Spatial Computing Has Been Brought to the Classroom by the University of Washington and Magic Leap
Although spatial computing has been investigated for quite a while, interest on this field has been amplified after the pandemic in 2020. Earlier that year, University of Washington’s Reality Lab used Magic Leap’s technology to enable a fully remote classroom during the semester of Spring 2020.
Even after two years, COVID-19 has abruptly thrust much of society into a new remote learning paradigm, and educators around the world have scrambled to cobble together surrogates for in-person learning. Faced with this situation, the University of Washington (UW) decided to augment their remote curriculum with new collaboration tools to better give students the sense of being together with other students and their instructors.
Most years, the 28-30 students of UW’s AR/VR Capstone would meet together, pitch ideas and themes, and then break into teams to work collaboratively in the lab – long hours developing an AR or VR application. But in that semester of 2020, the students were unable to meet in person at all. Though the instructors worked with them online to develop and advise their projects, it was clear that they needed a new way to collaborate.
The Magic Leap 1 spatial computing wearable device was an obvious choice. Not only did access to Magic Leap 1 enable the students to develop for a leading-edge technology platform, but it also gave them a unique opportunity to virtually collaborate with each other through their headsets. At the end of the 10 weeks, the students and instructors demonstrated the projects through social media and video-conference with live streaming from headsets.
When the students were surveyed about their experience the Magic Leap 1 outperformed 2D videoconferencing. 7 out of 10 students said they agreed or strongly agreed that they felt the presence of another person in the room with them, and 8 out of 10 could tell where the other person was directing their attention.
In conclusion, the world is in need of new ways for students and educators to connect with each other, to shorten the distance between pupil and teacher. AR, VR and other XR technologies open the door to a whole new world of possibilities in education, as well as any other discipline. To all the teachers out there, if you are interested in innovation for your students, come and visit us at clicking here, where you can find anything you are looking for.
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