As educators know, field trips are one of the best methods of providing learners with subject-based practice experiences in real-life settings. Nevertheless, conventional on-site exposure informs field visits despite having the following drawbacks: they may be expensive and time-consuming, and sometimes certain areas cannot be accessed due to long distances or acts of insecurity. In order to break these barriers, new technology like Augmented Reality in Schools (AR) has been incorporated into learning experiences to redefine field trips and add a new facet to experiential education.
How is augmented reality in schools helping?
- Knowing Education’s Use of Augmented Reality (AR)
- When integrated with field trips, AR overlays additional information onto the physical environment, enriching the experience and transforming a simple visit into an immersive learning journey. For example, students visiting a historical site may use AR to view historical figures or events that come to life in the context of the location, gaining a deeper understanding of the subject matter.
- Advantages of AR in Field Trips
- Enhanced Engagement: AR makes it easier to produce teaching methods that will engage the attention of students. In this case, it makes learning fun and engaging, as well as making it easier for children to remember what has been taught by incorporating simple, comprehensible models of what is taught using AR.
- Increased Accessibility: Consequently, the learning that occurs through such contexts from AR field trips is invaluable, where some places may be out of reach, economically expensive or hard to access. For example, one can take the students on a field trip to the pyramids of Egypt, the moon or the Great Wall of China from a classroom, making the world a classroom.
- Personalized Learning: Here, the use of AR means students immerse in the type of content they find interesting at different levels of depth. Used in the classroom, AR lets students make a closer examination of some aspects of a historical relic or apply the same technique in a science lesson by viewing the information in 3D format and in control of the learning situation.
- Real-Time Information: Engaging with AR allows students to easily get the necessary information without delay. By pointing their device at an object or location in museums or historical places, students gain factual and accurate information, videos, or historical background information that increases their overall knowledge of the topic in concern.
- Interactive and Immersive Learning: In this manner, AR guides students to engage with virtual objects and environments, allowing a variety of ways to learn rather than conference-based learning. It no longer puts the students into ‘knowledge receiving jars;’ instead, it involves the student in the learning process, which may enhance retention and understanding.
- Including Augmented Reality in Conventional Field Trips
- Virtual Historical Reconstructions: While walking in site, AR can show the virtual picture of how the place looked during prehistoric ages or any epoch, or even depict famous historical events. Pupils can see a battle, study a person or even immerse in the virtual model of an artifact thanks to AR gadgets.
- Interactive Nature Walks: Probably, in organism-society-environment relationships on museum, parks, forest, or nature reserve trips, AR can be utilized to offer timed information on plants and animals. By aiming the device at a tree, a plant or an animal, the students can get an extensive recap of what they are observing, including videos of the species in action or a 3D simulation of an organism.
- Museum Exploration: AR can become useful in museums since it adds interactive exhibits.
- Geographical Exploration: When in places like museums or historical buildings or geographical features like mountains, beaches, or volcanoes, AR can provide the guests with some historical journey or formation of geographical structures or climatic conditions or any other incidents that may have taken place in any geographical location. In cases where it is impossible to simulate a real environment, students can make use of such features as simulations, or at least visualizations that might be difficult to create within the physical environment.
- Creating Field Trips with AR Developments
- Define Learning Objectives: Like any kind of lesson, it is most essential to establish certain learning activities for the field trip in AR. What, if any, do you want students to gain knowledge from the experience? Regardless of whether goals are formed to historical events, explanations, nature explorations, or famous sights, clear goals will assist in shaping the creation of the AR.
- Select Appropriate AR Tools: Today there are many types of applications and platforms intended for creating and managing field trips using AR technology. A few examples of such tools are Google Expeditions to take classroom lessons into virtual tours and Layar, which enables users to place virtual items over the real ones. Schools should therefore consider the most appropriate tool that fits their education goals and affords.
- Plan Interactive Content: Therefore, the major difference when developing content for an AR experience is that it should be interactive. This can include 3D models, videos, quizzes, games or any other multimedia that can be used to capture the attention of and teach students. The content should be informative but also somewhat engaging in order to keep students’ attention.
- Ensure Device Availability: AR field trips are contingent on students having the correct device, be it their phones, a tablet or a pair of AR glasses. It can be done in schools where devices can be provided for all learners or students, or learners are encouraged to bring their own devices to ensure all have the requisite devices for the task.
- Test the AR Experience: The best way to prepare teachers for field trips is to introduce the AR app or the platform in the specific location earlier before the field trip. This assists in spotting all the possible technical problems and guarantees that the AR material is smooth and operational in the real scenario.
- AR in Field Trip Case Studies
- Google Expeditions: Featuring a range of places: from the Great Barrier Reef to the Louvre Museum, this program provides virtual field trips. These concepts mean students can look at these places and learn more about geography, art and culture online. Explaining the felt emotion is a challenging task, but teachers can help students focus on the main activity and moderate debates about what has been seen.
- Virtual Field Trips with AR in STEM Education: Some of the STEM educational initiatives implemented AR for engaging science-based educational trips. Students can take ‘tours’ through the human body, the solar system or through various molecules and gain a much better understanding of that particular concept in an environment they are comfortable with.
Conclusion
Augmented reality is transforming the complete concept of field trips for students with its opportunities for real, enriching, engaging and interactive learning. When incorporated in field trips, the teachers will be able to come across the challenges of traditional outings and design innovative practices that enhance pupil’s learning of specific course materials as well as involvement and innovation. However, because of the difficulties in implementation indicated above, the opportunities in AR, which can be openness, activity, and individualization of the learning process, make AR an indispensable factor in the modern system of education.