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Today is the birthday of Benjamin Bloom, educational psychologist and creator of the famous taxonomy of learning objectives. Born in 1913, Bloom was also an early proponent of mastery learning. pic.twitter.com/yrfCvKeBPk
What is AR (how is it different from VR or MR) https://blog.stcloudstate.edu/ims/2019/03/25/peter-rubin-future-presence/
p. 225
“augmented reality: Bringing artificial objects into the real world-these can be as simple as a ” heads-up display,” like a speedometer project it onto your car’s windshield, or as complex as seen to be virtual creature woke across your real world leaving room, casting a realistic shadow on the floor” https://blog.stcloudstate.edu/ims/2018/11/07/can-xr-help-students-learn/
p. 12
Augmented reality provides an “overlay” of some type over the real world through
the use of a headset or even a smartphone.
There is no necessary distinction between AR and VR; indeed, much research
on the subject is based on a conception of a “virtuality continuum” from entirely
real to entirely virtual, where AR lies somewhere between those ends of the
spectrum. Paul Milgram and Fumio Kishino, “A Taxonomy of Mixed Reality Visual Displays,
Augmented reality superimposes a digital layer on the world around us, often activated by scanning a trigger image or via GPS (think Pokemon Go!). Virtual reality takes users away from the real world, fully immersing students in a digital experience that replaces reality. Mixed reality takes augmented a step further by allowing the digital and real worlds to interact and the digital components to change based on the user’s environment.
Gamifying Library orientation using Metaverse: https://mtvrs.io/GenerousJubilantEeve
(the gateway to the Library orientation project)
Metaverse experience through the user’s phone:
Discuss the following statement:
“low-end AR (Metaverse), like low-end VR (360 degrees) has strong potential to introduce students, faculty and staff to immersive teaching and learning“
Allowing teachers to pursue their personal passions also creates a greater sense of job satisfaction, which may help with long-term retention.
Teachers also benefit from a variety of platforms through which they can pursue their advancement. Some teachers might prefer online options, such as webinars based on their interests and needs, while others could prefer working in small teacher-directed groups where they can collaborate with peers who have similar growth interests in person.
Professional development should also include a personal component that is relevant and effective. Data identifies teachers’ areas of weakness so administrators can work with them to set goals to make improvements.
But more technology doesn’t always mean better results. Within K-12 learning environments, the digital divide means that students in low-income and rural households have less access to reliable internet and fewer connected deviceson which to complete the online portions of their homework. And while Pearson’s initiative applies only to textbooks in higher ed, the shift to digital has implications at the collegiate level as well.
Just as traditional software has a thriving open source community, textbooks have Open Educational Resources, complete textbooks that typically come free of charge digitally, or for a small fee—enough to cover the printing—in hard copy. And while it’s not an entirely new concept, OER has gained momentum in recent years, particularly as support has picked up at an institutional level, rather than on a course by course basis. According to a 2018 Babson College survey, faculty awareness of OER jumped from 34 percent to 46 percent since 2015.
One of OER’s leading proponents is OpenStax, a nonprofit based out of Rice University that offers a few dozen free textbooks, covering everything from AP Biology to Principles of Accounting. In the 2019–2020 academic year, 2.7 million students across 6,600 institutions used an OpenStax product instead of a for-profit equivalent.
The knock against OER is that, well, you get what you pay for. “One faculty member told me only half-jokingly, that OER is like a puppy that’s free. You get the free puppy, but then you have to do all the work,” says Cengage’s Hansen, who argues that traditional publishers provide critical supporting materials, like assessment questions, that OER often lacks, and can push more regular updates.
By virtue of being free, OER materials also heavily skew toward digital, with hardcover as a secondary option. (Or you can download the PDF and print it out yourself.) The same caveats about efficacy apply. But at least OER doesn’t lock you into one digital platform, the way the major publishers do. OpenStax alone counts around 50 ecosystem partners to provide homework and testing support.
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Or you could always split the difference.
That’s the territory Cengage wants to stake out. Late last summer, the educational publishing behemoth—it announced a planned merger with McGraw Hill in May; the combined company would surpass all but Pearson in market capitalization—rolled out Cengage Unlimited, a “Netflix for Textbooks” model that rolls all textbook rentals and digital platform access into a single rate: $120 for a semester, $180 for a full year, or $240 for two years. Almost a year in, the US-only program has a million subscribers.
