Research
LIMESCOOP revealed- virtual binoculars in Katwijk
Finally, the LIMESCOOP is up!
Step back in time and see Romans walking past the old Fort of Brittenburg. The virtual binoculars are located at the end of the Limes, on the Buitensluis in Katwijk. In public space, freely accessible to everyone!
Quite some time ago we came into contact with architect and client Fons Verheijen. The Limes, the old border of the Roman Empire, has been a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 2021. Although many tourists travel along the old Limes, the conclusion of this route in Katwijk was marked only with “a small silly sign”, according to Fons. That’s just not acceptable, right? Together we developed the concept for the Limescoop.
Archaeologically everything had to be correct. We therefore followed the book Brittenburg by Tom Buijtendorp. Archeology student Aiace Pisaroni devoted his graduation research to this project and Xinas BV made a beautiful 3D model. The Virtual Reality Learning Lab trainees Daan Hobbel, Stijn van Sprang, Stephan Houwaart, Guido van Duijvenvoorde and Enrique Alonso Barreiro developed the interactive 3D world, including a lot of optimization to make everything run smoothly.
We found 100% FAT who could further develop their FATscope and can’t imagine a better partner. What a challenge to make binoculars that can stand outside in storms and heat, that run entirely on a battery + solar panel, work pleasantly, and also look beautiful.
The Limescoop was opened on Friday 16 June 2023 by mayor of Katwijk Cornelis Visser, alderman Jacco Knape and Limes program manager Jelmer Prins. And now we can keep track that the viewer has already been used by many hundreds of visitors! Article in Leidsch Dagblad
Quick 3D scan
https://skfb.ly/oIzWL
The Infinite AI Gallery
An infinite amount of AI generated images deserves an ‘Infinite AI gallery’.
That’s the idea behind this project Stijn van Sprang & Robin de Lange created. When you walk through this 3D world, new parts of the museum are generated in real-time, allowing you to explore it endlessly.
Stijn was an intern at the VR Learning Lab and is now a part-time developer. Stijn put in all the hard design & coding work for this project. Robin had the role of creative director.
Check out the preview below:
Want to learn more?
Do you want to add the Infinite AI Gallery to your event? Or are you just interested in learning more about it? Feel free to contact us.
Designing with Artificial Intelligence in Education
Fundamental research in Artificial Intelligence has caused a tidal wave of new AI tools for writing text, creating images, and generating music and videos in a fraction of the time it usually takes. Software for generating 3D objects and (parts of) virtual worlds is also on the way. At times, this feels alienating but also very exciting!
The arrival of this new wave of AI tools has far-reaching implications for how we, as a society, are productive, what our digital world will look like, and how we shape our education. Together, this gives us sufficient reason to incorporate Artificial Intelligence into our strategy. We have started a research line, offer workshops for teachers, and are working on the first AI lessons for students.
Background
Increasing human productivity
In his lectures, Robin often contrasts AI with lesser-known ideas about ‘Augmenting Human Intellect’, where students also read work by Doug Engelbart. The emphasis here is much more on how people solve problems with computers and less on autonomous software. How AI tools are now being used is also partly in line with these ideas. Tech analyst Benedict Evans described it nicely: “AI is like giving every company an infinite number of interns“.
Will AI take over your job? Probably not so directly. But fewer people may be needed for the same work, as professionals learn to effectively use AI tools to increase their productivity. In the end, it may not be so much a competition between humans and computers, but between humans + the tools they use. Or, as American computer scientist Licklider called it in 1960, the ‘man-computer symbiosis’
This applies to writers and policymakers who ask ChatGPT to create an outline for something or to come up with counterarguments. But also for designers who use AI for inspiration, to generate parts of their graphic work, or to create videos from text and a single image.
The future of the digital world
Artificial Intelligence will have significant consequences for what our digital world will look like.
Due to the increase in productivity, prices for creative work will drop dramatically. The advent of the web previously led to a considerable reduction in publication costs, resulting in a massive increase in information. It is expected that new AI tools will lead to a similar increase, with automatically written blogs, generated explanatory videos, fully animated fan fiction, and eventually AI-generated game worlds.
