La Trobe University swaps textbooks for VR and AR
The 12-week pilot aims to help students improve spatial awareness, explorative learning, and accessibility to 3D anatomical images.
I’ll be curious to find out how well these students perform compared to others who learn via more traditional means. On the surface, the use of these technologies make a lot of sense.
I’m trying to think of the faculty here at the College of IST to see if there are any potential applications of xR (or Extended Reality encompassing Virtual Reality / Augmented Reality / Mixed Reality) in our classrooms. Even if there were possible use cases, implementation would be much more difficult since there aren’t likely to be any existing off-the-self options for content. Anatomy has been studied for well over two millennia (source) and has amassed a huge amount of content related pedagogical approaches. Digital technology is growing so quickly that the content rapidly becomes obsolete. We would need to find a solution that would allow for rapid xR development. Apple and others claim that we are now able to do this, but I have yet to research the options.
I think the best use cases would be the introduction complex spacial or virtual concepts. Perhaps being able to “see” how web packets move through the internet while encountering various forms of hardware and software along the way. If that visualization could be contextualize to a desktop computer, for instance, sitting on the desk to include the “cloud” around them would be pretty cool. I think it would be pretty cool to use a virtual Enigma Machine to see how substitution encryption works. One would not only be able to change the rotors and encrypt / decrypt messages, but be able to disassemble the machine to see how it worked.
One possible piece of almost-existing content that might be incorporated could be an xR version of a working Minecraft computer. We don’t teach computer sciences courses here, but how awesome is this project?!
Moving way outside of our subject matter area, I would think that astronomy classes might be the next frontier to pilot this kind of pedagogical approach – replacing textbooks with xR technologies.
…there are plans to expand the technology to be used for all anatomy courses, including physiotherapy, podiatry, and speech pathology at all La Trobe university campuses…