The Educational Technology team recently got their hands on one of Google’s Project Tango VR development kits to explore the impact that this new technology might have on learning. We’re undertaking a series of pilot studies with our academic departments focussing on use of the technology to open up new avenues and concepts of space to staff and students. Virtual exhibitions, area mapping, and deeper exploration of learning concepts in practice based disciplines are all examples of how the technology might be used.
So what is it? Project Tango is a Google technology platform that uses computer vision to enable mobile devices, such as smartphones and tablets, to detect their position relative to the world around them without using GPS or other external signals. In short, it’s a mobile device with depth sensors and lasers.
There are various technologies; HoloLens, MagicLeap, iPad apps, that enable augmented and virtual reality where currently either price or functionality are a barrier to entry. This makes it harder to innovate within the University environment. The project tango development kit is built around the android operating system which opens it out to an existing community of developers and users and promotes new development and innovation.
The first pilot is taking place with the Institute of Photography and we expect this to run throughout 2016. We’ve starting blogging about it over at tango.falmouth.website, so look over there for updates as things progress. If you’re interested in finding out more or having a go with the device, contact the team.
Virtual Reality has been tipped to make great strides in the technology industry over the last few years. Big names like Samsung, HTC, Google and Facebook have attached themselves to the tech, and released some pretty powerful kit.
Virtual reality was originally developed for the immersive experience in film, then leading to flight simulators (in the late 1920’s), through to the 1960’s when the first head mounted virtual reality display was developed. At this point though, it was designed to immerse the user into pictures and film with no interaction.
Skip forward a few decades, and we move into the 1990’s when games started to be developed for users’ immersion into the worlds being created (Sega and Nintendo being the leaders…) where interactivity was key. And who could forget The Matrix! A film where characters live in a fully simulated world, and a good number of them are completely unaware that they don’t live in the ‘real world’.
From a learning point of view there is plenty we can do with this type of technology, especially in the creative contexts that we specialise in at Falmouth.
Immersion into environments that are not yet created is a major win for the creative industries. For example, the architecture industry makes use of VR to navigate through spaces and buildings to demo spaces to clients, and walk through proposals throughout the design stages. There are even some companies who will take architectural plans and turn them into fully immersive virtual reality visualisations. They then provide their clients with Oculus Rift headsets and host walkthroughs of the plans. Have a look at the archdaily VR pages to see what’s happening in this area.
An interesting concept is VR art. Tiltbrush for the HTC Vive (interesting that it’s not an android app as it’s developed by Google) allows you to “paint in 3D virtual reality”, and they say that “Your room is your canvas. Your palette is your imagination. The possibilities are endless.” That all sounds a bit aspirational doesn’t it, but it would be interesting to hear an expert’s opinion if anyone has tried it or seen it used anywhere?
Another growing field in VR is fieldtrips. With the improvement in graphical representations of landscapes and detail virtual reality fieldtrips are becoming more popular in education. They serve to prepare a person for a trip, re-cap details of a trip, or even replace the trip and give users the ability to visit areas they would not usually have the chance to. Dr Naomi Holmes (Sheffield Hallam), Dr Scott Turner (Northampton) and I conducted a small scale research project a couple of years ago in this field.
Inbuilt within Learning Space is the option of multiple reports that track activity within a module page. This monitoring feature can be particularly useful if you are wanting to gain an insight into the popularity of content or to track use of a activity, such an assessment hand-in point.
Tracking engagement and module activity helps teaching staff to reflect on the activities and resources made available to students through the learning environment. As an example using the Activity report academic staff are able to check the amount of views per resource, along with most last accessed information. Using this information staff are able to assess and evaluate content, in addition to keeping resources current.
Reports can also be used to track an individual’s engagement, highlighting their activity or actions of a specific resource. Additionally real time reports are available should you need specific information, detailed to the minute they are particularly useful for monitoring online assessment.
Should you wish to make use of the report function within Learning Space we’ve created a guide to give an overview of all the options available, and as always the team are on hand to advise if you have any questions or queries.
In this series of articles, the Educational Technology team will be providing an insight into existing practice using technology for learning and teaching at Falmouth University and various projects being undertaken within the sector.
Inclusivity, by definition, means that everyone regardless of origin, background or ability is included in whatever activity it is that is being delivered. So, inclusive practice is about making sure that technology is used to create activities and materials that everyone can access and make use of. But it is also about using pedagogical techniques that ensure everyone can get involved and their contributions are valued equally, whilst making the most of individual strengths for the benefit of the whole group.
Inclusive practice within teaching may include providing online course content in a variety of formats and making this accessible on a variety of devices. The Open University have recently implemented a system to present VLE content in accessible formats and tools such as Gitbook facilitate publishing material in web, pdf and ebook formats. You might also find our post on re-designing learning content for online delivery useful in this regard.
Where large amounts of text are used, Educators might consider a screen capture using Snagit or an audio recording with Vocaroo. A transcript should also be provided and for video, services like Youtube and Vimeo provide automated closed captioning. For presentations, recording a Movenote to accompany the powerpoint will enable students to refer back to the lecture material and you might encourage your students to make use of tools like Cogi to record their own notes.
Key to an ‘outstanding’ institutional approach is to involve students with a diverse set of needs in developing the digital environment and that all technological investments consider the impact on access, inclusion and equality.
JISC have also published some helpful guides on getting started with accessibility and providing an inclusive HE experience. The inclusive HE would; ensure that lecture/seminar materials are available online prior to the lecture, provide an institutional means of lecture capture, support students in note taking and in their own lecture capture and provide policy on the creation of learning materials and accessibility standards.
Many universities have already made progress in promoting inclusion, Oxford Brooks, Plymouth University and the University of Sheffield are just some of the institutions who have provided guidance for staff to help develop better academic practice in this area.
At Falmouth, the team are working with our BA (Hons) Business Entrepreneurship staff and students to reimagine large text resources, traditionally given as core reading. Learners are co-creating video, audio and interactive images formats that make the learning more accessible and facilitate development of new skills in media production.
Bhagat, D & O’Neill, P (2011) Inclusive Practices, Inclusive Pedagogies: Learning from Widening Participation Research in Art & Design Higher Education CHEAD/ Ukadia Croydon
MoodleMoot is the annual conference for users of Moodle and the 22nd-24th March saw the UK event take place in Dublin. Falmouth’s Learning Space, like the majority of VLEs in the UK is built upon Moodle, so it is an excellent opportunity to find out more about upcoming features and how other HEIs are using the platform.
The first day usually takes the form of a HackFest, where participants explore and develop with Moodle functionality. Key themes for this year were Learning Analytics, Assessment and MOOC Design.
The main conference begins on day two with themes including Adoption where Middlesex University talked about inclusive learning, academic and professional service partnerships and analytics tools like Tableau to monitor and drive engagement. Within the Develop strand, the Open University presented on their new theme and also developing a tool to deliver VLE material in multiple formats which provides better accessibility for students. Check out the OU #Mootie16 write up for more. The importance of User Experience (UX) design and usability testing was also raised. Administration covered Southampton Solent’s approach to rollover and why they don’t undertake it (each module having a start and end date, students and staff can then access old modules up to 3 years).
The Moodle website documents some of the major features of the platform. Contact the team if you are interested to use these within your course. In addition, twice a year the community runs a the Learn Moodle MOOC that helps educators create courses and learning activities and peer review the work of colleagues across the globe.