Part of VR Learning Lab’s mission is to train the digital creators of the future. Our tech teachers teach young people programming, game design, video editing, and responsible internet use. In a short time, it has become clear that AI tools have become an essential source in the development of the digital world. Pupils and students must be introduced wisely and given every opportunity to use this tool effectively.
AI for education
Most of the focus on AI in education is currently on ChatGPT and other language models. Understandably so, as almost all teachers deal with this. For every take-home exam and assignment that students have to complete, they can use OpenAI, which puts a large part of the educational institutions’ testing model in trouble.
Check out an application letter generated by a tech teacher during a team day here. A somewhat strange structure, but it would have certainly made it through the first selection.
We will place more emphasis on AI for creative work, for programs that train future designers. What tools should they know? How do you provide good education with these tools? And how do you assess work in which the student has used AI tools in the process?
This maker education is also a good place for innovation in schools. Together with students, you explore the possibilities of new technology and bring it into the school. This creates opportunities to involve other teachers in these developments and adapt to a changing technological landscape.
What’s our plan?
We see enough reason to broaden our focus and include AI in our work. But what exactly will we do? We outline it below.
Design research
Together with interns and students, we experiment with dozens of AI tools. We come up with interesting content that we can create with them and combine them with other software. We make short videos and complete escape rooms and VR experiences.
We share our experiments through various channels and often also how we made them. We share a lot on TikTok, Instagram, Facebook and YouTube . We also share the best experiments via LinkedIn, our blog, and the newsletter.
BOOTCAMP: Design with AI
We have set up a new bootcamp for teachers of digital maker subjects. For this, we collaborate with Bijscholingvmbo, which allows the training to be followed with up to 50% subsidy. If you’re interested in a tailor-made bootcamp in English, please contact us.
AI workshops for students and pupils
On March 16, 2023, we are providing the first workshop for students through PLNT Skills. Tech teacher Marijn uses their Cognitive Artificial Intelligence education to develop valuable teaching materials. Soon, we will offer the first workshops for primary and secondary education.
Audiovisual performance
Robin, Stijn, and interns Merel and Sabrina are working on an interactive audiovisual performance where AI and 3D images are combined in a unique way. The goal is to offer a unique experience of the future of our digital world. For study days, conferences, or other events.
From VR experiment to implementation
The past year has brought one of the biggest challenges ever in education. To protect those who are vulnerable and to reduce the pressure on healthcare, we have all shown our most flexible side. The beginning of 2021 is not much different. In this blog, we look ahead. What role can Virtual Reality play in education after this crisis? And how do we contribute to a sustainable implementation of this and other technologies?
Online education is a huge challenge, for teachers as well as students. Every lecture, I miss that I am not in the same room as my students. What’s more, our workshops & masterclasses for education professionals are much more enjoyable in-person.
Digital education still has too many limitations, even though I often argue that new digital technology like VR offers possibilities that go beyond education in person.
Unfortunately, the field is not quite there yet. VR headsets are not readily available for everyone and teachers and students often do not have enough experience with the technology to use it effectively for education. Especially not when you suddenly have to switch to online education.
Moreover, you also want to combine digital education and in-person education here. Blended. This way, you can choose the educational platform that fits the best for the material. However, this is precisely what is not possible in these times.
From experiment to implementation
At the same time, let’s commit ourselves to emerge stronger from this crisis.
Let’s work to develop rich, asynchronous digital education that students can follow independently regardless of time and place. Combined with synchronous meetings focused on interaction and knowledge processing. Preferably in-person, but digital if necessary.
At the same time, we continue to experiment with new technology like Virtual Reality to further enrich education.
As this field matures with affordable hardware and a wider range of software, we can work towards sustainable deployment. Grants create room for innovation, but ultimately, the business side must also make sense; your innovation must solve a problem.
In the lecture (in Dutch) I recently gave to all i-coaches of vocational schools, I distinguished these three phases:
We look forward to contributing to exciting educational projects in the Netherlands and to bringing them to the next stage!
Research direction
We want to investigate how VR and other technologies can be responsibly and sustainably deployed in various domains. That is why we will be challenging the following questions in the coming period, together with our team, new interns, and students:
- Can the shortage of internships in educational programs such as nursing be solved with VR & other technology?
- Together with our intern Tess and educational organizations, we are investigating this urgent question for nursing programs.
