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The objective of this study was to determine the usefulness of augmented reality (AR) in teaching. An experiment was conducted to examine children's learning performances, which included the number of errors they made, their ability to remember the content of what they had read and their satisfaction with the three types of teaching materials, including a picture book, physical interactions and an AR graphic book. The three teaching materials were aimed to respectively demonstrate the characteristics of six bacteria with 2D graphics, 3D physical objects, and 3D virtual objects. Seventy-two fifth-grade children were randomly selected to participate in the study, and they were divided into three groups, each of which used the assigned teaching material to learn the name of the six different bacteria in intervals of 1, 2 and 3 min. Results showed that the AR graphic book offers a practical and hands-on way for children to explore and learn about the bacteria. Follow-up interviews indicated that the children liked the AR graphic book the most, and they preferred it to the other materials. Lay Description What is currently known about Augmented Reality and learning? Augmented reality (AR) provides a new perspective for learning by allowing learners to visualize complex spatial relationships and abstract concepts., What the paper adds to the subject matter? AR improves learning performances to a similar extent as the most used teaching materials (both picture books and physical interactions) do., AR not only facilitates learning but also increases learning motivations better than conventional teaching materials do. The implications of study findings for practitioners. If children feel bored about reading textbooks, give them AR (because AR effectively enhances learning and children are more motivated when using AR)., AR teaching material is a good alternative to conventional picture book and physical interactions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Mobile computers are now increasingly applied to facilitate face-to-face collaborative learning. However, the factors affecting face-to-face peer interactions are complex as they involve rich communication media. In particular, non-verbal interactions are necessary to convey critical communication messages in face-to-face communication. Through gathering discourse and non-verbal interaction records, this study explores the peer interactions supported by two collaborative applications: one with mobile computers and the other with shared-display groupware ( SDG). The results show that the students tended to interact with each other according to a distributed and an unsocial interaction pattern when using the application with mobile computers. In contrast, the students who learned with the SDG demonstrated a shared interaction pattern, whereby they often jointly focused on and referred to the shared work. The analysis of the students' work further found that a higher level of discussion was generally associated with the shared interaction pattern. The results seem to support SDG as being useful in augmenting face-to-face peer interaction supported by mobile computers. The implications derived from the findings also support the argument that non-verbal interaction records are useful for quantitatively and qualitatively analysing face-to-face peer interactions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]