Augmented Reality in Education – The next BIG thing?

Hollywood pioneered the use of Augmented Reality (AR) way before it gained popularity in the Digital front. From Sci-Fi fantasies to Dinosaurs, everything was given a fresh breath of life thanks to the advancements in AR. Over time the gaming industry sniffed an opportunity and their advent into AR, gained tremendous interest across most Tech Industries. Companies clamoured over one another and App developers went into a frenzy designing and developing AR aspects towards delivering a whole new user-experience level.

Mobility is a classic example where AR is trying hard to augment our lives for the better

Undoubtedly Augmented Reality is the next wave in the digital world and it has been gaining momentum over the last two decades. Its emergence has been inspiring and every industry today is busy exploring their advantages in AR. The effect of AR in our lives will only increase and every industry will incorporate it within their environs to touch new heights of success.

AR in Education

The Marketing and Entertainment industries were the forebearer to drive the revolution in bringing AR to our homes. Having said that, the Education Industry will surely follow suit to harvest the plethora of advantages AR has to offer. The global landscape of the Education Industry Sector is braced for the inevitable change that is waiting to happen owing to AR’s surging popularity. According to statistics, AR adoption curve for education is on the rise and expected to touch $8 Billion in market size by 2021.

AR as a technology is constantly disrupting the learning methodologies and has made it more engaging and transformational. Today, 71% of the U.S. population in the age group of 16 – 24 years use smartphones and most (if not all) of them are using them to connect on social media, gaming, shopping and other virtual activities. That is a huge population segment waiting to be converted to a customer base.

The overwhelming growth potential of AR in education is quite evident. Digital and Lively information about any topic makes complex information easier to understand. This in turn decreases your learning curve and improves your productivity.

Let us explore how AR can empower educators and learners.

Showcasing the Impossible: realizing the “Aha” moment

Imagine a live volcano or the surface of the moon or even a frazzled Tyrannosaurus Rex right in front of you, in YOUR CLASSROOM! This incredible experience is possible today with the advent of AR

The greatest aspect of this technology is that you can give today’s students an “aha” moment that earlier was not possible by mere explanations and talking. There are plenty of examples of AR content that fulfil this criterion. Have a look at the AR apps in the following video to understand how learning has been made more interactive.

Expeditions AR - Bringing the world into the classroom

Taking a step back: Why AR?

We’ve established that AR is hot right now and it is being touted for tremendous growth and utilization across industries. However, taking a step back; is it necessary? Is it really helping people, in this case; students? Why can a student not understand and experience the topics through regular technology in their current mobility device? After all, our current mobility devices like smart mobile phones and tablets are highly capable and efficient in scaling models, basic 360° rotations and manipulations.

The answer is Perspective and Interaction.

A situation or topic or object can be viewed in multiple perspectives and having the power to physically view ALL the sides is a great advantage. Humans are interactive creatures and it has always been a proven method of learning, be it toddlers or adults.

Well-designed augmented reality models will empower the learners to view models, similar to their natural settings. Enhanced perspective with closer sensitization results in a better learning curve. This allows students to have an interactive and practical based learning with AR models they can examine the models with more precision and accuracy.

Augmented Reality Education Solar System on CARpet

Boost Engagement Levels

Students have different learning curves. Some learn or understand a topic far quicker than the others and some are more relaxed in their approach to grasp the essence of a topic.

Interactive and Active Engagement is the need of the hour to boost the learning curves and AR has come a long way in achieving that. Augmented reality is rapidly penetrating student’s lives and the convergence of AR with the learning landscape scenarios results in learners engaging with content that is highly relevant to their pedagogy and in line with how they use the digital media content.

For Example: AR developers have made learning chemistry more interactive and fun with a holographic periodic table.

AR is unique, where students can perceive tests and exercises as part of the story and they can learn and understand better. It allows students to learn visually which is immensely interactive and emotionally engaging.

AR developers talk about creating “lively” content in AR and it is possible to bring “learning” to life, empowering students to engage with virtual content which has a great deal of freedom from mere text, images or video content.

