Discussing Pedagogical Affordances of AR with Vanderbilt LIVE
Following our pilot study working with the Day of Discovery program students, our team began addressing some of our design dilemmas around using augmented reality (AR) and Zapworks for digital storytelling. Initially, we expected a skewed distribution where many students were attracted to novel tools like AR compared to zines or podcasts. However, we saw the least amount of kids choose AR across all schools:
We also questioned whether AR as a storytelling tool was adequately serving our pedagogical goals. So, we decided to seek advice from other experts in the Vanderbilt community. On December 6, 2023, I presented our preliminary findings from the pilot and our dilemmas around AR with the LIVE group, an initiative dedicated to reimagining technology’s role in teaching and learning (you can learn more about the LIVE Initiative here).
The interdisciplinary group included faculty, graduate students, and postdoctoral scholars from all areas of education and STEM. We first wanted to acknowledge the creativity and ingenuity that we observed in students’ projects—so we shared Anthony and Tyler’s AR story, which portrays the negative human impact on Mill Creek and the Nashville Crayfish. All of our participants were so excited to engage with Anthony and Tyler’s project!
We were able to receive valuable feedback from the LIVE community, which boiled down to three main issues that we needed to address:
Placelessness: Perhaps we’re underutilizing AR by using it as vision-based tool when it’s really designed to be location-based or layered on top of a physical space. How can we capitalize on the features of AR to provide a place-based experience?
Glitchiness: Admittedly, Zapworks isn’t perfect or glitch-free—it has a hard time processing large, 3D files embedded in students’ stories. Participants at the LIVE group ran into issues with loading the story too.
Reducing Barriers: Some students stayed clear of AR as they found it challenging, frustrating, and unfamiliar. This makes sense, considering how AR stories somewhat deviate from what a traditional story might look like.
“What work is Zapworks doing vs. what could it be doing?”
As our team continues to design curriculum for our 2024 summer camp, we are keeping these dilemmas and feedback in mind. We are thinking about ways to strengthen the connection to place (Mill Creek) in our next iteration, but also creating better exemplars and scaffolds that might make Zapworks seem more approachable and familiar to students. For example, our team is currently brainstorming three types of AR-story templates that students could modify, rather than create from scratch.
Overall, we’re grateful to have expertise and support from our Vanderbilt community as well as our local partners. We’re excited to see how our work will provide a meaningful, engaging experience for Nashville youth this summer!
Hannah Ziegler February 6, 2024