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4 Ways to Enhance Your Course:  AVR, Gamification, Artificial Intelligence and Video

Roundtable with Marci Powell

 The following resources focus on four technologies: augmented and virtual reality, artificial intelligence, gamification & simulations, and videoconferencing.  By technology category, below you will find a description, case study links, resources and articles.

Artificial Intelligence and Predictive Analytics

About

Artificial intelligence (AI) has made its way into higher education at both the institutional and course levels through the use of encouragement, reminders, prompt assistance to help students stay on track, and even monitoring class discussion boards for inappropriate comments. With these virtual assistants, students can now receive 24/7 assistance to FAQs in order to get the help they want when it’s needed the most. Questions can also be routed to the right advisor or staff member who can offer a human touch.

Most of the communication takes place through SMS text messaging or other messaging platforms (like the discussion board in an LMS). The more students communicate with the system, the greater the knowledge base grows, and the “smarter” the AI assistant becomes. Virtual teaching assistants were recently recognized as one of the most transformative technologies to impact college within the past 50 years by the Chronicle of Higher Education.

Predictive Analytics is a way to determine what will happen next for an academic institution.  It can be critical to improving student success and graduation rates, as well as for recruitment, academic advising processes and, of course, monitoring student behavior and performance. Combining AI and predictive analytics enables data mining, statistics and modelling to make predictions about future outcomes. Beyond using historical data to analyze past behavior, performance and trends, colleges and universities are improving decision-making and supporting institutional goals. Predictive analytics can help colleges and universities achieve these goals, using data rather than assumptions. (Axiom, 2019).

Case Studies

●      Swinburne University and Quitch – A content-neutral platform available for use across higher education. It includes regular push notifications and engagement loops to draw students in. It has digital badges, leaderboards, and progression trees while also providing students immediate constructive feedback and the ability to perform self-testing to improve their own outcomes. Instructors can create dynamic timed quizzes, share short videos, and utilize forums for extended discussion.

  • Deakin University – The first university worldwide to implement IBM Watson in order to create a 24/7/365 online student advisory service to improve the student experience. This has resulted in a 5-10% reduction in enquiries managed by staff (with over 30,000 questions answered in the first trimester) enabling staff to handle the more complex questions.

Resources & Tools

  • Quitch – A content-neutral platform available for use across higher education. It includes regular push notifications and engagement loops to draw students in. It has digital badges, leaderboards, and progression trees while also providing students immediate constructive feedback and the ability to perform self-testing to improve their own outcomes. Instructors can create dynamic timed quizzes, share short videos, and utilize forums for extended discussion.
  • AdmitHub – Integrates artificial intelligence with human expertise to give students 24/7 access to personalized guidance as they apply, enroll, and advance through college
  • IBM Watson – A supercomputer that combines artificial intelligence and sophisticated analytical software for optimal performance as a “question answering” machine
  • Mika – Powered by Carnegie Learning, Mika is a higher ed homework software that utilizes research in cognitive science and artificial intelligence to provide hints and just-in-time feedback to students based not only on what a student knows, but also on the specific strategy a student uses to solve a problem
  • Perspective – This API uses machine learning models to score the perceived impact a comment might have on a discussion board thread in an attempt to reduce “toxic” comments
  • Querium – A.I. –based StepWise Virtual Tutor | The platform delivers personalized, bite-sized lessons with expert system, step-by-step tutoring assistance that motivates students to succeed by increasing engagement and improving outcomes.
  • ALEKS – an adaptive, artificially-intelligent learning system that provides students with an individualized learning experience tailored to their unique strengths and

Articles

Augmented, Virtual & Mixed Reality

About

In the last 5 years, VR users has grown from less that 1 million to 150+million and the VR market made a staggering $54 billion (47 billion Euro) in 2018 from devices alone while revenue from AR mobile apps amounted to $725.4 million (633 million Euro) worldwide (Sagar 2019).

AVR solutions allow humans to explore fully immersive computer-generated worlds (VR) and computer graphics overlaid onto our immediate physical environment (AR).

