Dr. Mike Hobbs and Dr. Debbie Holley developed an augmented reality (AR) approach to improve student engagement with personal development portfolios (PDP) at their universities. They created an AR "treasure hunt" project where students collaboratively designed AR artifacts around campus providing clues. This improved PDP completion rates, with more students completing PDP than their main assessments. Student feedback found the AR projects helped PDP skills development and increased enjoyment over previous tasks, though the technology was more challenging to use. Future work aims to expand the program with online portfolios and more guidance.

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Creating and connecting:
An Augmented Reality approach to
delivering an authentic curriculum
Dr. Mike Hobbs, Department of Computing and Technology
Anglia Ruskin University
mike.hobbs@anglia.ac.uk
Dr. Debbie Holley, Centre for Excellence in Learning,
Bournemouth University
dholley@bournemouth.ac.uk

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The Personal Development Portfolio ‘PDP’
 Overview of PDP
• Provides skills and personal educational development.
• Promotes higher level learning and career planning
• Supports Pro-active, independent, autonomous, learners
• Provide a base level for skills in :
communication, group work, research, referencing, presentations,
 Policy context
• Quality Assurance Agency for HE in the UK require
institutions to provide personal development planning[1].
• UK needs more technically qualified students in ‘STEM’
subjects[2].
• Technically qualified students often lack key employability
skills[3].

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Motivation for this research
 ‘STEM’ Students
• Computer Science and Computer Gaming Technology
Technically able but lacking broader soft skills
• End of year course reviews identified issues of poor
engagement with PDP classes and curriculum
But informal discussion showed awareness of the importance of soft skills for
employability.
 Approach
• Provide a collaborative learning framework
(drawing on Vygotsky’s theories of proximal development)
• Create the context for the independent, autonomous
development of skills
(drawing on Piaget/Kegan/Laske to provide a suitable constructive
development framework )

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Improving PDP and Soft Skills
 Constraints
• Limited time and work requirement.
• Content, needs to be interesting but not core to course.
• Techniques easily assimilated for both students and staff
(multiple class delivery)
 Desired Features
• (Some) freedom in assessment topic
• Introduction to the project process (and group work)
• Simple assessment task to allow students to focus on skills
developed rather than end result.
Critical Success Factor = Student Engagement

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Creating Augmented Reality
 Why AR?
• Interesting area in education technology
• Relevance to software development - “authentic task”
• Available ’end user’ development tools
• Simple development process
• Suitable for BOYD and teaching in conventional classrooms
 User Created Content
• Students free to design their own artifacts.
• Constrained by deliberately vague ‘client’ brief.
• Requires creativity – enabled and restricted by technology.

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Wider Context

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Previous work - First iteration 2014/5
 The Book / library AR task
• Students responded well but found task ‘too easy’
Technically unchallenging
Lacking potential for creativity / design
Needed more structure – less ad hoc.
 Aims for 2015/6
• Increase technical challenge
• Increase engagement with task
• Deepen learning experience
• Increase size and make up of participating cohort
• ‘Roll out’ AR class materials to wider audience

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The Treasure Hunt
 Why?
• Used as the core theme to focus activity.
• Easily understood – but open to interpretation.
• Translates well to the AR medium (e.g. Pokeman Go)
• Learning through ‘play’
Progress from ‘did it work?’ to ‘did it achieve our aims?’
Easy feedback mechanism ‘was it fun?’
• Have to consider the player/user :
Artifact not an end in itself - mechanism for communication
Focus drawn away from ‘what do I want’ to ‘how can I address the
needs of others’

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Typical class activities
 Supportive ‘flipped’ approach rather than content
delivery:
• Introduce topics, review available materials
Each topic is supported with a section of documents and links on
the VLE.
• Discuss progress on project and reflections on the tasks.
• Provide monitoring and support.
• Student group presentations.
• Review portfolio work and sign off ‘PDP’ check list.
• Q&A on progress in other modules and student life.

