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Jackie Marsh discusses the research she conducted about augmented reality apps, investigating their use, value and potential for young children. She urges that as these apps turn out to be increasingly ubiquitous, it’ll be essential for folks and early years practitioners to appraise and assess the apps and choose whether or not they are of fleeting interest, or in the event that they hold the potential to increase children’s pondering and imagination. Jackie relies within the University of Sheffield where she researches young children’s digital literacy practices in homes, communities and early years settings. Jackie has conducted research projects which have explored children´s access to latest technologies and their emergent digital literacy skills, knowledge and understanding. [Header image credit: J. Marsh]
Augmented Reality (AR) consists of a mix of the physical world and virtual world. In this blended reality, three-dimensional images or environments are projected onto a physical object. The technology just isn’t latest, having been around because the Sixties, but tablet apps are actually enabling children in contemporary society to interact in a variety of AR experiences.
One of essentially the most recent releases of an AR app, produced by Osmo, enables children to run a pizza shop, developing entrepreneurial skills as they achieve this. The tablet camera is used to recognise physical objects placed on top of a cardboard pizza that’s placed in front of the tablet, and virtual customers let the player know if he or she has their pizza order correct. It guarantees to be a well-liked app, but questions remain concerning the quality and value AR apps for young children, given their relatively recent entry into this market.
In a research project undertaken last 12 months*, I worked with a team exploring the potential apps had for enhancing the play and creativity of youngsters aged under 5. We included numerous augmented reality apps within the study, provided that little was known about their use with this age group and there was, due to this fact, a necessity for folks and teachers to have the option to judge their potential value for young children.
We undertook a survey of 2000 parents of youngsters aged 0-5 within the UK who had access to a tablet. A sizeable minority of oldsters reported within the survey that their children used AR apps (24% in total, 18.5% on tablets and 5.9% on smartphones), while this figure is more likely to have increased over the past 12 months. As a part of the study, we filmed children using AR apps and analysed the information to discover how far they promoted play and creativity. The AR apps that were reviewed were: AR Flashcards; Aurasma; Quiver (previously ColAR); Mattel Apptivity (Fishing Game); Meet the Animals; Squigglefish.
The kinds of play promoted by the apps were identified, using a classification system adapted from the playworker, Bob Hughes’ work, and artistic pondering was traced through using Robson’s ACCT framework. We found that the apps varied by way of how far they promoted play and creativity. Some of the apps allowed the kids to do little greater than bring characters ‘to life’, by holding a tablet over a 2D drawing as a way to view a 3D representation (see header image).
Whilst the kids loved this resulting from its novelty, the app didn’t enable the kids to do anything. In contrast, the app Aurasma was found to interact children in a broader range of kinds of play and artistic pondering. The app allows users to link a video or audio podcasts to a 2D artefact, akin to a written text. The school involved within the project, Monteney Primary School, made great use of this app by staging an exhibition of youngsters’s work for folks, during which parents could hold their smartphones as much as children’s written comics on the partitions, and use the Aurasma app to view videos of the kids talking about their productions. Signs around the varsity (see Figure 1) alerted each children and fogeys to the presence of labor that linked to virtual productions.
Figure 1
We only have to think about the appeal of the Pokémon Go app to recognise that augmented reality apps can capture children’s imaginations. These apps definitely have potential to motivate young children and interact them in a variety of activities that enhance play, creativity and learning. However, as suggested, our study found that the extent to which the apps could try this was dependent upon their design. Based on our work, we drew up some guidance for each parents and early years practitioners on selecting apps, the latter of which comprises transient reviews of the AR apps we studied.
Of course, it often is the case that the event of recent AR apps for kids is overshadowed by the rapid production of Virtual Reality (VR) toys and games, with VR technology now being so widespread that it has even been adopted as a cereal toy. However, the 2 kinds of technology do offer very different experiences, which suggests that they are going to each have significant roles in young children’s play futures.
Whatever latest developments occur, it’ll be essential for folks and early years practitioners to take time to appraise the apps, toys and games that appear as a way to determine whether or not they might be of fleeting interest, offering only a superficial engagement with the virtual, or whether or not they have the potential to increase children’s pondering and foster their imagination and creativity. Of course, children themselves may also make these sorts of judgements as they encounter latest apps, but parents and teachers might help by guiding children to good quality apps in the primary place.
There are organisations that provide guidance on selecting apps, akin to Common Sense Media and the National Literacy Trust, and sites run by children’s media experts and commentators Stuart Dredge (apps playground) and Warren Buckleitner (Children’s Technology Review Exchange). These could be a helpful source of knowledge for folks and teachers alike. However, we sit up for the event of web sites in the longer term during which young children themselves can share their thoughts on the apps they use, including their AR apps!
Notes
* *The report on the complete study, ‘Exploring Play and Creativity in Pre-School Children’s Use of Apps’, funded by the ESRC (Grant Number ES/M006409/1) will be downloaded here.
This text was originally published on the DigiLitEY blog and has been re-posted with permission.
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