[Courseware Feature Focus] English 9 Available with Augmented Reality

At Edmentum, we stay ahead of the digital curve in educational technology by creating high-quality courses that offer rigorous, multimodal instruction. We’ve partnered with Boulevard Arts, a premier developer of immersive augmented reality (AR) programs for education, to provide a truly immersive experience within our English 9 course. These new AR activities allow English 9 students to place virtual works of art in their classroom, living room, computer lab, or anywhere learning occurs. Our goal is to reimagine new approaches to developing immersive educational content—be it for English, history, art, or science classes.

Carefully curated for deep integration with Courseware’s standards-aligned, these AR experiences prompt students to explore and deepen their understanding of literary elements such as theme, plot, and setting. They demonstrate how looking closely at an Edward Hopper painting, a Japanese print, a medieval tapestry, or a Maya carving can not only meaningfully engage students but also help them access key English language arts concepts in a contextual way.

Explore Art from Around the World—Without Leaving the Classroom

With seven different augmented reality activities embedded into two semesters of the English 9 course, schools can provide in-person museum immersion activities for their students to expose them to a diverse array of art—without ever leaving the classroom.

Students will get to explore art from three major museums:

• Art Institute of Chicago in Chicago, Illinois
• Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City, New York
• National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C.

Multiple Augmented Reality Course Options

Edmentum provides two versions of the English 9 course—one with embedded augmented reality activities and one without—giving instructors options for how they wish to approach their classes.

If instructors opt to use the augmented-reality-integrated courses, they’ll find three course options when searching for augmented reality: one for semester A, one for semester B, and one course that only contains the augmented reality activities conveniently in one place.

Using the Boulevard x ED App as an Activity Tool

Each augmented reality activity starts with a set of standards relevant to the instruction in the English 9 unit where it is embedded. Students will begin their course as they would any other standard course and then will reach a point in the activity where they will be directed to use the Boulevard x ED app.

The Boulevard x ED app is completely free and is available for iOS and Android. Guided instructions on how to use the app will be provided within the activity in Courseware and will continue to be provided to students as they go through the activities in the app. 

While working through the augmented reality activity, students will be asked to analyze art and artifacts within the context of relevant ELA standards and skills. At the end of the activity, students will have a standards-based task to submit in the form of a screenshot image, audio recording, or written response. Student submissions will then be delivered to the instructor, who can then grade each student’s work and provide additional feedback.

What’s even better than reading about augmented reality? Experiencing it! Watch our OnDemand webinar demo of the augmented reality app to see the activities in action.

Edmentum is committed to providing engaging learning experiences that are easily accessible and that leverage modern media formats. Keep an eye out for a future blog post that will dive into Edmentum’s augmented reality activities available in our Biology A/B courses!