Immersive and overlay environments provide a learning environment that allows students to practice in risk-free situations such as real-world training, workplace experiences, hazardous or critical practice (e.g. bomb disarming or surgery).  Partnerships between academic institutions and businesses around AVR technologies are emerging and the potential for workplace connections is tremendous.

What are the differences among virtual, augmented, and mixed realities?

  • Virtual Reality (VR): Computer-generated reality that puts the viewer in a place that can be real or unreal – real, meaning you’re in the Louvre, or unreal, meaning you’re on an imaginary space station outside Saturn. VR tricks the brain into believing it is somewhere it’s not.
  • Augmented Reality (AR): A layer is placed on top of reality as an augmentation of reality. An example is the use of AR in NFL games on TV. There’s not really a yellow line that goes across the field showing the first down marker, but it enhances your viewing. It makes it more understandable and adds information that helps you learn the game.
  • Mixed Reality (MR): In mixed reality environments, users seamlessly navigate through both the real and virtual environments at the same time. Instead of residing in an entirely virtual world (VR), virtual objects are anchored into a user’s real-world space and augment their real-world environment, making virtual interactions appear to be “real.” These interactions mimic our natural behavior of interaction, such as objects getting bigger as you get closer and changing of perspectives as you move around an object.

Case Studies

  • Oral Roberts University – ORU uses augmented and virtual reality (AVR) to serve on campus and online students. Students abroad can immerse themselves in 3D lessons asynchronously or join a live classroom through Zoom. Lessons are created using ORU’s repository with over 300,000 3D objects
  • Labster – VR labs on Google Daydream, Labster and Google have partnered together to unlock the physical lab requirements in biology courses. Using virtual reality, students can participate in lab experiences on campus or remotely.
  • Professor Avatar – Holographic projections and robotic telepresence bring professors into classrooms in geographically remote and economically disadvantaged areas.
  • HoloStudy – Supported through crowdsourcing, the HoloStudy project provides free AVR resources including lessons with labs and tests as well as holographic games.
  • A group called VR First, have a global initiative to democratize virtual and augmented reality (VR/AR) created a community of 768 academic networks, business partners, and 4850 developers worldwide conducting “hackathons” to create VR solutions around the globe.  They’ve opened approximately 50 VR/AR labs at colleges and universities across Europe, Asia, the United States, and Oceania, in an effort to meet future workforce demands
  • The VR First Lab at University of Hamburg is developing a digital games joint project “EXGAVINE: Motion Play in Virtual Reality as a Therapy for Neurological Diseases”. Another project: “VITALabs: Living Labs for Laboratory and Field Studies to Evaluate Virtual Technologies for a Healthy Life“. Both projects are coordinated by Prof. Dr. Frank Steinicke, funded by The Federal Ministry of Education and Research with nearly 4 million Euros!
  • Oklahoma State University’s Mixed Reality Lab, is creating an AR-based mobile app that functions as a mapping device for individuals with physical disabilities or mild memory loss.
  • Did you know you can learn to create “VR for Social Good”projects in this course offered by the VR First Lab at University of Florida, one of the VR First lab networks? Benjamin Lok, Computer Science professor at UF, and his team initiated the course and make all the materials (syllabus, presentations, assignments…) available public. Feel free to reach out to Lok and team if you are interested to bring this course to your region! Materials are accessible through this link.
  • Tallinn Universityof Technology organized the Tallinn Winter School SMART SYSTEMS OF TOMORROW, with the goal of deepening the integration between ICT, electronics and mechatronics and raising the interdisciplinarity of respective fields into new level through practical activity.
  • University College Cork is piloting a study which indicates that Virtual Reality (VR) could be successful in making men aware of the risk of testicular cancer.
  • Students Across the Globe Learn About Augmented Reality – From Each Other – One faculty member at Bentley University in Waltham, MA, considered ways that his students might best learn to create and use augmented reality. He designed a bold experiment with a partner school, Politehnica University of Timisoara, in Romania — the students would create AR artifacts to examine and learn from each other.