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Student Activity
 What Students had to do:
• Form groups, organize and
meetings,
• Post progress to group blog
• Research and post comment
on one relevant paper each.
• Plan, design and create AR
artifacts around the concept
of the Treasure Hunt.
• Give a group presentation
on what they did.
• Provide a short summary
report
Link to Youtube video of Horizon

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(Some 0f) What Happened:
 At the Student level
• Meaningful socialization for new students
-helping to provide support network.
• Developed ‘natural’ communication channels
• Deeper responsibility / decision / control than most
assessment tasks.
 At the course level
• More students enjoying PDP
• Support materials allow non-project staff able to deliver
content.
• More students involved including Computer Scientists as
well as Computer Gamers.
• More students passing compulsory PDP element

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Nerds with Attitude
Word Game
• Pre-drawn triggers were
hidden around a house
• Each trigger gave an Aura
showing a single letter
• Participants put letters
together to make a word
• Managed project work
online using Trello
“The first thing we decided
to do was to find a way to
communicate between the
group in case any of us
were unable to meet up…”

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Horizon
Treasure Hunt
• Auras provide clues
• Users collected a code
word from each location.
• Locations around
campus and local area
were used.
“The importance of
teamwork cannot be
stressed enough,
teamwork is the most
fundamental aspect ..if we
had not worked as a team
we could have failed…”
If you want to find more
you find directions on the
floor,
but for that little matter,
It’s a symbol for a letter!

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The Fighting Peacocks
Campus Tour
• Campus navigation aid
• Using audio media and QR
codes
as triggers.
• Created a test grid
for results
• Mutual testing of
applications
were useful.
‘(We )tested another groups
game, the results were very
positive’

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Results – assessment completion
Submission of Assessments (at first attempt)
Year Cohort
Size
Main
Assessment
PDP Submission
ratio
% %
2013/14 (base line) 55 80 66 0.8
2014/5 78 77 79 >1.0
2015/6 130 84 85 >1.0
Ratio between the submissions for the main assessment and PDP –
“of those who completed the main assessment for the module, how
many also completed PDP”.
> 1.0 means that, MORE students completed their PDP than their main
assessment.

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Results – Student experience
Criteria 2014/5 2015/6
Was Aurasma Easy to use? 79% 71%
Did the AR project help my PDP? 69% 79%
• Questionnaire:
• Students found technology harder
• BUT more seemed to think it helped their PDP
• The implication is that the more expressive task provided more
technical challenges but was more effective.
• Free text comments point to more problems with a more diverse
set of BYOD devices
Got PDP done in an easy way, work completed without realizing it.”
“Group work was a really good part”

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Conclusions for Treasure Hunt AR
 Qualitative Impressions
• More design process used during construction
• Increased narrative in design
• Better identification of purpose for artifact
• Wider use of student sourced communication tools
• More ‘between group’ cooperation.
• Better alignment of task to underpinning principles of the
course.
• Better understanding of the purpose of the PDP task
Only 24% thought the task could be more challenging this year
compared with 64% last year.
“Got PDP done in an easy way, work completed without realizing it.”
“Group work was a really good part”

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Future Work
 PDP 2016/7
• PebblePad for lasting, online student portfolios
Used for tutor / student communication and record of progress.
• Full lesson plans for each PDP session
Allowing anyone to implement the programme
• Template to guide project progress with deadlines /
deliverables.
• Extend PDP content to cover digital and academic literacy
Currently implied but made specific assessment targets.
• Flavors provide clearer link to student course e.g.
Computer gamers to focus on game development aspects
Computer Scientists to focus on design
• Highlight theoretical underpinnings
Make explicit the implicit connections and rationale

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Our project blog: http://augmentedaru.org

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References
[1] QAA (2009). Personal development planning: guidance for institutional policy
and practice in higher education, The Quality Assurance Agency for Higher
Education. http://www.qaa.ac.uk/en/Publications/Documents/Personal-
development-planning-guidance-for-institutional-policy-and-practice-in-higher-
education.pdf
[2] House of Lords (2012). House of Lords Select Committee Report Science,
Technology, Engineering and Maths (STEM) subjects (2012)
http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/ld201213/ldselect/ldsctech/37/37.pdf.
[3] CBI/Pearson (2013). Changing the pace – Education and Skills Survey.
http://www.cbi.org.uk/media/2119176/education_and_skills_survey_2013.pdf.