- What can we learn from games?
- Together with our new intern Siem, we immerse ourselves in the creative world of game design and share our lessons.
- How do you design an ‘infospace’?
- How do you use a 3D environment to convey knowledge? How do you tell a story with it? Read the first blog post in this series here.
- How will Augmented Reality change the world?
- For a few years, I have been challenging the students of my Honors Class to think about how AR will become part of our world. With this, we explore many interesting opportunities and threats. We will further develop and share these findings through our blog!
We research the various applications of Virtual and Augmented Reality and other technologies and share the findings on this blog. Additionally, we put them into practice by designing our teaching materials based on our research and experiences. In this way, we are involved in all phases that must be completed to deploy VR sustainably.
Looking Back – Our Future with Augmented Reality
We believe it’s important that we all think more about a future where we wear smart glasses daily. Because by looking ahead, we can influence what the future will look like.
In our research, we develop stimulating prototypes together with students and interns from, among others, Leiden University. This is also called speculative design. For the Week of Media Literacy, we developed the game ‘ARe you ready?’ in which more than 17.000 young people thought about our future with this technology. (link to game & link to research report)
On Tuesday, February 15 at 15:30, we are organizing a free online event about ‘Our Future with Augmented Reality’. We present a program full of speculative design from various creators. And together with all visitors, we will think about how we can make a positive impact!
On the program:
- Panel with students from the Honours Class ‘Getting smarter with VR & AR’ about their prototypes and ideas
- Provocative AR projects by artist Sander Veenhof
- Daan Hobbel, Sanna Bashir, and Nadine Roos about the game + research ARe you Ready?
- Gabriele Romagnoli explains how designers shape the future of AR with ShapesXR
- Robin de Lange: education as an ideal place for speculative design. How can you get started yourself?
- Discussion: how can we have a positive impact on the future of Augmented Reality?
- Creative entertainment during the entrance, break, and at the end of the meeting
This event is made possible by the VR Learning Lab, PLNT Leiden & the Honours Academy of Leiden University.
You can watch it here:
Thousands of Children Look Forward to Augmented Reality
You wake up in the year 2027. Right after getting up, you put on your Augmented Reality (AR) glasses. These smart glasses help you throughout the day. They remind you of what you need to do, make lessons more enjoyable, and translate what your new classmate says. Can you visualize this future? Thousands of students have thought about these and other questions. In this article, we share the results.
Update 2022: during the Week of Media Literacy in 2022, there were 8,014 individual players who answered all the questions. The questions remained the same. You can view the results here (note: the report is in Dutch). There are little differences compared with the results from 2021. What did stand out was that fewer students from grades 5 and 6 think that learning foreign languages is necessary if Augmented Reality glasses can be used to interpret other languages for us. We have also created a new English version.
ARe you ready?
Students have shared their opinions while playing the game ARe you ready?, created by our talented interns Daan Hobbel and Sanna Bashir. The game was developed as a ThemeMission for MediaMasters, an annual national competition held during the Week of Media Literacy in November.
Nearly 80,000 players had experienced a day in the life of a child from 2027, in which smart AR glasses play a significant role. With this new medium, you can see things in the real world that aren’t actually there; a virtual layer on top of the real world.
By presenting these questions to the students during the game, we were able to encourage them to think along and come up with their own opinions about Augmented Reality. Having an opinion allows you to support it and prevents experiencing the future passively. This makes sure that not only Meta, Apple, and Snapchat can determine what role AR will play in society, but also citizens.
80,000 plays, 17,000 participants
The game was played more than 80,000 times by the end of November 2021. We collected 17,037 complete answer sets. Of these, we used 5,385 in our analysis. This dataset consists of answers from players aged between 9 and 13, who came to our site via the MediaMasters game. This was measured with cookies, which were necessary to count points for the MediaMasters game. This way, we can be sure that these were all unique players. Players outside this age limit or who played the game through another route were excluded.
Results
The questions that were asked in between the game’s levels can be divided into two categories:
- The potential of Augmented Reality
- The societal consequences of this technology.
We will discuss the results per category.
