Usage of Augmented Reality in Physics Education: Erasmus+ KA201 Project ARphymedes

School physics is often mentioned as one of the least preferred subjects because the concepts can be complex and difficult to understand. At the same time, experiments are an important aspect to illustrate the process/concept/phenomenon, but there is often not enough time to do so. An interactive way that could increase students’ motivation during these times and allow them to deepen their knowledge of physics is through the use of augmented reality. The aim of this paper is to present the project AR Physics made for students (acronym: ARphymedes), which addresses the above problem.


Introduction
Several researches showed that school physics seems to be one of the least preferred subjects by students [1,2,3,4].In students' perception, physics involves complex concepts, many of which they do not understand.Insufficient knowledge makes problem solving challenging and leads them to fail exams and consequently avoid the subject [5].However, educators and the educational community agree that physics, as part of STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) subjects, is becoming an increasingly important part of basic education: not an exclusive education for future scientists, but a crucial choice in today's science-oriented society [6].Nowadays, science education in school takes place in a world where students often escape to virtual internet worlds and are also able to connect with others in real time via instant messaging.However, traditional science education is not fruitful in such an environment [7].Therefore, it is necessary to make physics more accessible for students [6,7].ICT (Information and Communication Technology) has transformed our daily lives and is considered a promising tool for improving education.One of the emerging technologies is augmented reality (AR).AR can be defined as a system that fulfills three basic features: a combination of real and virtual worlds, real time interaction, and accurate 3D registration of virtual and real objects [8].It enhances users' perception of reality by mixing the physical environment of the real world with a computer-generated virtual object [9,10].In order to see these AR objects, users either use smartphones or tablets which by default contain proper hardware, such as camera, microphone, different sensors, display and processors.Software of the devices allows AR application to run on the used device.AR has a big potential to radically transform traditional education by making complex and challenging concepts visible and accessible to novice learners [10].Especially in science education AR systems can support learners by learning content in 3D perspective and visualizing the invisible [8].Therefore, there is a need to develop augmented reality technology (AR) in education and evaluated it as an educational tool through new research with different stakeholders as reported by Yilmaz [11].AR is also a growing area of interest to encourage comprehensive, ubiquitous, collaborative and situated learning.Students claim that AR enables them to learn more effortlessly and enjoyably [11].Recently, there has been a growing body of literature published in using AR in educational contexts due to the ability of AR to provide extra digital content for any subject where difficulties in understanding of various concepts has been identified [9].Many studies show that key features of manipulative AR, such as simultaneity of virtual and real object, high interactivity and hands-on experience lead to an increased students' achievements and motivation in STEM education [12,13].Moreover, using AR help students with disabilities to learn and communicate effectively [14,15].Some of them are also highlighting its potential challenges, such as ineffective classroom implementation and student differences [8,10,12].Therefore, AR educational materials have to be properly developed and it should be done by collaboration of potential stakeholders: teachers/educators, researchers and ICT-designers.AR in education must necessarily be guided by usefulness for teachers and students in the process of teaching and learning core ideas, concepts, and practices in science [17].However, designing technology to promote learning might best be qualified by merging the perspectives of teachers with those of other stakeholders [8].In the Covid-19 era, the traditional teaching-learning system became inefficient, and students had to adapt to distance learning methods with varying degrees of difficulty [9].The synchronous part of teaching is ultimately more beneficial for students and face-to-face method is preferred even if ICT is integrated [12].Moreover, in the case of physics teaching as an experimental subject, discussion of problems and designing one's own experiments and/or conducting experiments (collecting one's own data) individually or in groups should be used to the same extent as demonstration experiments to increase students' interest and perceived usefulness.Experiments play an important role as they allow students to interact directly with physics situations.They offer students specific experiences, provide an understanding of science facts and concepts, develop students' ability to identify questions and concepts, enable students to learn how to use science, help students understand the values and assumptions needed to develop and interpret scientific knowledge, and develop students' experimental and social skills.However, advancing technologies have begun to add a new dimension to physics education through online or virtual labs.The different types of projects are a wonderful challenge for preparing and disseminating real-world materials to increase students' motivation and introduce them the wonderful world of physics.

Description of the project
The project ERASMUS + KA201 entitled AR Physics made for students (acronym: ARphymedes) with partners from Univerzita Sv.Cyrila a Metoda v Travne (Slovakia, applicant), Slovenska Technicka univerzita v Bratislave (Slovakia), Tallinna Tehnikaulikool (Estonia), Univerza v Ljubljani (Slovenia), Vitale Tecnologie Comunicazione -Viteco Srl (Italy), Diadrasis (Greece) and Universitatea Tehnica Gheorghe Asachi Din Iasi (Romania) was approved in August 2020.The project started in September 2020 and will last 3 years.Each partner has a specific role, but all together contribute to the achievement of the project objectives.Logo of the project is seen in Figure 1.The aim of the project is to raise the level of interest and achievement in physics from age 11 to 14 through innovative practices in a digital age.The project has several objectives: i) to increase the engagement of all students in physics classes by providing hands-on opportunities for all students, especially those who are currently underrepresented in physics and perform relatively poorly in STEM; ii) to increase the size and average performance of the group of students using the developed textbook; iii) to some extent reduce the problems associated with teachers' lack of materials to facilitate the preparation of interactive classes.

