Abstract:

The rapid advancement of technology give rise to new improvements in education. Augmented Reality (AR) is one of the technologies which have become widely used and issue of concern in education field. The most distinctive characteristics of AR technology are that it increases the sense of reality in a virtual setting by including virtual information within a real environment, and it supports interactions between the real and virtual environments. These characteristics make AR potentially useful for education. Magic book is one of the educational AR applications. Magic book can include several multimedia materials such as three dimensional (3D) objects, 3D and 2D animations, videos and audios. In this study, the magic book application, which includes English learning materials, was created using marker-based AR technology. In the marker-based AR applications, the students can interact with the course content by using computer, web camera and printed course material. When the images and the prepared marker cards, which are placed on the printed material, shown to the web camera, they are activated on the book as 3D object, animation or video. In this study, descriptive research method was used to determine the students’ attitudes toward English learning with AR technology. The sample of the study was composed of 122 fifth-grade students (66 boys and 56 girls, age=11-12 years) from five different secondary schools in Turkey. AR applications attitude scale was used as a data collection tool. As the result of the study, students were satisfied with the magic book application. Demonstration of 3D objects, videos, and animations on the magic book in AR applications were increased their motivation. Moreover, they had a low level of anxiety while using AR technology and they want to use this technology for learning English and the other lessons in the future.

Keywords:

Augmented reality, educational technology, magic book, learning English.