I have to admit, I played Pokemon Go pretty excessively a while ago when the game first came out. I remember getting kicked out of a lot of areas while playing with my friends because we would wander around private properties during absurd hours of the night. Thankfully, the obsession only lasted a few weeks over the summer which was fun while it lasted. Getting back into the game was interesting because I had no idea (nor really was interested) in the AR feature. To my surprise, it made the game a little more enjoyable (even though the AR probably uses more battery).
I found a couple in my house but in order for the AR to work, I had to be in a relatively open space with a decent amount of square footage, so the only place I could catch them was in my kitchen. Unfortunately, I can’t upload the pics of me seeing the pokemon in AR because the pictures are over 4mb in size. I do however have some screenshots of what I caught.
Although the game is fun to play, I don’t think using augmented reality in this scenario is entirely educational (not that it was intended to be).
I think the benefits that can be taken away from augmented reality are the following: it can provide a more engaging learning experience and, if used effectively, can give a cooperative and interesting work environment. The first point can explain itself for the most part, but what I want to focus on is the justification for my second point. An example that I can think of is a group of architects that are designing a building in the exact spot of land that they plan to but it in. With some sort of AR building simulator, they can construct whatever they want and see how it looks in its surrounding environment before it is built in reality.
The one major downside to AR could be its distracting and fabrication capabilities. This can obviously bring a negative influence on the human senses whether it makes one unproductive or even not aware of what’s real and what isn’t (if the AR managed to evolve into something so incredibly realistic).
-Grant Boyd