Articles

Resources

HARDWARE/WEARABLES

○       Magic Leap One ○      Oculus Rift ○      Bose Frames
○       HTC Vive ○      Google Cardboard ○      Daqri helmet and smart glasses
○       Daydream View ○      HoloLens ○      MOVERIO Smart Glasses

 

SOFTWARE/APPS

  • VRArtifacts+ – Drexel’s internal AVR repository with nearly half a million learning objects.
  • Aurasma/now HP Reveal – Turn everyday objects, images, and places into new opportunities for engagement through striking augmented reality experiences.
  • Sketchfab – Showcases a number of objects that have been scanned and modeled in VR
  • Unity – A video game platform that bring 3D assets together into a narrative
  • Human Anatomy Apps
    • EasyAnatomy – Students at every stage of their veterinary medicine degree benefit from virtual dissection and adaptive quizzes.
    • Anatomyouapp, enables advanced students to take a non-invasive tour through the body to learn more about its various systems.
    • InMindfacilitates a gamified journey through the human brain
    • The Body VRtraverses the bloodstream
  • LlamaZOO – An e-learning platform that marries interactive 3D content with elements of gamification and learning techniques based on cognitive neuroscience.
  • King Tut VR is an audio-narrated, 360-degree tour of the tomb of Egyptian Pharaoh King Tutankhamun, which provides a unique opportunity to examine the intricate artifacts of the New Kingdom period in Egyptian history.
  • The Library at Night: virtual reality immersion into libraries – A virtual exploration of 10 of the world’s most fascinating libraries using the Oculus Rift technology to propose a voyage through time and around the world.
  • Science Apps
    • Molecule VR – a proven tool for learning complex concepts in biology and medicinal chemistry
    • Titans of Spacehosts – a guided and breathtakingly realistic tour of the solar system without ever leaving planet earth.
    • Look Ahead takes environmental science students on a 360-degree tour of San Francisco “underwater,” to seethe potential impact of climate change and sea level rise on some of city’s iconic locations.
  • Google Expeditions – Imagine exploring coral reefs or the surface of Mars in an afternoon. With Expeditions, teachers can take students on immersive, virtual journeys.
  • Georama – Experience live virtual field trips where students can watch and interact via any device whether it be a computer, tablet, smartphone, or even a VR headset.

 

Gamification & Simulations

 

About

 

Gamification is not a new concept – anyone remember the educational game The Oregon Trail back in the 1980’s? Gamification is the application of game design elements and principles in non-game contexts to help improve engagement and problem solving. The five most commonly used mechanics in gamification are points, badges, levels, leaderboards, and challenges.

Karl Kapp, author of several books on gamification and a professor at Bloomington believes that the true value of gamification is weaving together a challenge, enabling a fail-safe environment, providing immediacy of feedback, and offering fantasy in a story woven together to enable desired performance outcomes.

People are much more motivated to overcome challenges and obstacles and will stick to it longer if they feel challenged. So instead of starting modules or instruction with objectives which are very straight forward, start with the challenge to get learners thinking about what they have to overcome and the obstacles that they’re encountering.  Unlike traditional learning where feedback might not come for two weeks or longer after you have learned the knowledge, games have almost immediate feedback loops that allow you to readjust and adjust your behavior.

Likewise, Simulation is the act of imitating the behavior of a situation, problem, or process in order to create realistic opportunities to practice skills and apply knowledge. Simulations increase access and reduce costs by not requiring physical space or equipment and promotes learning by trial and error in a safe environment (especially within the medical field!).

Some faculty are creating their own games while others are developing platforms and offering their creations as open education resources or for very low costs. Once such gamified virtual world platform is called UniPlay and was developed by two professors from the University of New South Wales (UNSW) who have now formed a company called Lionsheart Studios.