The potential of Augmented Reality
Augmented Reality already has useful and entertaining applications today. For example, checking if a piece of furniture fits in your living room before buying it from the Swedish furniture giant, or using AR to overlay a virtual information layer on the real world. Think of animations and texts that help a novice car mechanic replace brake pads or virtual buttons on a real anatomical model that can be clicked for additional information about an organ.
In the game, players can experience such applications as well as futuristic ones. Are they open to the idea of using smart glasses in this way?
AR as an assistent
In the game, the AR glasses provide nutritional advice. Do children from grades 7 and 8 appreciate this? Most do (73%), although 32% of them would make the healthy choice anyway, regardless of the glasses’ advice (Figure 1). A large portion of children (61%) also find it helpful if the smart glasses help them remember daily.
AR in Education
A smart pair of glasses as a dietitian and personal assistant. Would it also be an interesting addition to education? In the game, children look into the life of a primary school child. The lessons the child receives make use of AR. Only 7% of the children did not like the idea of having lessons with AR glasses (Figure 3). 58% of the children are convinced that this form of teaching is also beneficial for learning (also Figure 3).
There are many opportunities for AR glasses in education.
Orange: Do you think it would be fun to implement smart glasses at school? A: Yes, I would like to use smart glasses everyday; B: I think it would be fun to use them sometimes; C No)
We think that smart glasses not only influence how we learn, but also what we need to learn. Robin’s graduation research in 2014 was already about this topic.
In the game, a character speaks Japanese to the player. The AR glasses pick this up and automatically start Dutch subtitles. Is it useful to learn other languages if the smart glasses can translate everything for you? We wanted to further elaborate on this discussion for the participants with this question. 11% of the children think that AR makes learning foreign languages unnecessary. But the majority (62%) would rather not depend on the glasses and still find it useful to learn other languages (Figure 4).
AR for navigatie
A more obvious example is navigating with your smart glasses. Virtual arrows projected in the real world help you find your way. In this way, it becomes very difficult to go in the wrong direction. 93% of the children think that we will use smart glasses for navigation later (Figure 5).
The social consequences of Augmented Reality
The emergence of a new computer interface has a huge impact on society and our lives. Enough to get excited about, but also to worry about. That’s why we asked the children if they are concerned about the ethics and safety of AR glasses.
Exclusion
One of the problems that can arise is a kind of social gap between people who have smart glasses and people who cannot (temporarily) be in our new, enriched AR world. We highlighted a similar situation in the game. Is it bad if there are other children who do not have smart glasses and therefore feel excluded? Most children (87%) think this is (a bit) unfair (Figure 6).
Distraction
The virtual layer projected by an AR glass can be distracting from information in the real world. In fact, things can be hidden by projecting over them. This can be dangerous in traffic. In an AR mini-game in ‘ARe you ready?’, the player is chased by virtual monsters. To stay ahead, many players run through red lights. The use of a smartphone can be dangerous in traffic.
We asked children if they think smart glasses should be banned on bicycles. 60% agreed. 28% want a special “traffic mode” so that the glasses do not pose a danger on the road and can be kept on. And 12% think we should decide for ourselves whether to keep them on or take them off (Figure 7).
Disruption of public order
Almost everyone has played or heard of Pokémon Go, an AR game that led to large gatherings of people in various locations. We believe that this could happen much more often in the future. Virtual artworks at secret locations and massive AR tournaments in the town square. Are you allowed to just organize this? Or should you apply for permits, like for regular events? 69% of the participating children said that rules should be in place and permission should be requested to organize such events (Figure 8).
Privacy violation
Many companies collect our data without our conscious consent. This data collection can go a step further with the help of an AR headset, as it can see much more and track things other than just online activity. An obvious example is personalized advertisements. The smart glasses could use information about you, such as conversations and images, to project specific ads in the real world; this also happens in the game.
38% of players aged 9 to 13 believed that no information about them should be used to personalize advertisements. 39% thought it was acceptable, but only if they had given permission themselves. 23% had no problems with sharing information (Figure 9).
Are we becoming too dependent on our smart glasses? Technology like an AR headset can easily enrich the real world, making people possibly unwilling or unable to live without it. About 90% of the children find it concerning that we may become too dependent on this technology in the future (Figure 10).
Mission accomplished
We conclude that most children see benefits in using smart glasses, but certainly do not want to become dependent on them.
