oa Augmented Reality, Multimodal Literacy and Mobile Technology: An Experiment in Teacher Engagement

The use of AR in education has already been found to be valuable although its use presents technical and management difficulties. The reality is that teachers often need to be enticed by a tempting range of potential benefits before investing precious time and effort in new technology. Challenges can cloud vision of greater potential. This ongoing project, essentially an experiment in encouraging professional learning, is proving successful in engaging educators with leading edge AR technology. Such an activity can provide a multi-dimensional catalyst for addressing a host of demands that face typical Australian teachers, particularly integrating mobile devices and multimodal texts in teaching and learning. The project – incorporating the location-aware FreshAiR app, Quick Response codes and image-triggered Aurasma – has been undertaken voluntarily by some Independent Schools in Western Australia. It includes developing teacher skills with AR (and other apps) and the development of a “model” AR tour (excursion/field trip). The experiment has generated trans-national collaborative conversations, positively impacting on both professional practice and app design. Participating schools have already provided valuable feedback that supports and expands existing research and perhaps generates some new ideas. The AISWA project has been funded by the Australian Government Quality Teacher Program.