Recently, a start-up is developing an advanced learning platform that allows you to visualize the human body holographic & 3D format as shown below.

Stimulate the Senses

Well-planned AR platforms will not be static with just a 3d model, but rather enriched with touch controls and 3D sound effects which has a multi-sensory impact on the learning of a student. Institutes can bring animals into the classroom which are lifelike and make real sounds. Moreover, the narrative and touchscreen controls can easily control the screen information overlays.

Curiscope Virtuali-Tee: Bring Learning to Life with this Augmented Reality T-Shirt

Cost Effectiveness

Physical 3D Models and Shapes, being currently used in many Schools and Institutions come with a heavy price tag. They are bulky and also involve logistics expenses. Moreover they also come with high maintenance criterion.

In this context AR can be a lifesaver! It helps you deploy 3D shapes using the AR platform. We are not promoting the replacement of the legacy physical models but an upgradation with the inclusion of AR models with meagre investment can open new doors for great pedagogies.

Furthermore, in subjects like history, it becomes near impossible to bring real models to class. This is where AR can help in letting your students have strong sensitization to the real world lifelike models and monuments.

Final Verdict

It is not a fallacy that learners who are more motivated and engaged always grasp a subject faster and learn better.Their focus on the learning process is improved as educators grab the attention of their students and keeps them engaged and glued to the learning content using AR.

AR in education possess a huge upside for all learners and educators. Furthermore, students get platforms to visualize complex concepts of various topics and opportunities to gain practical skills by interacting and manipulating content.

If you are an EdTech or an educational institute, then it’s high time you jump on the bandwagon to embrace AR and create transformational content that not only caters to a differentiated learning experience but can radically improve your learner retention and and help you get the most out of your learning and development investments.

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Evolution In Machines – What Next?

Introduction

Humankind as we know and experience today, has evolved over millennia from our primitive biological ancestors to our current biological selves. This evolution has gone through many stages and phases that has lead to our dominance and success on this planet.

The evolution and advancement of Cognition and Language played a significant role in establishing Humans as the dominant species while having a profound effect on the Humankind’s Evolutionary Journey.

Cognition or the ability to learn and gain knowledge through a ‘thought process’ helped humans thrive better and more efficiently than other species. This resulted in the early discovery, invention, and development of societies, tools, agriculture and other advancements. This cognitive ability enabled us to develop and communicate with a common language that irreversibly gave us a boost towards becoming the dominant species on earth.

Language, or a systematic approach to clearly communicate within a species – has shaped to what we use now, over thousands of years. Different communities and societies developed and shaped different languages that we have come to know today. Despite the differences, it is evident that ‘language’ was crucial to the development of humans as a social.

A combination of language and cognition enabled early humans to rally forces, build societies, understand obstacles, explore their surroundings while analyzing them, etc., The ability to instruct and impart played a crucial role in the development of civilizations and societies. This development can be broken down into three steps

  • The ability to express one’s thoughts and ideas
  • The ability to understand the expressed thoughts and ideas
  • The ability to function, based on the said thoughts and ideas

These enabled early humans to gather masses and work efficiently and productively. Tasks that were near impossible to be done by a small group or a single human could now be handled well; thanks to the amassment of more humans. Many modes of communications were used to achieve the desired results – primitive signs, early languages, non-verbal pictorial representations (early writing systems), etc., However, amongst these modes, the one that stood the test of time to emerge the forerunner was ‘language’ in the form of Speech. This clearly has been at the helm of our evolution and steered us to our current position on earth.

This evolution has also interfered with and altered the evolutionary paths of all the elements that surround us or make up our planet; flora, fauna, rivers, mountains, language, writing, science, human inventions, etc. Human inventions and discoveries, especially have evolved with a similar pace as that of our; tools, agriculture, cooking, trade, engines, automobiles, computers, space travel and everything in between these and around these. At every stage of this human evolution and endeavour there has been one stand out invention or discovery that propelled us into the future; faster and further; Stone tools to iron tools in the early stages, agriculture and cooking when we started societies, weapons, and trade when we started building civilizations, engines, and mechanics for our industrial revolutions, electronics and computer science for our modern age. etc.