Let’s nuance the results a bit. This is not scientific research. The answers may have been influenced by how AR was portrayed during the game. And it could be that the youngsters who chose to play this game are overly enthusiastic about new media. Fortunately, our goal was not to conduct an academic study. Our mission was to get children thinking, and we certainly succeeded!
Learn more
- Play the game ARe you ready? yourself.
- Want to know more about research where participants play a game to think about an alternative reality or a future scenario? Read the paper Games as Speculative Design: Allowing Players to Consider Alternate Presents and Plausible Features by Coulton, Burnett, and Gradinar (2016).
- Read (about) Robin’s graduation research (2013), which is about how Augmented Reality not only influences how we learn, but also what we need to learn through the interplay of our cognition and the computing power of computers.
Are ‘infospaces’ the new infographics?
This is the first post of a series on creating what we like to call infospaces. Enjoy!
Creating 3D worlds has become much, much easier over the past years. With software like CoSpaces Edu we teach 9 year olds to create their fantasy world with 3D objects and bring them to life with coding blocks.
And the rise of social VR tools like Mozilla Hubs, AltspaceVR and Facebook Horizon are bringing 3D worlds to the professional world. As we’re all are getting tired from pandemic-caused video meetings, we’re looking at new ways to collaborate.
Because of this virtual events are in the lift. But to make really valuable virtual events, we have to learn how to use the space effectively. Meeting each other in a virtual lecture hall or classroom while looking at a PowerPoint presentation is just not using all the possibilities.
Virtual museums
One particular assignment we often give our students who are learning these 3D tools is to create a virtual museum. In our experiences this is a very interesting challenge for the students after they’ve learned the basics of the program. And it’s an assignment that can be easily combined with other school subjects.
It’s interesting to see what students create. They often mimic the musea they’re familiar with. Some also realize they’re not confined by the rules that a real museum has. Their pieces can float in space, and who needs walls? They can add quiz questions, moving objects and interactive information in a way that really isn’t possible in the real world.
Infospaces
The emerging of easy apps to create graphics from data was essential to create the abundance of infographics we now see on the web. Will these new tools bring the same abundance of what we like to call ‘infospaces‘?
For that to happen it has to become even easier to create 3D worlds. We have software tools to help us, which also offer integrated access to databases with 3D models like Sketchfab & Google Poly.
But to make things even easier, we also need design principles and templates. We need easy answers to questions like:
- How do you clearly represent information spatially?
- How do you arrange a room to tell a story?
Those are really new questions for the average communicator. Thus far designing spaces to explain something has been mostly reserved to museum curators and museologists.
With the democratization of designing 3D worlds, we think these questions will become more and more important. We have to learn from architecture, theater, museology and the video game industry.
That’s exactly what we will do in this series of posts on creating infospaces! Don’t want to miss a thing? Or do you want to learn more about Virtual Reality? Become a member of the VR Learning HUB for free!
Looking back at year 1 of Augmented Reality & Human-Computer Collaboration
Last November 29th, we organized an event together with Smart 071 and the Honours Academy of Leiden University all about the applications of AR (Augmented Reality) in the workplace.
Students and professionals looked together for meaningful and feasible applications of AR in the participating organizations. This event was part of a new course given by Robin at the Leiden Honors Academy. The Augmented Reality & Human-Computer Collaboration discusses how Augmented Reality will influence our society and the future of work.
This blog post looks back at:
- our event about AR and the future of work
- the prototypes built by the students as their final projects
We’ll also tell you how you can participate as a professional or student next edition!
[Read more…] about Looking back at year 1 of Augmented Reality & Human-Computer CollaborationAugmented Reality Honours Class – Leiden University
Every year Robin teaches an Honours Class at Leiden University. The past years this course was Learning through Virtual Reality
In the fall of 2019 I will (almost certainly) start a new course ‘Augmented Reality & Human-Computer Collaboration‘, which has its focus on how AR will affect our society and influence the future of work.
[Read more…] about Augmented Reality Honours Class – Leiden University
Google: from finding answers to getting thing done
This summary of Google’s I/O 2019 event shows some of the impressive products Google is working on: new Augmented Reality functionalities, a smarter Google Assistant and cheaper Google Pixel phones.
