Application of immersive information technologies in education

Abstract

The article considers aspects of application of immersive information technologies (a term that combines technologies of augmented and virtual reality) in an educational process. It analyses practices of application of immersive information technologies in education: the Russian constructor of virtual and augmented reality projects EV Toolbox and an academic school textbook on physics for grade 7 by V. V. Belaga et al. that supports augmented reality. Main constraining factors when using immersive technologies are formulated. To fnd a solution for some of the existing problems, the authors propose using software with a free license, in particular, the Unity development framework, for which a detailed algorithm is given to design an AR application for Android. The process and result of designing a mobile AR application for the informatics textbook for grade 7 by L. L. Bosova, A. Yu. Bosova via the Unity development framework and the Vuforia cloud service are described. Testing of the created resource showed that using the augmented reality technology in textbooks provides many advantages. One of the most important of them is that there is no binding to Internet, and it is possible to use this application irrespective of location. Additionally, this technology dovetails with distance learning, since it gives incentives for learning the material and encourages attracting attention to its academic content. Capabilities of virtual reality are shown by the example of an application for testing an UAV model.