Case Studies

  • The University of New South Wales (UNSW) and a spinoff company called Lionsheart Studios have developed a platform called UniPlay, a gamified virtual world platform that enables instructors to turn any course into a video game.
  • University of Limerick – Sharing his expertise in the use of prediction markets as a decision-making tool to improve organizational effectiveness and efficiency, Dr. Buckley (a lecturer in Information Management at Kemmy Business School) created a “collaborative forecasting tool” that provides students with real-world scenarios in a competitive and dynamic group activity.
  • Singapore Management University – Focusing on the Customer Service Index for each country, students hone their statistical skills through interactive game elements. The customer service reputations of each country hang in the balance as students earn scores and star ratings. A leaderboard provides a competitive edge and students have time for self-reflection on their performance with feedback provided during and after the game.
  • Ryerson University – Non-immersive virtual gaming clinical simulation replaces the need for traditional live clinical simulations, which are quite expensive due to the need to have laboratory space, specialized equipment, and other resources. The university and colleges felt that virtual simulations using live actors instead of avatars made the experience more realistic.
  • Labster – 24/7 million dollar, fully interactive virtual labs are combined with gamification elements such as an immersive 3D universe, challenges, storytelling and a scoring system.   Mathematical algorithms enable open-ended investigations with 100s of hours of science learning content. More than 60 simulations cover a wide range of subjects including Acids and Bases, Animal genetics, Antibodies, Bacterial Isolation, Crime scene investigations, and more.

Resources

  • UniPlay – Gamified virtual world platform to turn any course into a video game. Use games already created including PlayTax, PlayMed, and PlayMacro or create your own.
  • CSI game – Free downloadable game by Singapore Management University, where the player transforms into CSI Agent 051, travelling around the world to solve burning statistical mysteries à la SPY CSI in different countries
  • Skills Practice: A Home Visit – By Ryerson University, the game promotes the application of knowledge and skills related to establishing a therapeutic nurse-client relationship and completing a mental health assessment.
  • Foldit – The objective is to fold the structures of proteins as well as possible using tools provided in the game. The highest scoring solutions are analyzed by researchers who determine whether they can be applied to relevant proteins in the real world.
  • Lifesaver – CPR training that uses a live action, totally immersive movie approach which you can play like a game using interactive scenarios, timed responses, unlocking levels, and dynamic feedback.
  • University of Hull | MoleCraft is a downloadable game built in Minecraft for the exploration of molecular structures.
  • Tec de Monterrey | Logistics Simulator LOST was built as a simulation to teach students to develop logistical concepts and understand consequences of their decisions across a company.

Videoconferencing

About

Videoconferences can be defined as real-time video interactions between two or more users that reside in different locations. Videoconferencing software typically includes interactive features including screen share, text chat, exchange files, digital whiteboards, polling, and audio/video recording.

Many higher-education institutions are using videoconferencing to enrich the communication between faculty and students, as well as for interactive lectures, virtual office hours, virtual field trips, demonstrations, tutoring, connecting with international classrooms, and spotlighting guest experts from across the world.

Universities worldwide utilize videoconferencing for internal classes as well as with partnerships. Stanford University regularly utilize immersive videoconferencing with Peking University in their international business program.

Cornell University (US) and Queens University (Canada) have an Executive MBA program enabling students to receive degrees from both universities. During the boardroom sessions, multi-point interactive videoconferencing links the faculty and Boardroom Learning Teams in locations across North America.

Quite often the difficulty in serving online students fully is providing experiences that generally require a physical presence. Robotic telepresence is achieved by attaching a device (including tablets, computers, or smartphones) to a desktop or roll-about robot and utilizing video conferencing software. An individual can remotely control these robots using keyboard commands to maneuver around a room and even pan or tilt in various directions, providing an experience that rivals a face-to-face physical presence.

