Mohit – AR

Posted: February 21st, 2013 | Author: | Filed under: Assignment 2 | No Comments » Knowledge is inextricably linked and immersed in the activity and situation in which it is acquired. Meaningful learning can be achieved by grounding it in the social and physical environment within which it will be used.  The enabling parameters of an immersive AR environment have not been studied from a neurological perspective.  I think learning environments based on AR simulations should try to incorporate two key components  to achieve authentic situatedness thereby increasing far transfer. They are embodiment and embedded  cognition.  AR based learning environments are uniquely suited to creating activities which leverage the local geographic and cultural context. AR based activities must be designed keeping the students as the affective agents in a particular situation. The learning activity must involve the usage of agents’ bodies (sensorimotor, musculoskeletal, etc.) in authentic context. Such a design helps in creating and authentic experience that is likely to be encountered in real world. Mere abstractions in classroom setting do not encourage a holistic real life experience.  There is a finite limit to attention and working memory in the brain. Traditional instructional materials, to avoid cognitive overload, strip scenarios of their richness and detail, thereby creating unauthentic representations. This lower fidelity results in unauthentic scenarios that do not reflect real world encounters for students.  However, in real life situations, to compensate for the limitations of attention and working memory, individuals offload certain cognitive tasks on to the environment.  While designing AR activities, it is particularly important to keep this offloading principle in mind, so that the activities and scenarios can be structured in a way that encourages effective offloading strategies while retaining the most essential cognitive processes.

Assignment 2 – Tony

Posted: February 21st, 2013 | Author: | Filed under: Assignment 2 | No Comments » This paper provides a very good overview of AR in terms of technologies and applications. However, most of the technologies and applications mainly focused on discover the popular visual AR. I would like to share two instant ideas which are trying to escape from the current domain. You probably have already had similar concepts as well. Sound Filter Currently, users always listen to music with headsets. Through this device users are perfectly isolated from the noisy reality and immerse in their own music world. What if we can invent a new kind of headset, Sound Filter, unpleasant noises or unnecessary aural information can be filtered out, and those sounds we desired are kept and amplified. It can also overlay the real sounds with digital ones harmonically to create a new experience of aural environment. With Sound Filter users can retrieve aural information of a location two days ago, or leave sounds at the location for a comping event days later. Second Skin Clothes actually is our second skin which protect us from extreme conditions. However, current function of clothes, the same as a headset, is to isolate users from the reality and to keep them in a constant and safe environment. When wind is blowing, if you wear a good jacket, you will actually feel nothing. What if your clothes are a kind of mediated matter equipping sensors on its outer surface and actuator on its inner one, a cold and strong wind blow can be transformed into a warm massage. When walking on the street in a dark night, a stranger’s gaze behind you can be sensed by your jacket and be transformed to a sense of poking at your back to alarm you and make you aware of potential danger.

Assignment 2 – Sophia

Posted: February 21st, 2013 | Author: | Filed under: Assignment 2 | No Comments » I liked what Andy Clark wrote about how we are “natural-born cyborgs”.  He argues that more than any other creature, the human brain is primed to adapt to technologies and extend its process into the world around us.  He describes humans’ adaptation to technology throughout history as a “cascade of ‘mindware upgrades’: cognitive upheavals in which the effective architecture of the human mind is altered and transformed,” citing speech, written language, photography, etc. as major examples.  The structure of the mind adapts to our surroundings, experiences, and the tools we use. In the article describing Sparrow’s research, this is confirmed in the case where the presence of the internet affects the way people remember things. If the participants knew they would have internet access, they adopted a model of “transactive memory—recollections that are external to us but that we know when and how to access”. I feel these effects myself. I grew up using computers as an early age, and I strongly sense that this has affected the way I organize my thoughts and how I process information. Like Lanier, I also see an incredible danger in the malleability of the human mind being combined with a constant overlay whose its information is controlled by only one or two sources.  This will drastically shape society and the way humans behave, and it will likely do so negatively if the new AR technologies are not designed thoughtfully and ethically.  The potential pervasiveness of advertising in order to interact with these systems is quite disturbing also.  (There is a great short story about this by the science fiction author J. G. Ballard called “The Subliminal Man” in which Ballard describes a future in which all of society’s behavior is controlled by billboards with subliminal advertising messages.)  These AR devices could easily become the “gatekeeping functions” Lanier describes where advertisers pay for access to to our minds (only now in a much more direct way than ever before). The design of an interface says much about how we see ourselves…it is how we believe we fit with the tools we use.  Knowing how adaptable our mental processes are, what would it mean to design a system with a vision of how we wish we were instead of how we see ourselves now?

