Review of Augmented Paper Systems in Education: An Orchestration Perspective

Augmented paper has been proposed as a way to integrate more easily ICTs in settings like formal education, where paper has a strong presence. However, despite the multiplicity of educational applications using paperbased computing, their deployment in authentic settings is still marginal. To better understand this gap between research proposals and everyday classroom application, we surveyed the field of augmented paper systems applied to education, using the notion of “classroom orchestration” as a conceptual tool to understand its potential for integration in everyday educational practice. Our review organizes and classifies the affordances of these systems, and reveals that comparatively few studies provide evidence about the learning effects of system usage, or perform evaluations in authentic setting conditions. The analysis of those proposals that have performed authentic evaluations reveals how paper based-systems can accommodate a variety of contextual constraints and pedagogical approaches, but also highlights the need for further longitudinal, in-the-wild studies, and the existence of design tensions that make the conception, implementation and appropriation of this kind of systems still challenging.