From the moment you open the browser, you will be presented with immersive experiences that can be enjoyed on a VR headset directly from the Firefox Reality browser. We are working with creators around the world to bring an amazing collection of games, videos, environments, and experiences that can be accessed directly from the home screen.
Earlier this week, Apple ($NASDAQ:AAPL) acquired augmented reality (AR) lens and glasses company Akonia Holographics ($AKONIAHOLOGRAPHICS), which spawned plenty of speculation on Apple getting serious about AR.
Augmented reality overlays digital information over the real world and differs from virtual reality (VR), where the whole environment is simulated. Akonia describes its AR product as “thin, transparent smart glass lenses that display vibrant, full-color, wide field-of-view images.”
“Digital maps have become essential tools of our everyday lives, yet despite their ubiquity, they are still in their infancy. From urban mobility to indoor positioning, from LIDAR to Augmented Reality, advances in technology and new kinds of data are powering innovations in all areas of digital mapping. If you love maps and are passionate about what is possible, you will be in great company.”
Thirty students registered for Arizona State University Online’s general biology course are using ASU-supplied virtual reality (VR) headsets for a variety of required lab exercises
The VR equipment, which costs ASU $399 per student, allows learners to complete lab assignments in virtual space using goggles and a controller to maneuver around a simulated lab. Content for the online course was developed and assessed by ASU biology professors and was evaluated this summer. Students also can use their own VR headsets and access the content on their laptops, as 370 other students are doing.
A university official told Campus Technology the initiative will help online students have the experiences provided in brick-and-mortar labs as well as new ones that were impossible previously. The effort also will ease a problem on campus with limited lab space.
Similar labs are planned for the University of Texas at San Antonio and McMaster University in Canada, according to a blog post from Google, which partnered with the ed-tech company Labster to create the virtual labs. In addition, virtual labs also are available at eight community colleges in California, offering IT and cybersecurity skills instruction.
About half of colleges have space dedicated to VR, with adoption expected to increase as technology costs go down, according to a recent survey by nonprofit consortium Internet2. The survey found that 18% of institutions have “fully deployed” VR and are increasingly making it available to online students, while half are testing or have not yet deployed the technology.
Colleges are using VR for a variety of purposes, from classroom instruction to admissions recruiting to career training.
In addition, because the use of VR is growing in K–12 education, students will expect to use it in college.
eXtended Reality (XR): The New World of Human/Machine Interaction
Wednesday, October 31 | 9:45am – 10:30am MT |
Session Type: Breakout Session
Delivery Format: Interactive Presentation
eXtended reality (XR) technologies present opportunities to advance the higher education mission and prepare students for a new world of human/machine interaction. In this interactive session, we will explore what is being done today and what is possible in four key areas of XR: use, technology, content development, and gamification.
Outcomes:
*Identify best-of-class tools and methods available for the design and support of XR in higher ed
* Explain to campus stakeholders the potential of XR to support pedagogy, research, and student success
* Understand the areas of focus of our growing XR community of practice and how you can participate
Many museums now offer makerspaces and after-school programs, and universities have developed low-cost materials to spark students’ imagination and interest, such as the Carnegie Mellon CREATE Lab
Art museums throughout the world offer virtual tours sorted by collection, artist or decade.
After one of these rich experiences, students can use free resources, such as Skype in the Classroom, to connect with experts to engage in scholarly dialogue to make their experience more meaningful and academically relevant or to interact with learners in other parts of the world.
Augmented reality adds computer-generated content as a contextual overlay to the real world. This technology, often powered by devices we already carry, has enormous applications for training and development.
Virtual Reality
Virtual reality has existed for decades, but technology has finally emerged that makes it truly accessible. VR allows us to put learners in a truly immersive environment, creating entirely new opportunities for training and learning.
Expanded Realities
AR and VR are just the start of the alternate-reality conversation. There are additional technologies that we can use on their own or as part of a blend with AR and VR to increase the level of immersion in the experiences we create.
Augmented reality is a variation of virtual environments, but has a few added advantages for special needs learning. With virtual environments the user is completely immersed in a virtual world and cannot see the real environment around him or her. This may cause some confusion for special needs learners and can hinder learning. In contrast, augmented reality allows the user to see the real world with virtual objects superimposed upon or composited with the real world. This provides the greatest benefit as learners remain part of the world around them and learn easily.
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more on the topic
Muñoz, Silvia Baldiris Navarro and Ramón, “Gremlings in My Mirror: An Inclusive AR-Enriched Videogame for Logical Math Skills Learning”, Advanced Learning Technologies (ICALT) 2014 IEEE 14th International Conference on, pp. 576-578, 2014.
the power of VR goes beyond simply recruiting. The University of Michigan uses the technology as a learning tool, and by instituting a virtual reality “cave” they’ve allowed engineering students to interact with virtual structures as they “come together, buckle and collapse.” Instead of relying on physical models—which tend to be large, expensive, and slow to build—a student using the MIDEN VR cave can fly around a virtual structure to study mechanical connections.