Amongst the discoveries and inventions, ‘Electronics and Computer Science’ have had a far-reaching effect on our population and have impacted our day to day life drastically. Over the years they have become very personal to us and they have proliferated our lives and environments drastically. From television sets, radios and telephones to personal computers, mobile phones, and satellites, we are surrounded by electronics and computer science every day. They have about them a uniqueness; we communicate with them and to them in ways that were not done before with other inventions.

Today we see ‘machine learning’ and ‘artificial intelligence’ enabling us to add cognition and push them towards a cognitive revolution. We are enabling machines to learn from experiences and make judgments on their own; making them more independent and more useful to us. We already have machines that can suggest the movies we like, drive cars, detect cancer early, etc, and this is possible due to the idea of cognition that we have built into those systems using machine learning and artificial intelligence.

We have made these modern machines different from other earlier machines because of their ability “think” and the way in which we are able to “communicate” with them. We do not use levers or knobs, reminiscent of early machinery; instead, we type out messages or instructions in a language familiar to us. This mode of communication has evolved over time; from punching to typing to clicking to voice.

Machines understanding human language through our speech is the next big step in the evolution of electronics and computer science. The combination of cognition and voice recognition in devices have ensured that we can communicate; not just instruct, and in a language that we use and understand best.

Most early machinery and devices were designed and developed to ease the user in its usage. Until recently, using advanced personal devices required us to be in physical contact with the device, know basic operations and understand its basic layout and structure. This made devices unreachable or unrelatable to many. The combination of cognition and voice recognition will now enable us to use devices with just our voice, making it accessible to many, thus breaking down the barrier many might have faced earlier

The applications of such devices are immense. We believe, like the events that helped humans as a species, leapfrog in its evolution; cognition and voice recognition in machines will change the way we interact with devices and how they will have a lasting impact on our lives.

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The Role of Immersive technologies & Artificial Intelligence in Education

The Untold Secret To Mastering The Future of AI Education: current barriers, resolutions & the future!

The role Artificial Intelligence in education landscape and Immersive technologies in learning space have propelled impactful transformations across all industries such as finance, healthcare, chatbots, art, manufacturing, IT, innovation and many more. Likely, its penetration, especially in education realm, has grown by leaps & bounds.

With a skyrocketing success in achieving remarkable literacy rate on the planet, the education space is facing new barriers and challenges when it comes to raising the bars higher and taking the current education to a whole new level.

Now that, the AI in the education industry is well equipped and advanced with digital technology, still, we believe the way we teach, however, has to CHANGE.

No matter if it’s a physical classroom or an e-learning session; the contemporary learning methodology is still archaic. We arbitrarily group learners based on their age or preference and make them listen to a trainer and sit back and expect that the involved parties are competent enough to keep the learners engaged through a static educational curriculum.

Indeed, the current methodology works, but up to an extent. For a fact, the trainers or tutors are overloaded with work such as building curriculum, imparting, planning assignment, grading, etc. Thus, it’s next to impossible for them to give hundreds of students personalized attention.

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While a tutor is busy with all this, students remain under consistent pressure to secure grades in a stipulated time frame.

Despite being equipped with digital technologies, the education system is crippled when it comes to catering individualized learning & self-development.

Today, students don’t know why they are learning the lessons that they are learning, it makes matters worse and a big question in the face of the student’s personal ambition. However, AI in education plays a game-changing role in making the system more effective but still numerous Edtechs are unaware of the role of artificial intelligence in education.

So what’s the solution here? What could make the learning more exciting, fun & productive?

Let us rundown on three key pillars- Individualized Learning, Experimental Learning & Mastery Learning that can make the learning ecosystem more powerful, however, the theories are not new by any means but still education providers are struggling to incorporate the same.

Individualized Learning: the need of the hour!

