ThePedagogical Virtual Machine: Supporting Learning Computer Hardware and Software via Augmented Reality

In this work-in-progress paper, we propose a general model, ViewPoint, for augmented-reality learning which consists of several components such as a learning design specification, a collaborative environment, an augmented reality view, physical objects and a centralised data server. The learning activities focus on the Internet-of-Things, a paradigm that utilises small networked embedded computers (which are largely unseen) to make pervasive computing applications. The core contribution of this paper is a new paradigm that we refer to as a 'Pedagogical Virtual Machine' that aims to extract learning related information from the underlying computers that make up the education focus. The paper describes the information architecture of the PVM explaining some of the key concepts such as data representations of hard and soft objects. The paper concludes by reviewing the main findings and discussing our future research plans.