ENHANCING ART EDUCATION IN SCHOOL THROUGH AUGMENTED REALITY

Abstract

The popularity of augmented reality (AR) in schools worldwide has been growing constantly in the recent years. Many experiments have shown that through AR teachers are able to improve learning outcomes for the students through increased engagement and interactivity. AR tools have been successfully applied in many subjects like Science, Math, History and Geography. However, there is one very special place where AR can encourage curiosity, inspire critical thinking and intense creativity of the students. This place is the Art classroom. The present study aims to investigate the effect of the usage of AR applications in teaching Art. It was conducted with three groups of middle school students in a state school in Sofia, Bulgaria. The study also aims to describe the experience, the opportunities and the challenges met in the teaching process. Every group was divided into two groups of equal number of students – one control group and one experimental group. There were three experimental and three control groups in total. The experience gained shows that AR is a great way for personalization of the learning process and promotion of inclusive, active learning. Two types of applications were explored in the study – the one that allows students to explore physical spaces and pieces of artwork while sitting in the classroom; and the other, which allows students to create their own AR by adding virtual dimension to any artwork, including created by themselves, through animations, video and music.

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ENHANCING ART EDUCATION IN SCHOOL THROUGH
AUGMENTED REALITY
Plamen Petrov
Assoc. Prof. Dr. Tatiana Atanasova
Georgy Kostadinov
Institute of Information and Communication Technologies - Bulgarian Academy of Sciences,
Bulgaria
ABSTRACT
The popularity of augmented reality (AR) in schools worldwide has been growing
constantly in the recent years. Many experiments have shown that through AR teachers
are able to improve learning outcomes for the students through increased engagement
and interactivity. AR tools have been successfully applied in many subjects like
Science, Math, History and Geography.
However, there is one very special place where AR can encourage curiosity, inspire
critical thinking and intense creativity of the students. This place is the Art classroom.
The present study aims to investigate the effect of the usage of AR applications in
teaching Art. It was conducted with three groups of middle school students in a state
school in Sofia, Bulgaria. The study also aims to describe the experience, the
opportunities and the challenges met in the teaching process.
Every group was divided into two groups of equal number of students – one control
group and one experimental group. There were three experimental and three control
groups in total.
The experience gained shows that AR is a great way for personalization of the learning
process and promotion of inclusive, active learning.
Two types of applications were explored in the study – the one that allows students to
explore physical spaces and pieces of artwork while sitting in the classroom; and the
other, which allows students to create their own AR by adding virtual dimension to any
artwork, including created by themselves, through animations, video and music.
Keywords: Augmented Reality, Art education, interactivity, classroom, active learning,
experience.
INTRODUCTION
Augmented Reality (AR) has been among the biggest technology trends in education in
recent years. One of the reasons for AR’s rising popularity is the possibility of AR
systems to bring elements of the virtual world into the real world, thus enhancing the
things we see, hear, and feel [1].
The use of Augmented Reality has a key position in the latest developments concerning
the Learning with technology, which considers the new technological devices as a mean
capable of promoting the learning process. In fact, augmented reality can be considered

“as a dynamic and interactive didactic tool, which contributes to transform spaces, times
and modes of learning thanks to the fact that school laboratories and classrooms start to
be widely equipped with suitable technological infrastructures” [2].
Augmented Reality is based on a concept of experience according to the theory that if
one creates an experience, it stays for the whole lifetime. Implementing AR into
education can really transform the experience of learning. Students would get to
experience the real world rather than just theoretically learning about it.
Augmented Reality adds virtual elements to the real surroundings of the users [3]. AR
can be defined in many ways ranging from showing related content based on mobile
location to video see-through AR. In video see-through AR, images are captured by a
camera and displayed on a screen with augmented data overlaid on the objects [4] thus
the augmented reality is situated in the same visual field as the artwork. Combining
concepts of Augmented Reality and Virtual Reality (VR) allows to exemplify Art
educational applications with additional semantic description as it is shown in [5].
This investigation presents results of AR applications in teaching Art according to the
middle school curriculum in a state school in Sofia, Bulgaria.
MATERIALS AND METHODS
The first type of application that was explored in the study allows students to explore
physical spaces and pieces of artwork while sitting in the classroom
The target participants were fifth grade students, studying into three different classes.
This means that these were three separated groups of students who had to study the
same learning material in Art.
The tasks that were assigned to the students referred to exploration of ancient artefact,
exploration of а specific gallery and exploration of a specific paining. The tasks were
part of the following topics from the curriculum: “Prehistoric art and the art of the
ancient world”, “Art and virtual environment” and “Art information web pages -
museums and galleries”. According to the instructions in the curriculum, the student
should be given the opportunity to: visit art galleries, museums and exhibitions at the
place of residence, in the region and on the Internet; draw conclusions about the culture
of a certain era on the basis of the information derived from an object; plan their work
independently; draw conclusions about the lives of people in the ancient world; share
their opinions and assessments of an artwork; browse information pages about famous
artists and navigate in them.
Every class was divided into two groups with equal number of students – one control
group and one experimental group. There were three experimental and three control
groups in total. The impact of usage of AR when teaching Art on the student
performance was measured by comparing the results of the students from the two types
of groups. The same teacher taught all the students. The numbers of participants in the
three classes were as follows: 24, 22, and 22.
The application that was used for exploration of physical spaces and pieces of artwork
while sitting in the classroom was Google Arts & Culture. There were few reasons
behind this decision – it is free, it is available for both iOS and Android and allows for
many different interactive experiences. Among them are the possibilities to explore
collections, museums and galleries, as well as to see how artworks look in real size in

