Augmented learning uses technology to enhance learners' understanding of their environment by connecting them to different times, places, people and possibilities. For example, experiencing the D-Day landings in real time provided a new perspective. Augmentation can prompt responses to mediated representations of the deceased or historical figures. It also supports social interaction and immersion through a sense of togetherness across time and distance. Educators take on roles of outreach, expertise and facilitating long-term engagement, inspiring participation through gamification and role-playing. Individual understanding can be augmented by networking collective knowledge beyond a single lifetime.

1. Augmenting learning
in the Humanities
Rebecca Ferguson
The Open University
Digital Pedagogy: June 2014

2. Augmented learning
uses electronic devices
to extend learners’ interaction with
and perception of
their current environment
to include and bring to life different times,
places, characters and possibilities.

3. ‘Experiencing D-Day in real time provided a new
perspective on an event that has been in danger of
becoming normalised […] as you are enjoying your
breakfast, George was four miles under the channel in a
midget submarine hoping his oxygen would last.’
http://bit.ly/1tKBAqd
http://dday7.channel4.com/

5. Augmentation and presence
• Medium provokes social response – prompting
response to mediated cues from the no-longer
alive and the never alive
• Social richness – supporting interaction that feels
sociable, warm, personal and immediate
• Social immersion – provoking, supporting and
encouraging a sense of involvement
• Transportation – prompting a sense of
togetherness that transcends both time and
distance.

6. Roles of the educator
• Educational outreach, long-term interests and
personal enthusiasm
• Requires expertise, plus the time and ability to
act as a coordinator and a facilitator
• Needs to inspire and engage people, because no
one is required to participate.
• Anyone can engage at any time, anyone can
leave at any time, but a skilled facilitator can
keep people engaged and actively contributing
for many years.

7. www.pepysdiary.com/

8. 1 entry, 43 annotations, 10 years

9. @samuelpepys are you ok there Sam? That's very
uncharacteristic of you. I'm sure your wife thanks you,
however.
@samuelpepys gwan, Sam, have a go

10. Advantages
‘Enjoying the Diary online has several advantages:
wherever I am in the World, I can follow it – and
scrutinize specific information regarding a detail in the
text, without losing the passage where I have
abandoned the path made by Mr. Pepys. Try doing this
with a book!
‘Your in-text annotations are a genuine bliss: no more
tedious leafing through pages! Also: always the London
map only a mouseclick away! In-deep articles! Entries
from other fans! And finally, the gentle pace of releasing
one entry a day and synchronizing this with the actual
calendar of 2008 – that is an absolutely brilliant idea.’
http://www.pepysdiary.com/news/2003/02/09/268/

11. ‘In some ways what I tweet is not truly what people
at the time experienced, because I include things
that nobody could have known. But think of the
alternative: if I only included what, say, British
civilians (or even the British government) knew,
there'd be almost no mention of the Holocaust for
years, grossly inaccurate reports & rumours, and
many things simply never mentioned because they
weren't discovered until years later…’
Alwyn Collinson
@RealTimeWWII

12. @RealTimeWWII

13. @RealTimeWWII

14. @RealTimeWWII: Over 900 people are dead to
German bombing in Belfast, Northern Ireland–
Luftwaffe pounded city from 10pm last night
@atheistpunk: @RealTimeWWII Kinda puts
current events into perspective. Imagine facing this
every day for years
@petersinnott: @atheistpunk: @RealTimeWWII
Current events do too. 30 people died in bomb
attacks in Iraq yesterday. Harsh world out there
unfortunately
@RealTimeWWII

16. Gunpowder, Tweeting and Plot
https://twitter.com/chrisleach78/lists/gunpowdertweetingplot

18. Responses from participants
• Congratulations on your fantastic work, it's
really brought history alive for me :)
• I learned a lot about the gunpowder plot
that I didn’t know before!
• Following your tweets is captivating – got
me right into the story behind the history.
• I was honoured to be a part of it and the
pupils loved being a part of it too. They
actually learned so much about the people
and the facts behind the common facts.

19. Oh new fanglenesse!
Ich have learned the privitees
of the manye abbreviaciouns
ywrtten on the internette.
Par ensaumple: OMG: “oh
mine ++DOMINUS++”. ROFL:
“rolling on the floore laughing”.
IRL: “in real lyfe.”
WTF: Whatte the syve.”
http://houseoffame.blogspot.co.uk/
@LeVostreGC

21. ‘playing pretend in a context where everyone
agrees that playing pretend is what you do’
‘the signal benefit of the practomime is that my
students and I get to experience it for ourselves in
such a way that we may be able to understand the
poetry surrounding the event in a deeper way.’
Practomime
TRAVIS, R. 2010. A note on the word 'practomime' (14 Jan 2010).
http://livingepic.blogspot.co.uk/2010/01/note-on-word-practomime.html
See also
’Living Epic’, ‘Play the Past’ and ‘Techna Virumque Cano’ blogs

23. Roles of the educator
• Educational outreach, long-term interests and
personal enthusiasm
• Requires expertise, plus the time and ability to
act as a coordinator and a facilitator
• Needs to inspire and engage people, because no
one is required to participate.
• Anyone can engage at any time, anyone can
leave at any time, but a skilled facilitator can
keep people engaged and actively contributing
for many years.

24. ‘An individual’s world can be augmented
with information that is beyond the
knowledge of a single person, and
indeed a single lifetime. By networking
data, the environment is augmented by
the experiences of multiple others.’
http://amzn.to/1nPgKEm