What is really interesting about this event is the shift in the mission of the company:
“We’re moving from a company that helps you find answers to a company that helps you get things done”
This statement by CEO Sundar Pichai illustrates the developments in digital technology and the role digital products will have in our daily lives. The focus in articles on Artificial Intelligence is often on completely autonomous computer systems. The focus in this event however, is mostly on how smarter algorithms allow for more sophisticated computer interfaces for users.
[Read more…] about Google: from finding answers to getting thing done
Research in learning how to program @ PERL Kickoff 2019
Today Marleen & Robin (that’s me) visited the kick-off of the PERL group at Leiden University. An interesting afternoon! As probably everybody who attended this event, we think it’s important for students to learn the digital skills they need to create new things. That’s why we organize courses for teachers and students in Processing and CoSpaces Edu an co-organize the CoSpaces Competition!
The day consisted of several talks focusing on research that helps to teach programming skills a little better. In this post I’ll share some insights.
[Read more…] about Research in learning how to program @ PERL Kickoff 2019
Open science
By: Robin de Lange
Inspired by the Open science movement, among which this Open Kitchen Science approach, I’ve decided to join this movement and find a fitting open approach for the research we do. In this article I explain the motivation behind this decision and give you some background on our research.
Comenius grant for AI + VR project with Tilburg University
The VR Learning Lab collaborated on a project initiated by dr. Marie Postma and her colleagues at Tilburg University. Last week it was announced that this project will receive a NRO Comenius Senior Fellow grant! Here you can find the news item post on the website of Tilburg University.
The challenge of the project is to create a few Virtual and Augmented Reality learning experiences that help students understanding challenging topics within the curriculum of the Cognitive Science & Artificial Intelligence tracks.
[Read more…] about Comenius grant for AI + VR project with Tilburg University
Collaboration in Virtual Reality
Wearing a VR headset is often seen as a rather individual experience. And indeed, the immersiveness of the experience tends to seclude you from your environment and the people surrounding you. However, there are also different, exciting forms of collaboration in Virtual Reality. Some of these can be very interesting for collaborative learning, or for solving complex problems together. In this article we’ll discuss a few interesting projects, some of which are focused on local collaboration.
Are the new Windows headsets Mixed Reality?
[Read more…] about Are the new Windows headsets Mixed Reality?
Registration Honours Class – Learning through Virtual Reality 2017
On October the 11th 2017, the new edition of the Honours Class Learning through Virtual Reality will start! The course is primarily meant for bachelor students who follow an honours track at Leiden University. However, the Honours Academy allows for a few master students each year, which can be specifically interesting for Media Technology students. Please notice however that honours classes are extracurricular and cannot be counted as an elective course. They will be mentioned on your diploma though.
Bachelor students from Leiden University can register for the course on this page, master students on this page. Are you a student from another university? Please contact us, perhaps we can arrange something.
Pitch Research Conference
Conference – Learning with VR
On June 7th, LiketoShare will organize the “Learning with VR” convention. There, Robin will provide a lecture on experimenting with Virtual Reality in higher education. What feasible ways are available to start an experiment? And how do you involve students with this process?
We expect it to be an educational day, with many intriguing visitors!
Virtual Reality @ Kennisnet Research Conference
Kennisnet is organizing their yearly Onderzoeksconferentie (“Research Conference”) on the 28th of June 2017. Here, Robin will present a pitch of his research on Virtual Reality in education.
A short article is already available on their website. Will we see you at the conference?
NRO Kennisrotonde – Virtual Reality & Augmented Reality
Commissioned by the Netherlands Initiative for Educational Research (NRO), we have performed an extensive literary study on the use of Virtual Reality and Augmented Reality in primary education. The petitioner – the administration of a significant comprehensive school – provided the NRO Kennisrotonde with the following question:
What do we know about the use and effectiveness of Augmented Reality and Virtual Reality when applied to primary education?
[Read more…] about NRO Kennisrotonde – Virtual Reality & Augmented Reality
Virtual Reality in the library
Throughout the Netherlands, different events focusing on the use of Virtual Reality in libraries are being organized: lectures on VR, demonstrations of the Oculus Rift and even making your own Google Cardboard headset, to name but a few. I support these efforts, as I consider the library to be an excellent environment to help people familiarize themselves with a new medium. Simultaneously, Virtual- and Augmented Reality could become useful for libraries in the nearby future. For example, AR could be used to enrich the library, while VR could provide an alternative method of exploring digital collections.
