Augmented reality in education

Augmented reality, or AR, adds digital elements to the view of your surroundings seen through a phone or tablet camera. At school it helps when it serves a specific task: letting students look at a model from different sides, see an abstract concept or link information to a real place. In Krakow, students can try it for example in outdoor city games for schools, where teams get tablets with a map and AR tasks, and in the classroom you can start with a free resource on the state education platform.

AR doesn’t replace the learning goal itself. First you need to know what the student is supposed to notice and understand.

How does blending two worlds work?

The phone or tablet shows the camera image, and the app places an extra object or message in it. Depending on the solution, it uses image recognition, the device’s position and information about the space around it. Special glasses are another possible tool, but they aren’t required for every AR activity.

It’s worth telling AR apart from virtual reality. VR takes the user into a computer-built world, while AR leaves them in the classroom, the museum or the street and simply adds a digital layer to that view. Whether this helps learning depends on the task, not on the mere presence of 3D graphics.

An example from a lesson: an amphora on a sheet of paper

A good illustration is the resource on augmented reality on the Integrated Education Platform (ZPE) (in Polish), prepared for secondary and technical schools as part of computer science. The student prints a marker, points the phone camera at it and sees a 3D model of an ancient Greek amphora. By turning the sheet with the marker, they turn the object at the same time and can look at it from every side.

The resource doesn’t stop at the effect. It also encourages students to think about how this kind of viewing differs from a visit to a museum. It’s a good template for any AR exercise: first observation, then a question the model itself can’t answer.

The question first, the effect second

Imagine a lesson on how an object is built. Students look at the model, point out two elements and explain how they’re connected. Then they try to describe that relationship without looking at the screen. In an example like this, the technology helps students take a closer look at the structure, and the question gives the observation some order.

If the task comes down to just launching an animation, it’s hard to tell what the participant has understood. The effect may be interesting in itself, but it’s worth coming back to the topic afterwards. A short explanation in the student’s own words is often more useful than another click.

Possibilities and limitations

AR lets you show objects that would be hard to bring into class and tie information to a space. It may also need the right device, good lighting and time to get it working. If the technical setup takes up all the attention, a simpler illustration may serve the exercise better.

You don’t have to assign students fixed “learning styles” to vary your materials. What matters more are the needs of the individual and whether they can understand the instructions. With a shared tablet, make sure everyone can see the model and has time to do the task.

Where in Krakow students can come across AR outdoors

The most accessible form is educational city games for schools. EscapeCity runs story-based games for classes in which teams get iPads with GPS and augmented reality elements and solve puzzles in the Old Town, Kazimierz or Nowa Huta. Scenarios last 2 or 2.5 hours, Game Masters oversee the game, and it can also be run in English. The operator caters for single classes as well as large school trips.

Gamescape’s school offer has a similar format: two-hour city games with a tablet, a GPS route and AR tasks, in which 3D objects and characters appear without goggles.

Krakow’s museums have extensive programmes for schools, but when we looked through their official websites in September 2026 we didn’t find a permanent lesson based on AR. You can check the current offer in the Museum of Krakow’s lesson finder, where you can filter activities by age, topic and branch, and in the National Museum in Krakow’s museum lessons (in Polish). Combining a lesson like this with an AR city game lets students compare two ways of getting to know the same city.

Talking it over afterwards

An AR game is a chance to get to know the technology through play, but it doesn’t automatically tick off anything on the curriculum. Back at school, the teacher can ask: what did we see in the real surroundings, and what did the screen add? Which information helped us complete the task? What couldn’t be checked on the tablet and had to be seen on the spot? A conversation like this links the experience with reflection and helps students better understand the role of the tool they used.