What is ARientation?

ARientation

ARientation is an augmented reality platform geared towards learning and engagement. The purpose is to allow less technically inclined students and teachers to create and share AR enhanced content and environments. It is the brainchild of Eric Hawkinson, a learning futurist working on making emerging technology more accessible to the masses for teaching and learning. This project started as a research project exploring case uses in augmented and mixed realities for educational purposes, the project has already spawned several case studies and research papers, most of which are freely available.

How Does it Work?

ARientation allows anyone to connect any digital contents to a set of special playing cards. Those playing cards can be printed out or purchased. Once you have some cards or images of the cards, you can use the ARientation app to see what contents, games, environments, and other projects others have created. You can also use this website to connect your own content to the cards. Once you do, you can then allow others to view your content. With this concept you can have cards play online videos, show websites, offer interactive web content, play audio, show images, or display almost any bit of information from the internet.

How do I get it?

Simply install the application from the Google Play Store onto your Android or iOS device.

Case Uses

ARientation has been used for many research projects into the use of augmented reality in learning environments. Many of the cases uses have academic research attached to them, but some of them are just to experiment or fun. But the most exciting part of this project is how students, teachers, and non-techie people all over the world are applying this technology using this platform. Some examples to date are gamified tours, open campus scavenger hunts, textbook enhancement, escape rooms, international events, and a ton more.

See some more examples here:

Creator

This project is the brainchild of Eric Hawkinson - Eric is a learning futurist, tinkering with and designing technologies that may better inform the future of teaching and learning. Eric is president and research coordinator of MAVR, a research group working in immersive technologies for teaching and learning, and more specifically, augmented and virtual realities in language learning. Eric's day job is at the Kyoto University of Foreign Studies where he teaches courses and conducts research on issues related to technology in tourism and education. Eric also leads a team of interactive media designers for TEDxKyoto. Eric's projects have included augmented tourism rallies, AR community art exhibitions, mixed reality escape rooms, and other experiments in immersive tech.