In this post, I will discuss several projects (both old and recent) we conducted with a number of libraries.
[Read more…] about Virtual Reality in the library
Anger induction with Virtual Reality
Psychology researchers often require participants to be in a certain emotional state. The Focus on Emotions group does research into effective anger management and needed a way to induce anger in children in a reliable and ethical manner. Motivated by the emotional effects Virtual Reality experiences, they asked Media Technology students to create a project.
SURF trendrapport 2016
Tonight SURF will officially release their ‘Trendrapport 2016’ at the preconference of the Onderwijsdagen. Robin was honored to be the author of the chapter on Virtual Reality, together with Lieke Rensink and Jan-Paul van Staalduinen. You can download the Dutch Trendrapport here, the English version will follow in the next few weeks.
Tomorrow, on the 8th of November, Robin will give a lecture on VR & education at the same Onderwijsdagen. On both days, the DinoZapp team will be present to show the Virtual Reality game they made in collaboration with Naturalis.
Virtual Reality project with Naturalis: DinoZapp
As part of the Virtual Reality for Science & Education course, the student team consisting of Gosse Mol, Roos Hoefnagel and Han Lie collaborated with Naturalis and created DinoZapp. This video shows a preview of the first prototype:
[Read more…] about Virtual Reality project with Naturalis: DinoZapp
Towards a theoretical framework for Virtual Reality in Education
For my current research I broadly explore the potential of Virtual Reality for education. As a part of this I try to form some sort of theoretical framework to describe the unique characteristics of VR as a medium and how it can be used to explain complex concepts and teach different skills.
With some googling you can find quite a few articles (both academic, popular and in-between) that describe the various ways VR could be used in education. There are even a few listicles out there, to use the parlance of our times. Now, who can resist the simplicity of a 5 point overview of this new medium and its role in learning?
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The dangers of techno-pessimism in education
I do research on the potential of Virtual Reality for education. Now, people generally find VR very exciting and because of this I get a lot of enthusiastic reactions. People can imagine all sorts of useful applications for education. Students could learn about our solar system while experiencing a space flight, or walk through ancient Rome and learn about its history.
Of course, I also receive a lot of reactions that are more critical of VR as a learning tool. We are at a point in time where there’s hardly any decisive research about learning performances in Virtual Reality. We don’t even know yet whether people will buy VR headsets. Shouldn’t we wait for these kinds of things before we invest in hardware and educational VR content? VR has been a hype before, can the technology deliver the promises that are being made?
[Read more…] about The dangers of techno-pessimism in education
Virtual Reality for Science & Education 2016 – a Review
On the 10th of March 2016 we organized the Virtual Reality for Science & Education symposium at the Scheltema Complex in Leiden. I think we can safely state the event was a great success!
Over 125 people attended the event, causing a small shortage of chairs at the busiest time of the symposium. I have seen many familiar faces, but also met a lot of interesting new people. The list of attendees included researchers, professors, high school teachers, entrepreneurs, Virtual Reality developers, policy makers and artists. I think this mix of people led to very interesting discussions, thank you all very much for your input!
[Read more…] about Virtual Reality for Science & Education 2016 – a Review
Why are people enthusiastic about VR in Education?
During the past year I have spoken with a lot of people about the use of Virtual Reality for learning, which is the topic of my research. Surprisingly many people are really excited about this. But why is this? Why are people enthusiastic about VR in education?
[Read more…] about Why are people enthusiastic about VR in Education?
Virtual Reality for Science & Education Symposium – 10 March 2016
Updates about the program below!
During the last few years developments in Virtual Reality have gained a lot of momentum. Almost two decades after the inevitable downfall in the hype cycle, the Oculus Rift showed that a VR headset is within reach for the average consumer. This kickstarted many new initiatives, causing an entire VR ecosystem to emerge, with small start-ups and massive corporations creating new headsets, innovative input devices, spherical cameras and loads of immersive content.
