Robin de Lange

Wij vinden het belangrijk dat we allemaal meer nadenken over een toekomst waar we dagelijks slimme brillen op hebben. Want door vooruit te kijken kunnen we invloed hebben op hoe de toekomst eruit gaat zien.

In ons onderzoek ontwikkelen we we samen met studenten en stagiairs van oa Universiteit Leiden prikkelende prototypes. Speculatief ontwerp wordt dat ook wel genoemd. Voor de Week van de Mediawijsheid ontwikkelden we de game ‘ARe you ready?’ waar meer dan 17.000 jongeren nadachten over onze toekomst met deze technologie. (link game & link onderzoeksrapport)

Op dinsdag 15 februari om 15:30 organiseren we een gratis online event over onze toekomst met Augmented Reality. We brengen een programma vol speculatief ontwerp van verschillende makers. En we denken samen met alle bezoekers na over hoe we een positieve impact kunnen maken!

Op het programma:

• AR projecten van kunstenaars & ontwerpers, waaronder Sander Veenhof
• Studenten van de Honours Class ‘Getting smarter with VR & AR’ presenteren hun prototypes en ideeën
• Robin de Lange: het onderwijs als ideale plek voor speculatief ontwerp 
• Hoe ga je zelf aan de slag met Augmented Reality?
• Welke technologische ontwikkelingen komen eraan?
• Discussie: hoe kunnen we positieve impact hebben op de toekomst van AR?

Dit evenement wordt mogelijk gemaakt door het VR Learning Lab & de Honours Academy van Universiteit Leiden.

Het afgelopen jaar heeft een van de grootste uitdagingen voor het onderwijs ooit gebracht. Om onze kwetsbaren te beschermen en de druk op de zorg te beperken toonden we ons allemaal van ons meest flexibele kant. Het begin van 2021 is niet veel anders. In deze blog kijken we vooruit. Welke rol kan Virtual Reality gaan spelen in het onderwijs na deze crisis? En hoe dragen wij bij aan een duurzame implementatie van deze en andere technologieën?

Online onderwijs is een enorme uitdaging, voor docenten én voor leerlingen. Ik mis ook elk college weer dat ik niet in dezelfde ruimte ben met mijn studenten. En onze workshops & masterclasses voor onderwijsprofessionals zijn toch vele malen leuker in het echt.

Digitaal onderwijs biedt gewoon nog te veel beperkingen. Terwijl ik juist vaak betoog dat nieuwe digitale technologie als VR mogelijkheden biedt die verder reiken dan fysiek onderwijs. 

Maar helaas is het veld daar nog niet helemaal. VR-brillen zijn nog niet beschikbaar voor iedereen. En docenten en studenten zijn vaak nog niet bekend genoeg met de techniek om het echt goed in te zetten voor onderwijs. Zeker niet als je zo plotseling moet overschakelen naar online onderwijs.

Daarnaast wil je ook hier digitaal onderwijs en fysiek onderwijs combineren. Blended. Zo kun je de best passende onderwijsvorm kiezen voor de stof. Maar dat is juist precies wat niet kan in deze tijden.

Augmented Reality biedt unieke mogelijkheden om mensen samen te laten werken met computers. Met behulp van sensoren en slimme algoritmes herkent de computer waar de gebruiker mee bezig is en kan precies de informatie tonen die op dat moment relevant is. Dit biedt interessante mogelijkheden voor ‘on-the-job assistance’. Met de juiste software kunnen mensen ingewikkelde problemen sneller oplossen. Een aantal voorbeelden:

[Lees meer…] overAugmented Reality op de werkvloer – 29 november – PLNT Leiden

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.

[Lees meer…] overAugmented Reality Honours Class – Leiden University

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.

[Lees meer…] overGoogle: from finding answers to getting thing done

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.

[Lees meer…] overResearch in learning how to program @ PERL Kickoff 2019

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.

[Lees meer…] overOpen science

Met het VR Learning Lab schreven we mee aan een projectvoorstel geïnitieerd door dr. Marie Postma en haar collega’s bij Tilburg University. Afgelopen week is aangekondigd dat een NRO Comenius Senior Fellow beurs is toegekend aan dit project! Zie hier het bericht dat geplaatst is op de website van Tilburg University.

[Lees meer…] overPartner bij Comenius-beurs Tilburg University

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.

