What to do and not do with Augmented Reality for Education

Greetings from the ASCILITE Mobile Learning Special Interest Group (MLSig) meeting with Dr. Patrick O'Shea, at  Appalachian State University. His most recent paper is "Educational Practices and Strategies with Immersive Learning Environments: Mapping of Reviews for using the Metaverse". He characterized Apple's new headset as "Mixed Reality" (MR), combining features of AR & VR. He has been thinking about the implications of such tools broadly for education, but is frustrated by the lack of research into long term use. His podcast is "The Versatilist".

Australia India Business eXchange 2021

Greetings from the Australia India Business eXchange 2021, being held over the next three days online. I registered to explore education business  opportunities in India. The organizers have gone to considerable lengths to create the online equivalent of a trade show. One interesting feature is a "swag" bag, where you can browse through the information filling your virtual show bag with electronic brochures. There are live events via Zoom as well as chat. 

The main interface looks a lot like Second Life,or Mozilla Hubs,  which is not necessarily a good thing. The physical meeting venue does not necessarily make for a good online interface, and might just slow things down. A more intimidate problem is that the interface is only available when live sessions are on. This makes no sense and differs from other online trade shows, where you can look at the program, browse virtual trade booths, and leave messages to arrange meetings, at any time. 

Virtual Reality in the Time of COVID

Generic disposable facial interface

Greetings from the weekly ASCILITE Mobile Learning Special Interest Group. Thomas Cochrane raised the topic of how Virtual Reality (VR) can be used within COVID-safe restrictions. Expensive VR equipment has to be shared between students, but then how to do that safely? In response I did a quick search and found "Virtual Reality Head Mounted Display Cleaning and Disinfection Guide" (NSW Health, 2020). This recommended using a wipe-able and replaceable "facial interface" (the pad which goes around the wearer's eyes). Generic disposable facial interfaces look like a costume party mask, with elastic straps to fit over the ears. There are also Custom Disposable Hygiene Covers for specific headsets, such as the Oculus.

ESA UV-C
Headset Sterilization

The European Space Agency use a 

Phone Sterilizer

hand held UV-C light for sterilizing the entire headset, but that may not be safe for use in an educational environment. A few weeks ago I purchased a Phone UV Sterilizer, remaindered at a local store (KMART $2.50, similar units sold online for under $30). This is a USB powered box. The user closes the door and it floods the inside with UV-C for five minutes. A VR facial interface should fit in the box. 

However, I suggest looking at lower cost augmented reality (AR)  equipment which allows students to work together safely. An AR headset is not so closely coupled to the wearer's face. AR applications can also be used on the student's own smartphone, removing the need to share equipment. As well as reducing the risk of infection, this also makes it possible for students to see each other and work together, whereas a VR headset completely isolates them in the virtual environment. It should be kept in mind that social isolation is a threat to the student's health, brought about by infection control measures. There is little point in bringing students together in a classroom, if they are each isolated in their own VR bubble.

There is scope for innovation in the safe use of AR & VR for education. This does not require billions of dollars or the resources of a major technology company. Educators and technologists in schools, colleges and universities can make a useful contribution. They can then promote what works through local entrepreneurial centers. As an example, ANU students can get course credit working on software, hardware and business plans for new education initiatives. Staff and students can get training and business advice to set up a company at the government/university funded Canberra Innovation Center. 

eXtended Reality Cooperative Research Centre Workshop

A workshop on a proposed Xtended Reality Cooperative Research Centre (XR CRC) will be held online, 1pm, 19 March 2021.

"Six Australian Universities; Deakin University, Charles Sturt University, Curtin University, Griffith University, The Australian National University and University of Technology Sydney, all with research and application expertise in immersive experience and solutions are working on the development of the eXtended Reality CRC (XRCRC) program proposal to Government.

The XRCRC aims to enable our partners transform for the new global environment and manage the impact and opportunity of accelerated digital experience and digital offerings.

With a focus on the integration of people content and technology, XRCRC research and development is relevant where human and digital worlds combine across the following sectors:

Education and Training
Health, Accessibility, Inclusion and Aged Care
Media, Entertainment and Creative
Advanced Manufacturing, Resources and Industrial Services
Agriculture,
Architecture and Construction
Emergency Services, Defence, Security, and Public Safety ..."

Loyal Wingman supersonic fighter UAV

ps: One use for XR could be to provide an interface for high performance drones, such as the proposed Loyal Wingman supersonic aircraft. The operator would sit in a flight simulator, controlling the remote aircraft.

Mozilla Hubs is Too Much Like Life

Mozilla Hubs Example

Greetings from the weekly ASCILITE MLSIG meeting, where we are trying out Mozilla Hubs. This is similar to Second Life (SL) with a Virtual Reality (VR) environment students can explore and interact in. It is easier to set up the SL and worked okay on my mobile phone. This included the augmented reality feature of allowing me to look around the virtual space by waving my phone around. However, the examples given are a little too literal, as was with Second Life (and perhaps lead to its demise, with deserted virtual campuses). A VR representation of a "real" library, with a card catalog, or a "real" courtroom, is not that useful, as at present real libraries are online (they have not had card catalogues for decades) and real courtrooms are online by video conference, without oak paneled benches. What might be more intesting would be something like CSIRO's project to control a real industrial robot with VR. 