These developments open many possibilities for research and education. Realistic simulations allow police officers to safely train dangerous situations. 3D visualizations can help the design process by allowing the user to walk around in buildings that have not been built yet. But we can also think of immersive data visualizations which can be navigated spatially. Psychology researchers can use VR to measure responses to realistic environments and scenarios. Lectures about ancient Rome could be given while walking past the Colosseum and virtual classrooms could make following a MOOC into a more intense and social experience.
Symposium
To explore the possibilities of this new medium, we organize the symposium ‘Virtual Reality for Science & Education‘ on the 10th of March 2016. The symposium will start at 13:30 at the Scheltema complex in Leiden. Around 17:30 we will end the day with some drinks and Virtual Reality demonstrations.
On this day, the students from the eponymous elective research course of the Media Technology MSc. program will present the VR prototypes they have created.
The plenary program will have speakers from different backgrounds: Virtual Reality developers, scientists who use VR in their research and educators who experiment with VR in the classroom.
[Read more…] about Virtual Reality for Science & Education Symposium – 10 March 2016
Virtual Reality for Science & Education
In May 2015 the Gratama Stichting and Leids Universiteitsfonds announced that my research project into the possibilities of Virtual Reality for the field of education will receive the Gratama research grant. Prof. dr. Jaap van den Herik helped me with the application procedure, the research will be part of my PhD work supervised by prof. dr. Bas Haring.
The research project includes an elective course where 30 students will explore the potential of Virtual Reality for science and education by creating experimental VR prototypes. More details about the course in the e-Studiegids.
My research project was mentioned in the Leiden University newsletter and Mare.
Art of Neuroscience talk – Virtual Reality visualization of live EEG data
On March 24th 2015 I gave a talk at the Art of Neuroscience symposium in the beautiful Eye in Amsterdam. More information about this yearly event can be found here.
In my talk I presented the Virtual Reality visualization of live EEG data I created with my team mates Eva Delincakova and Bert Spaan at the Hack the Brain hackathon in May 2014. I discussed the potential of Virtual Reality for immersive data visualization and how this could be used in the field of education.
[Read more…] about Art of Neuroscience talk – Virtual Reality visualization of live EEG data
Embodied Vision Workshop: Augmented and Virtual Reality with Unity3D
On the 19th of June 2014 at 10.00, I’ll teach a workshop for the Embodied Vision course of the Media Technology MSc. program. Below you can find a short description of the workshop and the assignment. After the workshop I’ll post a summary of what we’ve discussed.
Embodied Vision Workshop: Augmented and Virtual Reality with Unity3D
In this workshop we will go through the basics of working with Unity3D, discuss interesting projects made with the software and experiment with creating your own Augmented or Virtual Reality project. I will explain about the Vuforia library which can be used to create mobile AR apps and get you started to develop for Oculus Rift. For the workshop you will need Unity Pro which can be downloaded from unity3d.com. Please install the software beforehand. You can make use of the 30-day trial version.
Assignment
Groups: 1-3 people
During the lectures you have learned about many different special and visual effects used in film and the different goals (such as: distraction, shock, spectacle, narrative, integration, immersion) that can be reached by applying these effects. For this assignment you are challenged to make use of the visual effects offered by Augmented and Virtual Reality to support one (or more) of these goals you find most interesting.
Since learning Unity3D is an essential part of this workshop, you should make use of this software for your project. Exceptions can be made however, if you can give good reasons for this.
Extended cognition in Education
On the 28th of August 2013 I defended my graduation project:
Developing an Augmented Reality application to promote an extended concept of cognition in education
[ABSTRACT]
The ever decreasing size and price of computer parts seems to be leading to computing power becoming ubiquitous. Similar to technology such as pen and paper, computing power becomes intertwined with our problem solving processes in such ways that it becomes invisible. This development has, and will have, enormous influence on our cognitive profiles. The field of education however, has barely changed to cope with this change in cognitive profiles. While developments in information technologies are changing how we learn in many ways, we believe it is essential to rethink what we should learn in this perspective of increasing availability and accessibility of computing power.
This research reviews an extended concept of cognition, in which technological elements can actually be part of the cognitive process. We suggest this view as a framework to discuss the goals of education and the technological aids that can be used to reach these goals. To raise this discussion, a mobile application is developed which shows the potential of Augmented Reality techniques to display context-sensitive information, which can be incorporated in the problem solving process.