New 3D & Wearable Devices for Learning

In 2014 we saw an explosion of suddenly affordable cutting-edge devices hit the consumer market and some learning designers and researchers are already bringing them into real and virtual classrooms.  If you missed out on some of these game-changing devices and what they might do for learning, check out the following 2-minute cheat sheet.

Note: Special thanks to Jim Cook & Jai Honeybrook-Carter at the Innovation TechLab at the University of Sydney, Rob Manson & Alex Young at BuildAR, and to the staff at the Powerhouse Museum for sharing their experiences, showing off their gadgets, and catalyzing change.

Holograms - the future of Learning?

Why skip class for a 3D game when you could be missing out on holograms back in the lecture hall? Doctors Kapil Sugand and Pedro Campos of St. George's Hospital and Imperial College in London, developed a technique to project 4 meter tall holographic urinary tract systems, skulls and other biological artifacts direct into the classroom.  Their goal is to improve medical education through innovative multimedia teaching methods that can be used to supplement traditional methods.  According to BBC news, "The pair have spent £10,000 building up a small library of 3D animation lecture aids - including a sequence which outlines the various effects of malaria on different parts of the human body."  That would certainly get me to lecture.

Find more at the HALO project page.

Gaming for science

Supporting cancer research is undoubtedly important, but playing computer puzzle games is undoubtedly more fun.  The makers of Foldit have literally managed to combine the two by building a game around the problem of deciphering protein structures, and then letting this scientific challenge loose on the world.

Fold-It takes crowdsourcing and educational gaming up a serious notch. Not only do budding scientists (or the armchair variety like myself) get to learn about what it takes to fold a protein, they get to be part of serious research and discovery.  In fact, it has already worked.

In 2011, FoldIt players deciphered the crystal structure of the Mason-Pfizer monkey virus, marking the game's first major scientific discovery.  Overtime, players could conceivably make discoveries that contribute to treatments for AIDS, Alzheimer's, or to better biofuels.  No, mom, I really am saving the world.

Foldit is just one of many interesting jewels spawned at the University of Washington's Centre for Game Science, which "focuses on solving hard problems facing humanity today in a game based environment".  Now, that's what I'm talkin' about. They do this, primarily, by combining what computers do best with what humans do best (creative puzzle solving, for example, which is leveraged en masse with Foldit).   So go play their other games.  No guilt required.

Learning in Virtual Worlds - 10 year review

Photo credit: Torley

What have we learned in the last ten years about learning in 3D virtual environments?   Are they worth the significant resources required to build them?  Do students learn better in them, and how do teachers feel about them?  Mikropoulos and Natsis conducted a review of the research over the last decade to help us find out.  Here is an informal summary of their findings...

The ideal workspace - online and off

A recent article in Scientific American Mind features research into how the decoration of office space can make people more productive. Is it inspiration posters, indoor camp grounds and an in-house beer fridge vs. the veneer cubicle?

And what can this tell us about online spaces for work and learning?

3D animated movies for learning in minutes

From the desktop to the classroom, teachers are dabbling in DIY animation cause, heck, why not. Be it 2D, 3D or stop motion, animations, and the act of animating, can become a central part of learning, even, apparantly, in primary school. One favored tool is xtranormal STATE which turns text into a 3D animated movie and it's completely free. Write your story, pick your characters and get dragging and dropping. Of course, it's only available on Windows. D-oh!
If you're happy with 2D, you can still make instant movies with the web-based GoAnimate which is kind of like playing with color forms online - only now they have dialogue, camera moves, visual effects and celebrity faces. Remember color forms!? (Nostalgic sigh....)