Augmented reality (AR) has gained prominence recently due to rapid technological advancements. The increasing reliance on this technology has been accelerated by global events, such as the COVID-19 pandemic; however, its effectiveness in educational practices remains debatable. Based on an analysis of existing research, this paper discusses how AR has impacted educational processes, examining its effects on learning outcomes, advantages, challenges, and trends in educational settings. This paper provides insights for educators, policymakers, and technology developers to harness AR’s full potential in education.

Today’s education must offer multiple opportunities to address the individual needs of all students. In this context, educational innovation plays an important role in guiding the processes of creating strategies to achieve more inclusive learning and teaching. Many studies have analyzed the affordances of augmented reality, gamification, and the adoption of Universal Design for Learning as separate strategies to improve education. In turn, this paper presents the combination of these three strategies as a positive alternative to address diversity in the classroom. A gamified augmented educational application has been designed that considers the principles of Universal Design for Learning to teach robotics in secondary education. The results show the application facilitates the inclusion of students, improving the fulfillment of the academic challenges.

Augmented reality (AR) is an emerging technology that has been successfully integrated into education. However, the use of AR as a tool to achieve educational inclusion has not been deeply explored. This study introduces CooperAR, a methodology aimed at attending educational inclusion, understanding inclusion as a process where the needs of all students are taken into consideration. CooperAR focuses on the creation of AR-based learning scenarios, in which teachers and students become co-creators of content. The methodology is based on the principles of Universal Design for learning and the Cooperative Learning approach. The effectiveness of CooperAR was validated in the context of a case study that involved 66 students. The results showed promising results, suggesting that CooperAR is an efficient methodology to promote educational inclusion through cooperation.

Population growth implies the need to produce more food. This increases pressure on the planet's resources, which drives climate change and challenges environmental sustainability. Hence, it is important to promote sustainable agriculture strategies that contribute to global food and nutrition security while protecting natural resources. These strategies should be guided from an educational perspective that motivates people to develop positive bonds with nature. In this regard, augmented reality has emerged as a technology with the potential to improve environmental education programs. This paper presents the development and evaluation of an augmented reality-based educational application, whose purpose is to foster sustainable agriculture in the context of aquaponics. The application was developed using Unity and Vuforia following the principles of instructional design. To evaluate the effectiveness of the application, we designed a pilot study with 10 volunteers. The results indicate that the application has the potential to motivate users to learn, which suggests that it is appropriate to foster sustainable agriculture strategies in the context of aquaponics.