Emerging Technologies and Augmented Reality

Steve RoseTechnology Enhanced Learning Adviser

ESCalate Academic Consultant

Emerging Technologies

Looking at developments associated with handheld computing devices.. mobile phones!

Mobile learning – ‘m-learning’

Moving away from Institutionally-owned devices and looking at what’s in (probably) every student’s pocket

‘Personalisation’

M-Learning

Developments in mobile learning (‘m-Learning’) have continued apaceThe LSC/LSN MoLeNET programme has made progress in exploiting ubiquitous handheld technologies, together with wireless and mobile phone networks to ‘facilitate, support, enhance and extend the reach of teaching and learning’.The programme involves approximately 20,000 learners and 115 staff in 115 FE colleges and 29 schools

HE / HE in FE has yet to capitalise on these developments but there are valuable lessons being learned that can readily inform teaching, learning and technology-enhanced learning strategies being developed and implemented by HEIs

Benefits associated with m-Learning

• Encourage and support learning at any time of day / location

• Facilitates personalised learning

• ‘TEL’ without location-fixed computers

• Facilitates work-based learning

• Promotes collaborative learning

• Supports evidence-gathering / work-based assessments…

Extending HE opportunity in the workplace

A ‘Case Study’ building on ESCalate-funded work carried out 2005 – 06

Somerset College (Taunton) providing HE (Foundation Degree) programmes in the workplace

Involved the employer – Somerset County Council – University (Plymouth) and local HE in FE institution (Somerset College)

Research and Development Unit

‘No strings attached: Wireless Technology in Teaching and Learning’Leon Glass Chris Kelly Steve Rose

This Project aimed to..

•Trial and evaluate the use of mobile computing and communications devices as a means of supporting learners on a new workplace-delivered Foundation Degree programme.

•Develop a ‘template’ for learning materials and teaching/learning strategies using these particular learning technologies which will be used on the new Foundation Degree and be extendable to other HE programmes.

The Foundation Degree in Transport Planning and Engineering has been developed in association with Somerset County Council.

80% of the programme will be delivered in the workplace.

An Extended Learning Environment created from the College's VLE, the University’s Portal and a variety of mobile learning (‘mLearning’) options promotes and supports a collaborative approach to teaching and learning on the programme

A more recent revolution!New and emerging mobile technologies are set to create a whole new generation of tools to enhance the learner experience.

Mobile phones are evolving into a ’ remote control for your life’ (Steve Jobs). Phones are used less and less for ‘talking’ but for accessing and interacting with an always on virtual world of texts, emails, ‘tweets’ and even the retail environment

New generation phones ‘know where they are’ and provide real-time information and interaction with the user’s world.

‘QR Codes’

‘Quick Response’

Over the coming months you will see more and more 2-dimensional barcodes appearing on products prompting you to scan with your mobile phone. Companies will be using them to advertise other products in their range of food or drink, give access to promotional offers, and a whole range of other things.

You will see them appearing in newspapers, on billboards, posters, even television shopping channels.

Interest is growing fast in this market and forward thinking companies are getting in early ready for this technology to be well publicised and take off across the Western world (it has been in use in Japan now for some years).

• Project at Bath Spa – Andy Ramsden

‘A useful way of thinking of QR codes is that they link the physical world (the poster, print out, room, or physical object) to the electronic (web resource, text information) or facilitating communication (SMSmessage, phone call). This adds value through improving the potential of makingaccess to information more efficient and effective’.

Augmented Reality

Augmented Reality overlays data on real-time images of the world e.g. through a web cam or mobile phone. Sometimes called a ‘mash up’.

The technology can also translate simple symbols into complex multimedia content via a webcam or mobile phone camera.

Data Overlays

Magic Symbol

How it works..‘Magic symbols’ trigger information stored as graphic/video files which are ‘recognised’ by a webcam or mobile phone camera and replayed as an overlay..

Applications (Tourism) - Interpretation

Let’s see if it works here!...

• 2 examples..

• Advertising – Toyota

• Entertainment – BBC’s Merlin

Benefits to Teaching and Learning?

• Useful technology for Informal Learning

• ‘Beyond the Podcast’

• Enables location-based access to data without a computer (PC)

AR and Extending the Learning Environment

• The University of Exeter is currently bidding for funding to investigate the possibility of using AR and mobile devices to interpret and interact with the rich biodiversity of its main campus – the campus as a ‘living laboratory’.

• It is proposed to use data collected by students on Bioscience degrees to create an overlay of information which can be accessed by mobile devices.

http://www.layar.com/

AR Layers

Translate data e.g. species diversity, population dynamics into graphical/visual/aural information at specific locations on campus – at its simplest a ‘nature walk’ or at a more sophisticated level a means of anchoring data to actual locations for fieldwork investigations

What’s next?

• More use made of sophisticated user-owned devices

• Greater interaction with the real world through accessing informational data

• Enhanced informal learning opportunities

• ...