Breanne Litts & David Gagnon

Reminiscent of the introduction of the iPhone ten years ago, augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR) hardware have had sudden enhancements in accessibility and usability that may quickly lead to ubiquity. These media invite education researchers to adopt situated and sociocultural notions of learning for their study based on the inherent ability of AR and VR to both immerse learners in realistic contexts of action as well as fuse virtual content with place. To promote broad investigation and impact, we have developed a narrative-based mobile game development platform called ARIS (Augmented Reality and Interactive Storytelling) that invites researchers, educators and learners to become designers of AR learning experiences. To build on this work, we argue to explore a new genre of immersive learning experiences using AR and VR technologies. We show how learners can build their own immersive experiences through “StoryCoding,” a storytelling approach to programming concept that supports new opportunities for computational thinking across the curriculum. We also introduce “Holographic Learning Experiences,” which draw on technology such similar to the HoloLens to create immersive experiences. The projects we present will demonstrate the merit and impact of investigating immersive learning experiences as a new genre of learning.