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front of you using the augmented reality Art Projector tool. This way one can play with
Art using only a smartphone or a tablet and can bring culture to life with AR while
projecting 3D models into the real world through the device camera.
Lessons with students from the control and experimental groups were conducted
separately. The students in the experimental group were asked to install in advance the
Google Arts & Culture app on their smartphones or tablets and took an additional short
course on how to use the app.
Both types of groups were taught by the teacher the same way and the same learning
material. Then all students were given the same additional task – independently to
explore an ancient artefact, a specific gallery and a specific paining.
The students from the experimental groups used smartphones/tablets and Google Arts &
Culture to complete the tasks. The students from the control groups explored the same
objects using traditional ways – texts, photos and videos.
Microsoft Forms was used as an online tool to create tests, distribute and collect data for
both groups. Data collected from the questionnaires were exported and analyzed using
Microsoft Excel and its data analysis tools.
Fig. 1. Workflow for each one of the three groups
The workflow (fig. 1) for each one of the three experimental groups was as follows:
A topic is taught
by the teacher in a
traditional way Tasks
performing
using
traditional
sources – texts,
photos and
videos
Test using
Microsoft
Forms
 Documentation

Results analysing
 Data Evaluation
The students are
given an
additional task
Repeat for each of
the three topics, in
every group
A topic is taught by
the teacher in a
traditional way
Tasks performing
using Google Arts
& Culture
Test using
Microsoft
Forms
 Documentation
 Results analysing
 Data Evaluation
The students are
given an additional
task
Repeat for each of
the three topics,
in every group AR vs
Traditional
sources Comparison
Experimental groups
C
Co
on
nt
tr
ro
ol
l
g
gr
ro
ou
up
ps
s

1. A topic is taught by the teacher in a traditional way.
2. The students are given an additional task.
3. The students perform the tasks using Google Arts & Culture.
4. A test using Microsoft Forms is performed.
5. The students’ test results are documented, the data are analyzed, and evaluations
are done.
6. These steps are repeated for each of the three topics (explorations), in every
group.
The workflow for the 3 control groups, shown on the fig. 1, was as follows:
1. A topic is taught by the teacher in a traditional way.
2. The students are given an additional task.
3. The students perform the tasks using traditional sources – texts, photos and
videos.
4. A test using Microsoft Forms is performed.
5. The students’ test results are documented, the data are analyzed, and evaluations
are done.
6. These steps are repeated for each of the three topics (explorations), in every
group.
The second type of application that was explored allows students to create their own AR
by adding virtual dimension to any artwork, including created by themselves, through
animations, video and music. The concrete application that was tested is UniteAR [7] –
an Augmented Reality SaaS platform which lets customers create their own augmented
reality experience in three clicks.
The second activity was for all the students. One of the main aims was to measure the
change in the students’ engagement in the Art class when using an AR application.
They were asked do draw a picture and to leave a free place on it in order a virtual
object to be placed there later. As it is often happening in Art classes, there are better
and more confident students in drawing, as well as those who cannot draw very well. In
this case, the drawing skills were not from a critical importance as all the students were
able to enrich their drawings by adding images, audio, video, 3D objects or 360-degree
panoramic video to their artwork. Thus, students created a great variety of works and
were able to use their potential and creativity as much as possible.
TABLES AND GRAPHS
Data from all tests performed with each group are summarized in Table 1.
Table 1. Results of the experiments
Control groups points Experimental groups points
Group Test 1
Test 2
Test 3
Total
Test 1
Test 2
Test 3
Total Increase in %
Group 1
9 11 12 32 11 13 14 38 19%
Group 2
12 13 11 36 13 15 16 44 22%
Group 3
13 11 13 37 15 14 15 44 19%