Assignment 2 – Malik

Posted: February 21st, 2013 | Author: | Filed under: Assignment 2 | No Comments » Human body is a most fascinating and fantastic machinery in existence, consisting of numerous powerful organs and systems at work throughout, in synchronicity and mutual support. From the pumping of the heart to supply blood, to taking in and processing oxygen, to creating acids to decompose food particles extracting nourishment, it’s just fascinating! But the human body is also very complex, which makes learning about it with any significant success a big challenge for many learners. This can lead them to have less than optimum learning experience with minimum engagement and motivation and dismal learning outcomes as a result. How can we better connect learners with learning of human anatomical systems (e.g. muscular, skeletal, circulatory)? What type of learning environment design and technology can deeply engage them? I feel an immersive and simulative design can play a significant role to address these questions: Providing learners with human body simulations (virtual cadavers, AR overlays) of high fidelity multi-sensory experience with “manipulatables”, where learners can immersively experience parts of virtual human body and interact with it to study as if they were real (e.g. “holding” the virtual heart and feel it pumping, “moving” it a little to the side to assess what’s behind it, “deep zoom” from organ to cell to sub-atomic levels via multi-touch). Although Krevelen and Poelman paper mentions direct manipulations of objects as a current challenge in AR (pg. 8), it is nonetheless one of the most exciting areas for deeper AR impact. Of course, all this technology needs to be implemented with the application of an encircling theoretical framework in cognitive science with evidence of learning outcomes based on how people learn. Combining how people learn with the power of AR technology is just mind-blowing!

Assignment 2–Perovich

Posted: February 21st, 2013 | Author: | Filed under: Assignment 2 | No Comments »

I thought the authors raised a few interesting points for consideration as well as offering an informative overview of the state of AR.

First, I was interested in the everyday future of AR.  Beyond the specialized applications, what could AR look like to the average person in day to day life?  I like the idea that AR presents opportunities for playfulness and exploration, but find it much more likely that everyday AR will be a means for marketing and advertising.  I found this possibility fairly discouraging, though the authors seem more accepting of it.  We are already so immersed in advertising and it concerns me that this could provide yet another means for marketing to become more constant, subliminal, and pervasive.

The range of interactions that tactile AR might present also interests me, though it is perhaps more difficult than visual approaches to implement thoroughly at this point.

It’s also interesting to consider AR’s path to social acceptance–I expect that after some kinks it will be taken for granted, as social media generally is today.  Google glass will be an interesting step in “widespread” implementation.  The cultural conflicts that emerge from it may lead to new manners and social norms that facilitate its integration–though I expect Miss Manners will not approve as we stumble through the process.

assignment02_Jifei

Posted: February 21st, 2013 | Author: | Filed under: Assignment 2 | No Comments » Imagine you have a friend, who cannot only see things that you cannot see, but also interpret those in a way that you usually don’t. You enjoy very much the way you see the world, but you also appreciate if you could see the world through its eye. The change of perspective is the key of stimulating new thoughts. The friend is a computer vision system. As the technology growing mature, we can now easily switching between human eyes’ perception and computer vision. Our naked eyes provide us a non-mediated world where we could make sense of everyday objects effortlessly, while computer vision can see the invisible things like electromagnetic field, and quickly analyze and abstract it. What intrigues me most is that how can we learn more a bout the nature of physical world through AR. What is the height of Eiffel Tower? How much does an apple weight? AR technology could help us to bring such knowledge back to real world, so that it is not something dry and abstract in the book, but vivid in everyday life.   <Found Functions> - Graziano