It’s a way to offer instructions based on interest, aspirations, weaknesses, and background of individual learners. It caters to an intuitive learning where the learning experience best fits into an individual and helps you get the most out of each session.

The True Potential of Individualized Learning is still unfulfilled- Here’s why?

So, as numerous theories substantiate to the fact that Individualized Learning is the need of the hour. In fact, the true potential of Individualized Learning is still unfulfilled.Even if you hire dozens of specialized instructors to pay individual attention, the challenge still extends i.e. how to collect and process personal student data in large scales to create actionable insights.

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Individualized Learning is all about non-linear curriculum and embracing student differences, this is where contemporary digital learning solutions and methodologies are losing value with each passing day.

Kudos to advanced technologies that helps providers to bridge the chasm when it comes to Individualized Learning, but before we dive deep into that, let’s explore the second pillar i.e. Mastery Learning.

Mastery Learning: key to Intuitive Learning & self-development!

Mastery Learning is a way to offer instructions that determines a level of performances that all learners must master before moving to the next module or unit. It is impactful when learning maths, where past lessons are necessary to understand the next lessons. A learner will only be allowed to move to the next lesson when they have mastered in all the fundamentals that precede it.

In today’s education platforms, if you secure 70% of a subject, you are entitled to move further- that’s general knowledge, not mastery. The grading mechanism fails to provide the exact performance feedback of a student and provider.

Thus, the learning needs remain unattended by the system they are leveraging.

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Why providers fear to deploy mastery learning?

Learners are pressured to rush through the semesters without understanding them and eventually, all those subjects become so unintelligible over the years that create broad knowledge gaps that lead to loss of intuition.

Mastery learning can invade all such issues with its in-depth individualized and personal approach. Here, a student won’t be allowed unless and until they don’t display mastery in a specific subject.

Though it’s a strong theory but still, providers are resilient to implement the concept. Due to hefty financial resources involved providers fear to deploy it realistically at large scale.

However, we will see that how AI will play a crucial role in thrashing such challenges but until then let’s understand the third pillar i.e. experimental learning.

Experimental Learning

“Learning by doing”is a primitive formula to grasp things really fast. Experimental learning helps you to understand from experience. It engages most of your senses, improves critical thinking, creates a context for memorizing and builds social-emotional skills.

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It creates curiosity to understand things more deeply; students consider making mistakes as a part of learning process.

Today’s education providers certainly try to implement it and adopt the model of homework to ensure that students do it by themselves.

But surveys reveal that homework is uninspiring and does not involve the senses rather makes the student more isolated.

Experimental learning: it’s a myth, here’s why?

These days, providers very well understand that revamping the legacy course will be a big design challenge when it comes to teaching subjects like maths, history or biology in whole new way. Since ages, we have been acquainted with books & blackboards, so do we go ahead in engaging all senses, keeping the learning social and active, attaining the learning goals and keeping the cost low?

It’s a big question, but read on as you will get to see the resolutions that AI has to offer before we conclude.

Now that we have identified the problems and our ultimate learning goals, let’s have a sneak peek on top 3 futuristic technologies can not only address the above challenges but can actually facelift the entire educational landscape.

Immersive technology: doors to the new world of education!

Immersive technology in education is the new way of innovation in the learning methodologies.

Technologies such as virtual reality empower a student to interact with the digital world and conceive realization of dwelling within a virtual world.

With Oculus Rift getting hype, providers have now started believing that it’s no more about just gaming. Rather, it’s a new world where you can explore new ways to interact and display information in the real world as if it’s actually there.

Microsoft HoloLens is another great example that interprets your environment — it identifies where your furniture is, your walls, and everything else, and uses that information to blend the physical and digital world into the reality perception.

Education providers can create real-world experiences at relatively low cost- be it a monument, experience the surface of the moon or the wreck of the Titanic. For education, this could be everything- a new beginning.

VR in education has taken its best foot forward in redefining education. It will take you through the human body in person not forcing you to learn from illustrations.

