Immersive Learning

I think the semester is catching up with me. Last week everyone in my house was sick and it took a while for me to shake it.  Unfortunately, since I was still not quite myself on Saturday, I missed our face-to-face session.  I had been really looking forward to bringing my son and trying out the HTC Vive, alas it wasn’t meant to be.  Fortunately, I had the opportunity to join Dr. Peter’s 643 class last semester and play.  Here is a bit about that experience

Last semester, I had the opportunity to try out the Hololens at Dr. Peter’s Immersive Game Play and Talk story session.  Though I only got to use it for about 15 minutes or so, it was quite engaging and lots of fun.  It also made me think about how AR technologies can be used in the language classroom.

Interest sufficiently  piqued, I decided to look for studies on AR technologies and second language (L2) vocabulary learning, which is a particular area of mine.  I was surprised by how few studies have been done on AR-enhanced vocabulary learning as they seem somewhat of a natural fit.  One interesting article that I stumbled upon by Marc Ericson C. Santos, Arno in Wolde Lübke,Takafumi Taketomi,Goshiro Yamamoto, Maria Mercedes T. Rodrigo, Christian Sandor and Hirokazu Kato was entitled Augmented reality as multimedia: the case for situated vocabulary learning.  It is about several usability and effectiveness studies on using AR technologies for German and Filipino language vocabulary learning.  They found a significant difference (p < 0.05) in the immediate post-test, with the non-AR group outperforming (M = 86, SD =20 ; M = 71, SD = 20)  the AR group, however in the delayed post-test no significant difference was found (M = 70, SD =18 ; M = 68, SD = 23).  This is interesting, however, I think that the significant difference found in the immediate  post test may be somewhat artificial.  Firstly, there was a very small number of participants (N=31) in the study and secondly, there was no true baseline measure (or pre-test), so it is hard to know if the groups were indeed the same to begin with.  

I think larger and more carefully controlled studies on the use of AR technologies to aid vocabulary learning are needed, it would also be beneficial to examine participant perspective as well.