Augmented Reality & Situated Learning

Posted: February 21st, 2013 | Author: | Filed under: Assignment 2 | No Comments » Augmented Reality (AR) is exciting because of the potential to embed the powerful elements of digital technologies in the physical world. The fluid nature of this technology enables digital information to enhance our experience in the world rather than extend at best and distract at worst. Currently, the technical challenges to realizing AR technologies seem less daunting than the structural and content challenges. If we are to have a “network of things” in a ubiquitous computing environment, where does the content come from and how does it connect to the rest of our digital world. AR is presently stifled by the need to rely on singular, static applications. Just as the internet is a platform that is built upon a codified structure, enabling easy connectivity and adaptability, AR needs a similar construct. Relying on QR codes and “entering” hotspots and specified GPS triggers is not seamless and leaves AR in the realm of technical gadgetry. The true advantage of AR is its potential to understand context and provide relevant content in real time. For instance, a powerful learning application for AR is a technology that understands a learner, including her interests, preferred modalities of learning, areas of study, needs for support, and history. The system then compares this profile with the surrounding context of the learner and presents her with authentic learning opportunities that leverage local assets. The most exciting thing about AR is the ability to provide content to learners at optimal times, leveraging knowledge of users and local environments to create meaningful connections.

Assignment 2 – Champika Fernando

Posted: February 20th, 2013 | Author: | Filed under: Assignment 2 | No Comments » The possibilities with AR are no doubt exciting and in some ways seem limitless. In particular what might be possible with head-attached or spatial devices is alluring because in both those cases the user is less aware of the technology/ hardware and thus interacting with it/ through it is less of a burden. That said, I’m more interested in AR through hand held devices. Though the limitations in usability are more obvious I am interested in the possibility of reaching a broader audience. Mobile phones are (currently) much more accessible, affordable and broadly used than other AR platforms and in terms of learning I think they could reach the audience that stands to gain the most.  This idea is highlighted in van Krevelen and Poleman’s ‘A Survey of Augmented Reality Technology, Applications and Limitations’. Connected to this idea of reaching a broader audience, one thing in particular that Lanier says that resonates with me (though I don’t share his emphatic skepticism/ criticism of most of these things) is the need to preserve the power of technology as tool for creation. He points to the move from desktop/ laptop computers to iPads and mobile phones as a move away from tools of creation to a tools of consumption. Though I agree with him that this is the state of the technology at the moment – I don’t feel it’s an inevitable trajectory. I’d like to think about how we can use AR to make these tools (iPads, mobile phones) better tools for creation – since I believe creation is a powerful means of learning. (Of course Lanier goes further down the path of the youth of today giving up wealth for the ability to share online…which I think is a valid consideration, but the statement is a bit black and white) One passage in the Andy Clark interview that I thought was particularly relevant to the discussion of technologies for learning was this one: ‘One possible story locates the difference in a biological innovation for widespread cortical plasticity combined perhaps with the extended period of protected learning called “childhood”. Thus “neural constructivists” such as Steve Quartz and Terry Sejnowski depicts neural (especially cortical) growth as experience — dependent, and as involving the actual construction of new neural circuitry (synapses, axons, dendrites) rather than just the fine-tuning of circuitry whose basic shape and form is already determined. One upshot is that the learning device itself changes as a result of organism-environmental interactions — learning does not just alter the knowledge base for a fixed computational engine, it alters the internal computational architecture itself.’ First – he implies some possible benefit of the extended period of learning in childhood, second he points out the importance of the act of learning as a means for altering not just the data but the ‘computational architecture’ (of the brain) itself. I think this is relevant when thinking about ‘just in time learning’.  A question it raises is how can we create systems for ‘just in time learning’ that don’t merely present data/ information and thus possibly undermine the value of the act of learning itself.