eLcc Report 2: Augment Reality Assignments

My favorite presentation at the eLcc conference was presented by Chris Luchs and Kae Novak about using augmented reality assignments in courses and as cross curriculum assignments. Check out their Prezi Presentation http://prezi.com/zqe2luhdrfc8/augment-your-reality/ to learn more.

Scenario based learning, Authentic Assessments, and Augmented Reality Assignments in many ways are the same concept with different names. Students and instructors become players in a carefully constructed role playing “game.” A “client” contracts the students for a project. The instructor, and possibly course designer, engage the students as professionals in an appropriate field, but have some pre-made clues and guidance tools in place to provide at opportune moments to help students be most successful. Like a Murder Mystery party, the hosts (instructor) will release information as the party progresses to guide the guests to the clues and the solution. Instructors have a variety of tools to provide obvious and subtle hints to their students such as twitter, websites, and discussion.

Sound like a daunting task for an instructor to create and conduct by themselves? My suggestion is experiment with an augmented reality assignment on a small scale. For example, in collaboration with an English Instructor, history students become writers for a historical journal like the Journal of American History. The English class becomes the editors of the Journal and using the articles written by the historians selects the best for publication or provides editing comments for consideration and future approval on the rejected articles. To make the scenario most believable, students in the history class should believe they have submitted their writing to a real historical journal (in fact, they could submit directly to a journal of their choice) and the English students should believe they are truly evaluating professionally written articles for publication. You may even want to have a “visitor” to the class from the Historical Journal that explains why they are excited about the opportunity to work with the class. If not a real visitor, maybe a "letter" to the class from the Journal describing the scope of what they are trying to do by working with them.

If you are ready to create an augmented reality assignments for your students, contact your chair. The summer is a great time to plan, and I look forward to you sharing your examples in the Cultivating Excellence discussion in the CCCOnline Community.