Television has long since been a uni-directional medium. However, when TV is used for educational purposes, like in edutainment shows, interactivity could enhance the learning benefit for the viewer. In recent years, AR has been increasingly explored in HCI research to enable interaction among viewers as well as viewers and hosts. Yet, how to implement this collaborative AR (CoAR) experience remains an open research question. This paper explores four approaches to asynchronous collaboration based on the Cognitive Apprenticeship Model: scaffolding, coaching, modeling, and collaborating. We developed a pilot show for a fictional edutainment series and evaluated the concept with two TV experts. In a wizard-of-oz study, we test our AR prototype with eight users and evaluate the perception of the four collaboration styles. The AR-enhanced edutainment concept was well-received by the participants, and the coaching collaboration style was perceived as favorable and could possibly be combined with the modeling style.

Due to the rising popularity of streaming services, television networks are experiencing pressure to keep the attention of the younger audience. Especially in the field of Edutainment, platforms like YouTube or TED are serious competitors and require broadcasters to come up with novel ideas to engage viewers in their program. In this work, we present the augmented reality (AR) SpaceStation application, designed to supplement the viewing of educational videos about the ISS. We evaluated users' experience during the interaction with the app in a within-subject user study (N = 31) and assessed their workload. During the interaction with the SpaceStation App, participants experienced a higher workload compared to a video-only condition; nonetheless, they considered AR a valuable and enjoyable addition. This paper concludes with a discussion from the perspectives of viewers, content creators, and hosts, and states initial ideas on how to design television programs with AR content, without creating information overload.