[Lees meer…] overCollaboration in Virtual Reality

[Lees meer…] overAre the new Windows headsets Mixed Reality?

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.

Op 7 juni organiseert LiketoShare het congres ‘Leren met VR’. Robin geeft die dag een lezing met de focus op experimenteren met Virtual Reality in het hoger onderwijs. Hoe kun je op een laagdrempelige manier experimenten starten? En hoe betrek je studenten in dit proces?

Het belooft een leerzame dag te worden, met veel interessante deelnemers!

In opdracht van het Nationaal Regieorgaan Onderwijsonderzoek hebben we een uitgebreid literatuuronderzoek uitgevoerd over Virtual Reality en Augmented Reality in het basisonderwijs. De vraagsteller, een bestuur van een grote scholengemeenschap formuleerde voor de NRO Kennisrotonde de volgende vraag:

Wat weten we over de inzet en effectiviteit van Augmented Reality en Virtual Reality in het basisonderwijs?

Het volledige onderzoek is hier te vinden, hieronder de samenvatting van het onderzoek, zoals ook gepubliceerd op de website van het NRO.

An English version of this report will come out in the near future.

Het is nog te vroeg om harde conclusies te trekken over de effectiviteit van VR of AR in het onderwijs. Veel van de onderzoekers zijn echter positief en zien veel mogelijkheden voor deze nieuwe leermiddelen. De grootste uitdaging ligt in de ontwikkeling van goede educatieve inhoud en inbedding in lesprogramma’s.

Er is goed onderzoek verricht naar de effectiviteit van VR als leermiddel, maar het gaat dan over ‘screen-based VR’, waarbij geen headset wordt gebruikt maar een scherm. In dit onderzoek beperken we ons tot Head Mounted Display (HMD) gebaseerde Virtual Reality, waarbij wel gebruik wordt gemaakt van een headset. Dat sluit volgens ons het beste aan bij het heersende beeld van deze techniek.

[Lees meer…] overNRO Kennisrotonde – Virtual Reality & Augmented Reality

On the 23rd of February we organize the first VR Learning Lab Meetup. You can experience a few of the Honours Class VR projects and have drinks and snacks.

Program

17.00: Opening and welcome talk by HUBspot

17.30: Opening by Robin de Lange, initiator of the VR Learning Lab

17.45: Project Presentations

18.30: VR Demos + Food and Drinks

You can try out a few of the cool VR projects that have been developed by students and researchers that are connected to the VR learning lab, while enjoying drinks and snacks.

[Lees meer…] overVirtual Reality Meetup: Project presentations & Office Opening Drinks

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.

Project Anger Induction is a Virtual Reality experience that aims to induce anger in children. The Gear VR / Google Cardboard app allows users to play an enjoyable game with Jasper, our digital avatar. While he might seem like a nice, cooperative boy at first, Jasper’s true nature – a rather annoying one – shows itself over time. Through the use of Jasper, we hope to see to what extent Virtual Reality can be used to create a sense of social anger.

This project was created by the Media Technology students Nesse van der Meer and Pieter Rohrbach in cooperation with Marieke Bos and Carolien Rieffe from the research group Focus on Emotions. Robin de Lange was the supervisor of the project.

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.

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?

[Lees meer…] overTowards a theoretical framework for Virtual Reality 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?

[Lees meer…] overThe dangers of techno-pessimism 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?

[Lees meer…] overWhy are people enthusiastic about VR in Education?

On 12 January 2016 I gave a guest lecture at the Education & ICT course at Utrecht University. Great to give students their first VR experience and discuss the potential uses for the field of education.

Some pictures by Casper Hulshof:

In the spring of 2015 I taught the course Embodied Vision together with Dan North. The course was part of the Media Technology MSc. program.

In the lectures given by Dan the students learned about special effects and illusionism in cinema and how this is used in the service of narrative and spectacle. In the following workshops I gave we explored to what extent the visual effects used in film are usable for creating immersive experiences in Virtual Reality. The studens identified differences and similarities between film and contemporary Virtual Reality. For their final project for the course the students created cinematic VR projects which experimented with e.g. stop-motion, green screens, interactive gaze-controlled video and the dolly zoom effect.

Below you can find some of my slides for the course.

[Lees meer…] overEmbodied Vision 2015

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.

[Lees meer…] overArt of Neuroscience talk – Virtual Reality visualization of live EEG data

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.

Download the article here

[Lees meer…] overExtended cognition in Education