Educational toolkit
The expected outcome of the project is a so-called educational toolkit, which includes a book for students (a textbook), a book for teachers, an application with AR modules and training materials for teachers, combining knowledge from physics and, to some extent, from history.A book for students is based on an innovative approach on the physics field, as it will combine ICT tool with virtual and real hands-on experiments with prepared conceptual map of the chosen problems.The concept of any AR book is acquiring augmented data by floating a camera on a book's page to recognize its content.This concept is used to make the educational books more interactive [18].It also helps students comprehend any given point in the academic book without the need to search the internet to get the information needed [9].The main character of the book, called "Arphy" (Figure 2), is leading students along the road of exploring physics through time and significant events.Meanwhile, students will have an opportunity to interactively test and experiment with what is presented.The student's book will show the ways and strategies of scientific discoveries and highlight the importance of knowledge integration and creative thinking.It is often said that science means observing, describing, understanding, and applying, that is, playing.The mistake many teachers make is that, due to lack of time or patience, they do not let students immerse themselves in a task long enough for them to think about what it is all about.Another frequently cited problem in science teaching is the teachers' lack of experience in preparing experiments.Teachers consider hands-on experiments to be a difficult and time-consuming teaching strategy.The innovative approach of the student book will be transferred in the teacher's book to the wide range of the tools for reaching the planned learning outcomes.The teacher's book will contain extensive teaching support materials including additional materials published online on the project web page.Every chapter of the teacher's book will have description of learning outcomes, core instructions, demonstrations, visuals (AR), differentiated instructions, problems with solutions, challenges for critical thinking, assessment tools, and specialized support.The augmented reality enabled application for Android and iOS mobile devices, both smartphones and tablets, would freely be available to download through the digital markets of Google Play and appStore (the current working version of the application is already available at the link: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=net.Diadrasis.ARphymedesHandbook).The application will run on some designed characters and modules, each one corresponding to an important milestone of the evolution and the history of physics and it will be able to interact with the book content.The augmented reality modules will create a layer of artificial objects and extra information added to the information in the students book and projected over the real world.This way an enriched experience will be achieved by adding new layers of data with the use of a smart device.The developed AR application via a smart device will recognize symbols, object, or image in the book and it adds relevant content so that students can see these layered visualizations as if they were real.Students will be able to control objects presented to them on the screen, move them around to view at different angles and manipulate them (in Figure 3 and Figure 4 are presented a demo version of an AR modules).By including interactive and non/interactive modules AR enable us to develop a unique set of exercises and displays using 3D models, animations, and videos.A draft page of the student's book can be seen in Figure 5 (left).By using an application on a smart device (upper right) one can observe prepared gif (lower right).

Teachers' training programme
Another output of the project will aim at defining and developing an appropriate Teacher Training Programme, in line with the actual needs and challenges and for supporting the actual implementation of the educational tool kit (student's book with the AR application and teacher's book).This will The training will provide opportunities for professional development of physics teachers.We (will) offer workshop participants the opportunity to test the book in their classes and participate in a short preliminary study.To those we will provide printed versions of the students book with all the software.This way we hope to not just passively present the results of our project but to support its active implementation.
To support the impact and to make the Teacher Training Programme accessible for any interested audiences (target teachers) and to spread the projects outcomes we will also prepare an online open course which will be made available on the projects website (https://arphymedes.eu; see Figure 6) and on the e-learning platforms of the participating universities.This way we will remove the barrier of accessibility and facilitate exploitation and transferability to other contexts and countries.The Teacher Training Programme will provide practical guidelines on how to use the educational toolkit in a class environment, as well as in vocational training.

Impact of the project
The project consortium wishes to reach as many as possible posed goals of the project.We would like to give lower secondary school teachers toolkits for enhancing their educational activities to actively engage students to learn effectively and acquire appropriate knowledge and skills in physics applying augmented reality.We will support them during implementation and integration innovative educational approaches as cross sectional knowledge and AR in teaching physics in schools.Another aim is to promote awareness of the innovative methodologies and approaches to the effective teaching and assessment of physics.Also, we will provide national authorities with analysis of knowledge and skills gaps in physics curricula for lower secondary school.Finally, we will provide stakeholders with training toolkit to improve knowledge and skills in innovative IT applications (AR), comprehend new teaching methods and approaches, strength the holistic approach in teaching physics.

Conclusions
From the introduction and description of the current Erasmus+ KA201 ARphymedes project, it is clear that the project consortium is working to bring physics closer to students by developing an educational tool, combining the use of books and AR via a smartphone and believes that a developed toolkit will motivate students to learn and deepen their knowledge.By combining the comfortable bound format of a book, which provides a tangible pleasure, and a source of information for deep learning, with AR application, which will provide an opportunity to attract and hold attention, we will establish a bridge between traditional and digital learning.However, an added value will be the evaluation and training of physics teachers.
The results of the project will be freely available and will be disseminated through formal and informal channels, i.e. i) national, regional and local public education authorities and public and school libraries and ii) the websites of public education authorities, project partners, schools and libraries and social media managed by the project team.

Figure 1 .
Figure 1.Logo of the project ARphymedes.

Figure 2 .
Figure 2. Arphy -the main character of the student's book.

Figure 3 .
Figure 3. Example of an AR module: Putting virtual objects in a real environment.

Figure 4 .
Figure 4. Example of an AR module: Manipulating with the objects on the screen.One can move the cubes and put them in and out of the container.

Figure 5 .
Figure 5.A draft page of the student's book (left).On a smartdevice one can observe gifs (right).

Figure 6 :
Figure 6: Webpage of the project.