility of interactivity. Wearable AR technology solves these problems by freeing up our hands and putting the screen right in front of our eyes, so that we can experience the AR world better both visually and tactilely.
When Google Glass was first announced back in 2013, it sent shock waves around the technology market - not only due to the novelty of wearable AR technology, but also due to its privacy concerns. Despite it never becoming publicly available as a mass-market mainstream product, Google Glass has nevertheless planted the idea of wearable AR technology in consumers' minds. Fast forward to 2016, Microsoft announced its own mixed reality glasses - HoloLens, with plans for a consumer version, bringing us a step closer to consumer wearable AR.
When Google Glass was first announced back in 2013, it sent shock waves around the technology market - not only due to the novelty of wearable AR technology, but also due to its privacy concerns. Despite it never becoming publicly available as a mass-market mainstream product, Google Glass has nevertheless planted the idea of wearable AR technology in consumers' minds. Fast forward to 2016, Microsoft announced its own mixed reality glasses - HoloLens, with plans for a consumer version, bringing us a step closer to consumer wearable AR.