Recently my friend wrote to be and asked about augmented
reality. I want to share with you some short, quick thoughts about augmented reality in schools.
“I’m looking for some cool usage of AR for kids about
12-years old. I’ve checked different projects on the internet but all of them
seems like dreams. Am I looking wrong?” This simple question made me thinking
about this problem, because this is a very big problem of augmented reality. He
didn’t find anything because we are not using AR in our schools. Let us be honest,
today`s children are much different than kids from 80`s and 90`s. They were/are
growing up with smartphones and tablets in their hands and it looks like our
schools are forgetting about that.
Why we are not using this fantastic technology to help our
kids ? Don’t get me wrong, I love books, I really thing that we need to teach
our kids to read them and to love them, they should never be forgotten but
there are a lot of things that can be improved by augmented reality in terms of
teaching. We can use the technology to show richer content, to provide better
ways for understanding complicated issues.
I’m sure that augmented reality will arrive to schools
sooner or later. I’m also sure that it will be rather later and I can’t
understand that. There are no technological barriers. Spend just 5 minutes with
google and you will find multiple projects of “augmented books” or “augmented
sandboxes” and many more. But no body want to invest into that, no body want to
provide it to wider audience. Why ? Because we are afraid ? Because we do not
know how to use it ? Because it is an experiment ? Even if we will answer on
all those questions “yes”, we need to try, we need to search. We need to
remember that even the longest trip always begins from one small step.
According to OECD and theirs latest report there is a limit. Everybody will agree that new technologies are very helpful in education but according to mentioned report, if there is too much of computers and technologies, results of students are getting lower.
New technologies are important
Recently I wrote about role and possibilities related with new technologies - like augmented reality (Technology in education is the future) - in education. As for, education system is one of parts of our lives where we need to think and talk about computers, gadgets, new ideas. Lets be honest, education of young minds is very important for all of us, our future often depends on them.
But we can't substitute all of "old school" elements like books, paper, hand writing with new technologies. I love augmented reality, it gives a lot of new possibilities, but we can't limit kids only to virtual presentations like we can't limit them only to books and lecture. We need to find a point in perfect position between this two, very different options.
System need to evolve
Education system need to evolve like we all do, it need to adapt to current possibilities, current needs and trends. But it also need to remember about basic - not so simple - skills like hand writing or books. Nowadays I often see that young people have no idea what standard, paper encyclopedia is and how to use it. As for me, this is disaster.
New technology is not a threat, it should not be banned from schools, but as the report shown, it should be used with care. The only possible solution is to rethink everything and try to find out how to connect the old part, with the new part.
Augmented reality isn't new technology. It is with us from a long time now and still we're not even close to use full potential of it. On one side this is great, because it still fascinates a lot of people, it allows us to search for new possibilities. On the other hand....we want more ! and we want it now !
In this article I want to describe 3 main paths of augmented reality, paths that will close this technology to common people in their daily behavior. The best thing is that this paths are already known, but as for me, not used in 100% yet.
1. Moving in city
What can be more common than moving in city? In the city that you're living, or in the city in witch you're on a business trip or on holidays. There is always something to search, something to find.
Now imagine that in front f your eye you see something similar to the picture above. It is much easier to find the thing that your looking for. Isn't it ? It is much easier to navigate. You don't even need your glasses, smartphone with function like this is more than enough.
This also opens new way to advertise your business. Virtual signs, virtual signboards, visible from couple of kilometers. Visible when needed. Interactive advert that allow to promote best things for people that are near is a bigger chance for getting them. If you combine that with collecting interesting data you can set advert according to person interests. Everything described above will help to navigate and move in the city, and cities nowadays are getting bigger and bigger. Amount of services, shops, interesting places, interesting things is getting harder to embrace by regular person.
This kind of application should also support help related to public transport. In days when traffic jam is a regular day in city, public transport is getting more and more important. There is a lot of applications that help you plan your trip by displaying info about which bus and when you should use, where and when you should change it etc. But all this are only static information. It should adapt, it should inform you when there is possibility to change the route on better or faster one. You don't need to do it, but you can, and that is why you should be inform. Marking stops, showing time of arrival, all this is a must have in future city, all this will make life a bit easier.
2. Interactive magazine
Who read Harry Potter? Who watched the movie about the little wizard? Do you remember how newspapers looked? They were animated by magik, pictures there were like live scene. Awsome thing is that you don't need magic for that.