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Average
11 12 12 35 13 14 15 42 20%
The following figures show some examples of students work done by using an AR app
in ART lessons (Fig. 2).
Fig. 2. Examples of works done using an AR application
Fig. 3. Students’ picture processed with an AR application

RESULTS
The first experiment is validated using a small sample size of 68 participants only. The
research, however, can be expanded in the future but a lot of additional work and
preliminary preparation is needed in order the learning process to be smooth and easy.
Experience has shown that a quality AR tool, providing multidisciplinary approach,
possibilities for personalization and a lot of visualization tools can be very useful for
students to plan their work independently, draw conclusions and learn to share their
opinion and appreciate the art connected work.
The second experiment showed that the average students’ engagement has increased by
27%. It has been measured through questionnaires prepared by the Art teacher in
collaboration with the school psychologist. For some of the students that were not
confident in their drawing skills the increase of engagement reached 38%.
DISCUSSION
In recent decades, teaching in general has undergone dramatic changes - from the
standard classroom environment and training, led by teachers and instructors, to modern
learning opportunities through gamification, augmented and virtual reality. The recent
research states that students cannot imagine their lives without smartphones and few of
them have willing to study by reading hard copy material [6].
Augmented Reality is now accessible for everyone with their smartphones [7]. This
technology gives new ways not only for learning but to intense creativity too. It opens
doors for imagination. There are growing number of AR applications, programs and
resources [8] that can be used in the classroom. New algorithms are developing to
connect powerful ability of AR to visually highlight information to direct gaze to points
of interest in artworks [9].
Our experience has shown that using Google Arts & Culture (Fig. 4) gives not only all
these possibilities but also provides a unique personalized learning experience and
possibilities for teamwork. An additional tool of the application appeared to be very
motivational for the students – Achievements. It has shown very clearly how much
some of the students need encouragement in their everyday class work.
Fig. 4. Google Arts & Culture
However, as a qualitative study [10] has shown, AR technology is not yet widespread,
there are barriers and limitations to its uptake in education.

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CONCLUSION
The present study aims to investigate the effect of the usage of AR applications in
teaching Art. Two types of applications were explored - the one that allows students to
explore galleries and pieces of artwork – Google Arts & Culture, and the other, which
allows students to create their own AR and enables real-time visualization of the
augmented reality by adding virtual dimension to their artwork – UniteAR [7].
As different studies have shown, effective art education, including art-integration,
encourages active, problem-based inquiry, data collection, evaluation, and
communication. Using integrated approaches encourages students to challenge
established ideas, concepts and ways of making, to resist stereotyped visions of the
world and to break boundaries. Arts based learning illuminates gaps and limitation in
current ideas and helps students to organize frameworks and structures through which
they can test limits and develop new structures that bridge the gaps between that which
is known and that which will be created [11].
The experiments in this study showed an increase in both the students’ achievements in
the process of learning Art and in the level of engagement, especially for the students
that were not confident in their drawing skills. The possibility to create multimedia
enriched AR products pushed the students creativity, motivated them to make a better
drawing and made them eager to finish it.
Some of the challenges met were connected to the smooth work with the applications.
Although short courses on how to use the application were provided, the children's
impatience, the opportunity for individual work and students’ desire to immediately
share what was happening on their screens sometimes created obstacles to the order in
the classroom. Another important conclusion is that working with bigger screen devices
greatly simplifies the process of working with AR applications, as most operations
require work with both hands, multi touch gestures and fine adjustments.
The experience gained shows that AR is a great way for personalization of the learning
process and promotion of inclusive, active learning in the Art classroom. AR gives great
possibilities for personalization, can encourage curiosity, inspire critical thinking,
intense creativity of the students and their level of engagement.
Working with AR application and the Art classroom turned the students into real
storytellers.
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