Potentiating Learning Through Augmented Reality and Serious Games

A significant progress in technological support aroused a general interest in areas such as data visualization, augmented and virtual reality, and artificial intelligence. The innovative capabilities of these technologies increased the potential and relevance of data visualization and interaction services. Traditional teaching and learning methods look insufficient in a context where digitalization invades processes and tools. A strong claim is made for aligning those methods with such technological developments and thus allows students to acquire the skills to successfully integrate the emergent information society. Given the widespread of mobile devices, and the increasing role of computer games in education, their combined use has the potential to play a central role in responding to these demands. This chapter aims at exploring the integration of serious games with virtual environments and technologies as a complement to facilitate and enhance learning. More specifically, we present and discuss the motivation, design, and development process of three tools that use augmented reality in combination with a serious game to teach (i) mathematics, (ii) to explore the platonic solids, (iii) and to teach coding. Further, three pilot user studies are described and discussed and confirm the potential of these tools as powerful new teaching/learning tools for education.