Bringing the Virtual World to the Real World; Use of Augmented Reality (AR) to Enhance the Learning Experience.

Augmented Reality (AR) has been around for close to thirty years. However it is only in the last decade that it has really become accessible to those outside of major technological industries. The work originally undertaken by research based companies like Autonomy, based at Cambridge University in the UK, have gone a long way to enable the casual user to be able to adapt and engage with AR technology - despite the complexities involved in the programming necessary to make it actually work. The work presented here looks at exactly how AR can be implemented in the pursuit of enhancing the learning experience. It considers the usability of commercially available packages and presents some of the advantages of using such an approach to AR alongside the respective limitations. It goes on to look at the greater complexities of using ‘studio’ based AR Software with the necessity of specific channel subscription in order to facilitate its use. The work presented is interactive and will not only describe AR and its use and limitations, through the use of AR itself, the work presented will actually showcase what is being presented in an interactive way.