Panel Explores “Augmented Education”: AR for Teaching and Learning

Augmented Reality Apps Offer a Unique (and Generally Inexpensive) Approach to Learning About Many Subjects

On Friday, December 8th, 2017, I got together online with three gentlemen who are involved in Augmented Reality as an educational construct, to varying degrees. We had a great discussion about this emerging technology as we explored apps, ideas, and how this exciting technology is evolving. Participants asked some great questions, which we explored.

About Shindig

As you will see when you watch the video, Shindig is a cool platform uniquely suited to this sort of interactive dialogue. Participants can chat, connect to each other in “break out session” style, and join panelists “on stage” (in the windows in the top area of the screen). Learn more about Shindig here.

Thank You so much to the great folks at Shindig for offering their services for free, so that we could host and share this discussion (with a special shout out to Patrick Senat and Resham Dhaduk who helped get this set up and helped to run it the session!).

Questions we Explored

I started the conversation with a general question, followed by specific questions for each panelist.

• Where are we seeing AR adopted most readily – is it for specific subjects, specific grade levels, and why?
• For Luis: Tell us what your experience has been with the adoption and use of GoMeta in classrooms by teachers
• For Hisham: Livit is making educational textbooks using Augmented Reality. How is this going? What subjects and grade levels have you focused on, and what does the future hold?
• For Ben: What are your observations about Augmented vs Virtual vs Mixed Reality and how that may play out in the next few years?

These questions, and their answers, led to numerous other questions from our participants which we discussed, including:

• Can the students draw and share using the programs?
• Discuss accessibility challenges.
• Can you discuss more examples of use in higher ed besides anatomy?
• How is Metaverse different form Bloxtels?
• Has there been any alignment to state education standard?
• Have you seen Chromeville?
• What about programs in multiple languages?
• The expense is a huge issue. Are there partnerships or pilots available for schools to take part in?
• Is there any professional development modules available?
• Is there a link to your presentation? (there is now, right here, and in YouTube)
• I'd like to know more about how to create my own content, if there are platforms or software available to do that (yes, Metaverse!)
• So once the program is created can it be downloaded by a student to multiple devices to share? (yes)

Augmented Realty Apps Suggested by our Panel and Participants

Anatomy 4D: http://anatomy4d.daqri.com/ (anatomy app)

Elements 4D: http://elements4d.daqri.com/ (chemisty app)

Zap Works: https://zap.works/ (create your own AR experience)

Chromville: https://chromville.com/ (science AR app and more)

Metaverse: https://gometa.io (create your own AR experience)

Pokemon Go: https://www.pokemongo.com/ (popular AR based game)

zSpace: https://zspace.com/ (dedicated AR/VR workstations for education – we wrote about zSpace here)

About the Panelists

Luis Chavez is Community Manager & Creative Producer for GoMeta, Inc. out of Los Angeles, CA. GoMeta makes it quick and easy for educators, students, etc., to create their own Augmented Reality applications with their Metaverse platform.

Hisham Hosni is Co-founder & Marketing Manager at LIVIT Studios, a company specializing in the development of Augmented and Virtual Reality applications for educational. Livit is based in Eqypt, they were founded in 2015, and they are driven by their love of new technology and their belief in the vital importance of education. Livit recently launched Imaginabooks.com (we recently share this post about their first offering).

Benjamin Fineman is the Program Manager for NET+ Video, Voice, & Collaboration Services for Internet2. An industry veteran, he is a respected topic expert with featured speaking engagements at various national and international academic conferences. Ben pays close attention to developments in AR, VR, and mixed reality (I ran into him at UB Tech 2016, where he delivered a great VR presentation).