Page 8 - Campus Technology, April/May 2017

INTERACTIVE LEARNING
University students collaborated with peers at the Politehnica University of Timisoara in Romania to create and examine augmented reality artifacts.
overlaying the yard lines and direction of play on a view of the field in the Super Bowl is a popular example of augmented reality in the sports industry. Mobile devices bring this technology home, as we can now scan some advertisements
Many schools are using augmented or virtual reality as part of the educational experiences they provide, but most make use of examples provided by instructors or textbook publishers, in the form of interactive flash cards or textbooks. Having students create augmented reality examples of their own is pretty new, and is another way to incorporate the use of students’ own mobile devices into the classroom.
Beyond augmented reality tools, our project had students using and developing skills with many web-based communication and collaboration tools, from sharing files using cloud storage services such as Dropbox, Google Drive or OneDrive, to using the web for research, to creating and posting videos using Vine and YouTube. So while various social media, communication, research and collaboration tools came into the mix, the centerpiece was AR, and the key to our methodology was having our students create, share and demonstrate their own AR examples.
At Bentley, we’ve also played with virtual reality in an informal educational context, using Google Cardboard viewers. Virtual reality usually requires wearing some type of headset in order to have that totally immersive experience. Students took 360-degree photos of the campus using their phones, and we showed these images to incoming students at their fall orientation. The phones are inserted into the viewer, and use a special app to display the photos in 360-degree view. It was sort of like a virtual campus tour, as students had to
identify the locations they saw. Many had never experienced virtual reality before, either, so this was a fun way to introduce that technology.
CT: Besides the important goal of student learning, did you as faculty have research questions as part of this project?
Frydenberg: Yes, we had specific research goals. We wanted to see what tools students would use to create augmented reality examples, and if doing so would enhance their understanding of its applications.
CT: Did you give students the option to choose their own tools and try out their own practices?
Frydenberg: The element of choice was important not only for our research, but for the basic pedagogical approach of the project. The important thing here is that Diana and I didn’t tell our students which tools they had to use for this project. They had to figure that out for themselves, and in that way, this became a very personal learning experience. All we asked them to do was prepare an augmented reality example, and create a video showing it. We did have them use ThingLink to share their results.
Each group was assigned an industry, such as education,
or magazine articles using a specialized app, and see additional text, video or images to enhance that content.
We had our students focus on augmented reality because there are many tools available they could use to create their own augmented reality examples, though they also ended up learning about many different and diverse technologies in this assignment. Each team had to research some aspect of augmented reality and demonstrate an augmented reality example they created to their international partners.
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CAMPUS TECHNOLOGY | April/May 2017
Bentley University