Pedagogical Strategies for the Integration of Augmented Reality in ICT Teaching and Learning Processes

Abstract

The technologies that are being gradually introduced in educational contexts enable students to diversify the ways for knowledge building. However, the exploitation of new technologies in the classroom is always a challenge for all interveners in the educational process. The arrival of a new technology, as is the case of augmented reality devices, captures the teachers’ attention. It creates the expectation that its uses may provide students with new ways to interact, new possibilities of collaboration between students and between students and teachers and potentially an increase in the motivation for learning. In this context we may find some examples of this technological introduction in learning scenarios. But the referred expectations and the most suitable strategies for its use need to be validated and new ones to be explored. This is the purpose of this research. This project is being carried with sixty-two students from the 8th grade in the Information and Communication Technologies subject. It follows an action-research methodology and for the implementation of the several research cycles that follows this methodology different prototypes for students to use in classroom were created and are being evaluated. The prototypes range from simple technological integrations to more complex ones with the introduction of an augmented reality system. The study aims to identify and explore the pedagogical strategies by evaluating them in real teaching and learning scenarios, particularly in terms of competences developed and student motivation levels, as well as on the ways of integrating different devices for augmented reality. The preliminary results show that students understand the support and contents provided by the prototypes and feel higher motivation when using it in the assignments’.