Augmented Reality Essay

993 Words2 Pages

Introduction
Think about being able to see the sights of Ancient Rome and then later explore the pyramids of Ancient Egypt, all without leaving the comfort of your home or place of work. All this and more is achievable by the developing field of virtual reality. While virtual reality is just beginning to scratch the surface of its potential as an entertainment and education tool, there are still an abundance of virtual reality programs already in use today. Virtual reality programs are presently used in video game consoles to enhance the gaming experience and it is also used as an educational tool. This innovation enables less fortunate students to be able to travel to places that they would probably never be able to go. The main point of …show more content…

Augmented reality can be defined as, “A technology that superimposes a computer-generated image on a user's view of the real world, thus providing a composite view (Oxford Living Dictionaries, 2017).” While the two are similar, they have their differences. Virtual reality focuses on the computer-generated simulation of an environment. Meaning the entirety of the environment is completely computer-generated (McKalin, 2014). On the other hand, augmented reality focuses on the enhancement of the of the real-world. Augmented reality uses both real world environments and computer-generated images (McKalin, 2014). One such example of this is the phenomenon known as Pokémon Go. The overwhelmingly popular mobile game launched on July 6, 2016 as an augmented reality game that blended real world environments, by use of smartphone camera, and computer-generated images. If virtual reality can be this successful as a form of entertainment, there is no telling what its potential holds for the educational …show more content…

According to the website, The Conversation, the effects of virtual reality were tested on students to see how they would react. To give a few key results, the students were more relaxed and less embarrassed to talk to a virtual classroom instead of getting in front of the actual classroom which can lead to “stage fright” and embarrassment (Phillips, 2017). Another result found in the experiment was that it encourages social interaction between each other as they were sharing and learning in the virtual world (Phillips, 2017). This not only encourages social interaction between students, but it also lets more students perform in groups to get a task done instead of one doing work by themselves. As one can see from the experiment results, all the results impacting the students in a positive way. This was also only two out of the five positive effects listed by the experiment. So, if two of the results from one experiment already shows progress in a child’s learning, then who knows what other surveys and experiments that have come to even more positive

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