Recently, a start-up is developing an advanced learning platform that allows you to visualize human body holographic & 3D format.

tarams elearning

It’s a new way where students can apprehend concepts as characters, tests and exercises can be embedded as part of the story as hurdle and students will set free to explore and immerse themselves in the topics that are learning.This is where VR and artificial intelligence in the education industry is getting prominance with each passing day.

Hence, we can achieve our core education goals, immersive learning platforms allow you to learn socially & visually that is emotionally engaging and interactive that remains in your brain as long-lasting memory.

Learning analytics in education: blend BI with sentiments!

Today, headsets have become one of the primary tools to learn in an immersive environment and the good news is that headsets can be tracked. It helps you to understand what a learner is viewing at, for how long, what are they choosing to view and even ignore.

Image source; InstaVR

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Analytics platform displaying which areas users look at the most throughout a VR experience

Pupil tracking: the revolution in learning analytics!

You all might know that pupils expand on subconscious attraction but for a fact, it’s much more to that. The pupil expansion is also sensitive to emotional engagement and mental stress.

As per a survey, it was found that pupils expand proportionately with the difficulty ascending in a task. The variation in pupil can determine the level of difficulty in perception.

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Such a phenomenon can help education providers to gain a deep understanding of a learner’s psychology. It empowers them to create absolutely accurate student profiles to develop the right course that accurately resonates to a learner’s challenge.

It helps you to understand the relationship of a student with a respective course up to subconscious degree. Moreover, it can render exams and modules that best-fit to the ability of perception of a student.

Pupil analytics can be a revolution in digital learning platform that truly understands you as a student. It’s an immersive technology that blends with AI in education to automate mastery and individualized learning.

So how far, AI can take education? Will AI be your future teacher?

AI teachers: your future educator!

Let’s take our imagination further and see how the education world will look like with convergence with other advanced technologies.

With the smartphones being ubiquitous in the market, tools such as Amazon Echo, Google Siri, Assistant have become an integral part in daily lives. These tools help humans to have found intuitive ways to get things done. Here’s where we see voice recognition and text-to-speech technologies gaining ground with each passing day.

AI in education coincides with these immersive technologies will give physical appearance to AI assistants, chatbots etc. The technology will give these virtual assistants a body and an expressive face.

Image source: https://medium.com/futurepi/

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The day is not far when AI assistants will understand us deeply more then we understand ourselves. Going back, to our previous discussion about analytics, and capacity grasp student’s intellectual and emotions with the conjunction with AI, it’s apparent that AI teachers are the next potential recruits in the education industry.

You can spend hours with your AI teacher to gain mastery & experimental learning by great building projects together.

The burning news of Humanoid Robot Sophia gaining Saudi Arabia citizenship substantiates to the fact we are on the verge of a new world of education, where the concept of AI teacher will be no more a myth but a living fact. It’s quite apparent that role of artificial intelligence in education will take leaps and bounds and will create new wave of learning via AI in education industry.

UN deputy secretary general Amina having a dialogue with Sophia asking about her experience in gaining Saudi Arabia citizenship

Readers, the above innovations are just the tip of the iceberg, when it comes to the convergence of contemporary immersive technologies and AI in education space, possibilities are simply limitless.

Education is an endless ocean, and as an education provider or a learner, it depends on how you want to explore it to get the most out of your learning and development investment.

If you are a learner, then simply pull your socks up, as the next generation education platforms will have everything that will redefine your learning experience. Thus, it’s time to only learn what you want that too at its best.

However, with such advancements, Edtech will get numerous opportunities to educate learners in more interactive and productive ways. The future education market is going to be big and competitive.

Hence, if you are an Edtech and yet to make your roadmap to converge with the upcoming technology, it’s never too late, get started now before your competitor does it.

If the article resonates with your findings and learning roadmap and you are an educator, publisher, technologist or corporate interested to explore these challenges and resolutions, please contact Tarams, let’s do it together.

At Tarams, we help you design state-of-the-art digital learning platforms that accurately measure and collaborate learning programs giving you an extraordinary, intuitive and immersive experience.

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