How Augmented Reality Glasses Could Support Learning

Augmented Reality Offers Several Benefits for Learning

AR’s seamless integration into the user’s environment makes this tool particularly powerful, especially in light of the latest advancements in smart glasses. While virtual reality (VR) immerses the user into an entirely digital space, AR incorporates digital layers that the user sees by looking through a lens — a smartphone app or smart glasses. The user sees everything in the real world along with an additional digital layer, and the intensity of the illusion depends on the lens being used.

Jaime Donally, author, speaker and founder of ARVRinEDU, says that the advantage of learning with AR versus reading a traditional textbook, seeing pictures or watching a video is that students “get to experience it personally, and that is when they really hold the information. They’re going to retain it and understand it more deeply because now they’re engaged with the content instead of hearing it from someone else’s perspective.”

Mary Hemphill, CEO of The Limitless Leader and senior fellow at The Center for Model Schools, adds that AR, in combination with AI, is changing how students interact with content and creating a more engaged, interdisciplinary and personalized learning experience. 

“Modern classroom devices such as Meta’s Orion AR glasses have real-time data overlays, AI-powered interactions and intuitive designs,” Hemphill says. “I’ve worked with educators to explore how these innovations can enhance teaching and be more dynamic, from enabling adaptive learning experiences to getting real-time student feedback.”

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Smart Glasses Are Reinventing the Classroom

Smart glasses could be a powerful way to bring AR into the classroom once they become budget-friendly and offer a richer library of content. Hemphill believes that smart glasses could reinvent classroom interactions by offering real-time analytics, voice-activated lesson enhancements and remote teaching by projecting their AR view to students in other locations. 

“As an exemplary practice, smart glasses can be paired with collaborative platforms like Google Classroom, where educators can stream AR content live to students’ devices, resulting in a seamless bridge between the physical and digital worlds,” Hemphill says.

A robotics teacher could overlay step-by-step assembly instructions onto physical components, which allows students to follow along at their own pace. A chemistry teacher could use Orion glasses to project a 3D molecule in the middle of a lab, and smart glasses could provide real-time prompts and annotations as students manipulate the molecule from different angles. 

“One standout application I’ve seen is vocational education,” Hemphill says. “Students in fields such as automotive repair or healthcare can use smart glasses to simulate hands-on tasks, receiving live feedback from instructors who are present physically or virtually. This integration of AR and expert guidance transforms skill-building into a dynamic, interactive process.”

Because smart glasses respond to user inputs and environmental data in real time, students and teachers can achieve dynamic and interactive engagement with zero disruption, which makes the use of the device feel more natural. The built-in AI component on the Orion smart glasses, for example, allows the user to gather information hands-free. 

“If I’m on my phone and I’m asking for or looking up information, I’m pretty disconnected from the people around me,” Donally says. “But if we’re talking through our glasses, we’re getting that information and can still have conversations with the people in front of us. It’s allowing us to receive information without interrupting our daily lives. And I think that interruption is an important aspect of bringing in any new technology, because it needs to work in our real world.”

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AR Offers Benefits for Students With Disabilities

Accessible technology has already proved important for teaching students with disabilities. Now, smart glasses are poised to become part of the toolkit teachers can reach for to address a range of accessibility needs. Smart glasses can display real-time captions or sign language interpretation during lessons for students who have hearing impairments. 

For students with low vision, smart glasses feature magnification tools. And neurodiverse learners “can benefit from prompts that break down tasks into manageable steps or minimize sensory overload,” Hemphill says. “A powerful example of this in action is in a district I’ve worked with that pilots smart glasses to support students with autism. These glasses provide visual cues and emotional recognition tools to help students navigate social interactions in real time.”