Previously I thought Remo Conference had too crude a 2D representation of a conference room. However, by abstracting what is important and eliminating irrelevant details, this makes for a more useful interface than many VR implementations, which have too much irrelevant detail and reliance on the real world physics. 

Another problem is that Hubs would not work on my laptop. I was able to hear participants but not see the VR space. On my relatively new smart phone I could see the VR space, but not hear anyone. My low speed broadband was able to cope, but only just. I suggest that Hubs and similar applications, including Remo, build in low speed options which forgo the fancy interface for something which will work for more users.

EduTech Asia with Avatars

Eric Hawkinson's avatar

In 2018 I talked on flexible classrooms and energy use at EduTech Asia in Singapore. It is not certain when the next face to face event will be held due to COVID-19. But a series of free video conference based sessions are being held. At the moment there is one on immersive technology (also known as eXtended Reality), combining augmented, virtual reality. Eric Hawkinson got my attention. After talking about avatars, Eric's  live video image was suddenly replaced by an animated cartoon character, who's month moved to match what he was saying.

Something I did not expect is that EduTech sent me a signed certificate of attendance.  I guess I can use this towards the 30 hours Certified Professional Development I have to do to keep my Australian Computer Society status.

ps: I prepared a talk for EduTech 2020, but don't know when, where, or how, I will get to present it:

Coronavirus Response with Flexible Learning

Images used under a Creative Commons License.

https://link.attribute.to/cc/921668

In 2016, as part of research on higher education, Tom Worthington identified the risk to Australian universities from a sudden disruption of the flow of international students to Australia. To mitigate this risk, he developed an approach combining blending e-learning with flexible classrooms. This was trialed during 2019 in the new Marie Reay Teaching Centre at the Australian National University, and is now being implemented in response to the COVID-19 Coronavirus. All students access the same e-learning materials, including e-books, videos, quizzes, and discussion forums. There are then on-campus workshops in classrooms which can be quickly reconfigured for different teaching formats. Students who are unable to get tho the workshops in person, have the option of participating online. This approach allows one course design and one building design to be used for classes mixing on-campus and remote students.

pps: This also allows  for a gradual return to the classroom after a COVID-19 outbreak. It is not feasible to set a deadline when all classes return to "normal" campus-based teaching. Rather than having all students stop online learning at once and return to campus on the same day. On-campus components can be gradually added. However, the online components can be retained, in case of future emergencies, and to cater for individual student needs.

Defence Industry Workshop on Extended Reality in Canberra, 5 November

The ANU College of Engineering and Computer Science is hosting a Defence Industry Workshop on XR, Tuesday 5 November. Defence and government organizations, as well as industry, and academia. are invited to attend. The Australian National University (ANU), is investigating the establishment of an Extended Reality Cooperative Research Center (XR-CRC) with other universities.  The term XR includes augmented reality, virtual reality, and other forms of computer generated simulations, using wearable, and other technology. For more details contact Dr Penny Kyburz, Senior Lecturer, Human-Centred Computing, ANU CECS.

Loyal Wingman supersonic fighter UAV

ps: One use for XR could be to provide an interface for high performance UAVs, such as the proposed Loyal Wingman supersonic aircraft. With this approach the remote operator would sit in a flight simulator, controlling the remote aircraft. The movement of the simulator would provide additional feedback, needed for fast decision making in combat.The simulator could be made small enough to be loaded on-board and operated from the aircraft being protected, such as the KC-30A tanker.

pps:  It happens I was the Defence representative on a joint industry project to produce a graphical user interface in the early 1990s. Unfortunately the Web came along and made our work obsolete. ;-)

Derelict Campuses In Virtual Reality

Drop Box

Before getting too excited about virtual reality (VR) for education, read Patrick Hogan's "We took a tour of the abandoned college campuses of Second Life" (13 August 2015). In this he looks at virtual campuses set up with much fanfare and then left abandoned when they were found to not be popular, or useful. These have the feel of the real empty schools in the documentary "Abandoned: St Louis Schools".

These educational institutions tried to emulate a real campus in the virtual world, which I think is missing the point. VR should be used to overcome the limitations in face-to-face education, not reproduce those limitations (and introduce more of its own).

On real campuses, education is becoming virtual. Creating VR representations of obsolete physical campus facilities will just confuse students. As an example, reproducing a library card index (which some VR environments have done) makes no sense, as most students have never seen, let alone used, a real card index.

When I was an on-line student in North America, a couple of years ago, the instructor told my class to submit our assignments in the "drop box".  So I looked on the course web page for a link to the Dropbox file hosting service, but there was none. It turned out the instructor was using the term "drop box" generically and we were using the Moodle assignment module. My confusion was in part because the term "drop box" is not used in Australia, but also because it had been a decade since I had to put a printed-on-paper assignment in a physical box. In a VR environment having a box with a slot in the top would be even more confusing for a student who has never seen such a box.

VR as an Educator

Came across an old sterograph captioned: “The stereograph as an educator ":

"Underwood patent extension cabinet in a home library … Photograph shows a woman viewing stereographs in her home; she is sitting in front of a fireplace with a cabinet for stereographs on her right.”

So I printed a copy of this sterograph and taped it over a hold cut in my Google Cardboard. This turns the virtual reality device into an old fashioned stereograph, showing VR from the Victorian era. ;-)