Look at this:
or this
Why adverts can't look like this in a regular newspaper or magazine ? Why we're not using so commonly already? Isn't this much better? Everybody complains that they hate ads, but to be honest, everybody is looking on them and even are checking the content. For this people this should be made, if you want to sell a good product and you want to promote it in a good way, do it in a right way! This is much more interesting, it allow to deliver much more information to potential customer, and ads are all about that.
Ok lets talk less about money. Everybody is talking that traditional newspapers are dying. Everybody is looking for information in the internet, they can read there, they can see more pictures, they can watch movie with more information. Augmented reality allows to put all of this in a simple, daily newspaper. The most interesting facts can be upgraded by adding movies, or virtual gallery for it on the screen of your smartphone. Think about that!
3. Museums and not only
Did you every think how some streets looked 10, 20, 50 years ago ? Standard museum is to boring for you ? Augmented reality already have solutions for that and I really hope it will evolve more and more in this direction.
There is a lot of projects sponsored by museums that allow you to look and today places in different way and it is a great news. People nowadays often forget about the past, about lessons provided by history. Technology is moving forward very fast but that does not allow us to forget about the things that passed, about places, people, moments, events. We can learn a lot from our history. We need to remember. Augmented reality open new doors for that. It helps to interest kids with things that couple years ago were to boring for them. Look at examples below:
Isn't it awesome ? Look at people faces. Everybody are thrilled, everybody is interested. Passing knowledge, learning don't need to be boring, it by fascinating, interesting, it really can be cool. Augmented reality should be developed in this branch, we need to find more and more usages of it in name of history, knowledge and education
To be honest, from my point of view, if you compare education from 20-30 years behind and now, you won't see any significant changes. I'm not talking here about the things that are taught but the way how the knowlege is passed from teacher to pupil. I think that video and audio materials, are the biggest change. But that isn't much.
I think that now it should start changing in really fast way. Technology is moving forward, it is more and more common and not so expensive. Nowadays a lot of kids has their own smartphones, and even a kid with a tablet isn't something shocking and we need to remember that because technology is going so much forward, kids also expect something new and better from school.
Lets talk about tech trends that can or for sure will come to schools.
1. Augmented reality
This is my number one. Imagine simple and small computer with camera, and textbooks loaded with graphics. You can show graphic to camera and see on screen a 3D model of human body, you can rotate it, check from every angle. Isn't this much more interesting then simple and flat drawing ? Now lets go a step further and allow our students to interact with this 3D object, move one part, look inside. Isn't this a much better way to learn how the machines works ? I really hope this will soon be available in schools.
2. Internet of things and wearable technology
Do you want to tag and gather information outside of the school? No problem. Do you want to know something about the objects in the classroom? Come on just click it ! You will receive all the information that you need. This is how Cisco see it:
The wearable technology can help to increase safety of kids in school. It can monitor most important data and if there is any danger it will instantly inform appropriate persons. It can allow to use gamification in schools.
Currently kids move a lot less than in the past. This trend makes a lot of them thicker. Our whole society is getting thicker. Technology and gamification can help stop this trend in the early phase. It can help to teach kids that health is very important and can teach them how to care about it.
Lets go further, smart glasses, smart gloves with sensor....all of that can help them to understand the world and collect information in new, funnier, more interesting way.
3. 3D printing
3D printers are getting chipper and chipper, they are now more available then couple years ago. This is creating new branch of business and education. Schools should also follow this trend. Printing parts of cars, houses and even planes or drones is happening now. Kids should learn about that.
Other aspect of 3D printing is that it allow to learn in a better way about objects that in the past were only in the book or in the computer. Now you can print it fully, or only some parts of them to better know the internal structure. It is a new and better way to visualise the same material.
4. Virtual class room
This is something that already is happening and this is something that helps a lot of people. The only thing you need is a good audio and video equipment. Not everybody can afford to study on MIT or Harvard even if he should. Not everybody can leave his family to move to other country to study there. Why we want to waste so big potential ? Why we don't want to help people that are disabled in some way ? No body has a problem to make a business meeting over the Skype or something similar. Lets do the same in college. Virtual class room is not a new concept but it still not as popular as it should. It can help a lot of people with out changing the whole concept. On my academy we had subjects that were conducted 100% over the internet and this was a very good idea. I can say on using my experience that it is working and it is working very good.
If you see any new and interesting trend for education please share. I think this are the most important. I hope education soon will change, will adapt because how people can teach if they can't adapt to current reality.