Case Studies

  • Georgia Tech’s College of Computing offered a digital lecture series that served as a career development resource for the Online Master of Science in Computer Science (OMS-CS) program. Presenters include alumni from AT&T, AirBnb, JP Morgan Chase and Intel were part of the lineup. Shindig platform, used for the series, offers a uniqueness to traditional videoconferencing as it features enabling small group breakouts without leaving the main videoconference.
  • The University of San Francisco uses Zoom for their hybrid classes to enhance and expand collaboration by using video breakout rooms, multi-sharing, polling, and group chats. Attendance and attention tracking shows teachers know who’s engaged in online learning.
  • Virtual Field Trip Through Live Video Conferencing – Reef HQ Aquarium has taken video conferencing online to a new level. Students around the globe can experience Australia’s Great Barrier Reef in true-to-life, high-definition sound and visuals. Underwater divers and experienced marine biologists can see, hear, and interact with students to create relevant and culturally rich interactive learning experiences.
  • Innovation in Restaurant Management Through Live Video Conferencing – Florida International University’s advanced food preparation and brewing science labs new technology features the combination of A/V and fast web-streaming systems, which makes it possible to live stream events and lectures from anywhere in the world.
  • Accessibility and Flexibility for the Non-traditional Student – VUC Storstrøm strives to serve students ranging from secondary to post-graduate levels that are dispersed across Denmark and its islands off the coast. By virtually connecting several campuses through video conferencing, it was possible to increase class numbers by providing access for all and eliminating economic risks.
  • North Carolina Central University Reinvents the Law School Experience by Delivering 23,000 Hours of Distance Learning – NCCU’s Clinical Legal Education Program is using Polycom video solutions to offer students and residents virtual access to staff attorneys. These attorneys provide legal information and advice on issues such as foreclosure, child custody, and avoiding the criminal justice system.
  • Video Conferences Extend Educational Opportunities – For a small institution like Birmingham Southern College in Alabama, cloud-based video conferencing brought the bright lights of Broadway to their musical theater students when they conducted a 5-hour live audition with a New York City director who was unable to physically make it to campus.
  • Vidyo on Kubi helps connect University of Utah psychologists with autistic students – A team of behavioral psychologists from the University of Utah used Kubi to help reach autistic students, as well as their teachers and caregivers, to provide face-to-face personalized evaluations and more efficient teacher training

Resources

  • Shindig – Shindig is a turnkey solution for online video chat events. Its unique technology offers the dynamics of an in-person event at internet scale. Shindig enables a host (an instructor) to give a video conference, lecture, seminar, interview or media event in front of an online audience of thousands. The stage can be shared for face-to-face interactions with students before the entire class or break into sidebar groups.
  • Zoom – One of the fastest growing videoconferencing software platforms, Zoom is used by 96% of US universities.

BEYOND VIDEOCONFERENCING: VIDEO-BASED APPS TO ENRICH YOUR CLASSROOM

  • **FlipGrid – Video Discussion Tool – A flipped classroom approach to using video for igniting student discussion and engagement. Students can record short, authentic videos and can reply to each other’s videos. Most common application is to have students introduce themselves to build community and engagement. Educators have access controls with video moderation.
  • Vocaroo– voice recording for instant feedback. Speeds up process by 75% while improving student outcomes by 25%.
  • EdPuzzle – App for Video Content – Turn any public video into an interactive, trackable and engaging video lesson. No need to download…just send a link.
  • TubeChop – Video capture – Easily chop a funny or interesting section from any YouTube video and share it.
  • Animoto – Web-based tool – Allows you to create music videos for selected pictures and video.
  • Moovly – Animated whiteboarding creator tool – Easily create animated whiteboard videos for marketing services. Free or Institutional license
  • Powtoon – Create animated videos and presentations. Free and easy to use animated video maker with many templates
  • RawShorts – Video animation – Way to create explainer videos free. Templates and content resources included.
  • Screencast-O-Matic – Online screen recorder.  One-click recording, 15 minutes or less, for free.
  • Screencastify – Screen capture CHROME extension – Free tool that allows you to create informational videos of your computer screen
  • Jing – Free screen capture web-based program. Capture video (5 minutes or less) and images.
  • Kizoa – Slideshow Tool – Add text, effects, and music to create movies with the easy-to-use slideshow, video maker and collage builder.
  • ThingLink – Interactive media platform – Empowers users to create more engaging content by adding rich media links to photos and videos
  • Voki – Free online tool that allows users to create SPEAKING avatars.
  • Blubbr – Quiz Development – Create video trivia games to support student learning based on YouTube videos – your own or others

**Trending software most widely utilized