What is it?

From all the reading and watching I did on augmented reality, I found that this video (although slightly humorous) explained the topic of augmented reality best with examples of the uses and the future of augmented reality as well:

Mashable provides a list of their top 10 Augmented Reality Apps for the iPhone.  I worry about the educational value of these apps, however they show the depth of augmented reality and it’s presence within our society thus far.  That being said, the virtual sky app could see great benefits in astronomy classes or science classes that occur during the day.  Students can still study the stars during the day by incorporating this app into the curriculum.

How do we meaningfully integrate?

In order to meaningfully integrate augmented reality, schools and students will need to be equipped with devices to utilize augmented reality.  While the information and tools can be deployed on laptops, I would suggest that schools need to adopt other mobile devices to truly transform the learning process.  iPhones or iTouches will best suit the ability to modify real world objects in this new world.  It appears that augmented reality is better used when able to modify the screen using touch recognition, which most laptops do not necessarily afford.  What I like best about augmented reality in terms of integrating into the curriculum is that students can be exposed to What if? scenarios by changing real life situations and adding an abnormal object to see the affects of that object on the situation.  This would be great in the study of history by looking at whether or not something had occurred how that might alter the course of history.

There is certainly significant ways that this can be deployed within school systems, I just wonder whether or not schools are ready for augmented reality…perhaps time will tell.