Mixed Reality Brings New Life to K–12 Classrooms
I found this article while mining for information about AR and VR applications in the classroom. I was drawn to this article as it showcases the benefits and real-life applications of these technologies in the classroom. The main appeal of VR, AR or even Mixed Reality is the ability to create and sustain engagement and participation in students. I am a firm believer that learning cannot take place without fully involving students in the process. Of course, there are different ways to achieve participation and engagement. Some might say that mobile or computer games are quite good at doing so. However with VR, AR and Mixed Reality, students get to truly immerse themselves in a specific environment that eventually leads to meaningful learning. Furthermore, the author also mentioned the main issues concerning these new technologies and the challenge of incorporating them in the classroom. Below you will find a link to this article.
https://edtechmagazine.com/k12/article/2018/09/mixed-reality-brings-new-life-k-12-classrooms-perfcon
Hi Carla,
I like your perspective on this matter and I will try to answer most of your questions. I think these technologies can profoundly influence students’ learning because it suits different styles of learners. If you are a visual or auditory learner, what a great way to see and hear useful information. In most applications, students can even interact with the system and move objects around which accommodate kinesthetic learners. Is it expensive right now? It is quite expensive to incorporate VR at the moment as one has to purchase a VR headset to join this new exciting learning experience. But the price has been decreasing rapidly and with the growing interest in this field , I expect the price to fall drastically. However you are right about the accessibility of this product which brings us to AR. Again, you are spot on with AR being more accessible and it would be easier to implement in the classroom because most students nowadays have a smartphone. Additionally, there are multiple programs around the world giving students from disadvantaged areas the chance to study with a tablet.
The issue about content is discussed in the article. Major educational companies are now working on expanding the topics available and making content more relevant as they anticipate this field to boom in the next 5 years. Furthermore, the article stipulated that students could themselves be a great source of content.
Hi Pascaline, thanks for the response. It’s great that companies are paying attention to the need for good content, I just hope that in future we will see some studies that investigate exactly how students learn in these environments e.g. are the advantages of AR the same as VR and what are the requirements in terms of interactivity needed to ensure they create a lasting impact on learning or even when is there too much stimulation in these experiences? So much to learn in this field but it’s very exciting and I agree that we will see more of this technology in future.
Hi Pascaline, I am in total agreement that active student involvement is crucial for learning with VR, AR and Mixed Reality holding great potential to help achieve that. I was wondering though whether you think any of these technologies hold a greater potential to influence education over the others? One could argue as an example that currently VR technologies (if you want to have a fully immersive experience and have some kind of interaction in the experience) require rather expensive headsets and gear (yes, there is Google Cardboard but they do not give a 360 immersive experience and don’t offer much options for interaction with the VR world simulated) which then becomes an issue when we think about accessibility in education. This will change over time of course but by then who knows what the next hot topic might be.
Even more important than the gear perhaps will be the design of the VR/ AR/ Mixed Reality content to consider- the experience will probably fall flat if the design of the content wasn’t spot on and that will impact the sense of immersion and presence felt by the student if that is what were after when we implement this technology. For that we also need a good understanding of what learning takes place in these different environments (are they the same? Does one hold an advantage over the other when it comes to certain content, are there long term memory studies to understand how this learning might be differentiated from other kinds of learning experiences etc.). When that connection can be established on what makes for a good VR/ AR/ Mixed Realty learning experience, it can then enable teachers and other educators to pick the right apps and experiences for their students to interact with. There is certainly a lot more thought that needs to go into using such content in a classroom than simply acquiring the technology and downloading apps. I personally think that AR holds the greatest potential at the moment as it can be facilitated with a mobile device which immediately allows more access to the technology, it’s also portable and can be accessed at will since it doesn’t require VR equipment that might only be housed in a single location at school etc.