This is a fourth of five posts where I will talk about some technologies that may change how we live, work and play. They are personal opinions and I could very well be wrong. I mention them sometimes in conference presentations and workshops and wanted to describe my thinking more in this series of short posts.
Augmented reality (or at least my understanding of it) is a way that we can lay virtual data or images on top of real images. It has been around for years but again has only recently become more robust and cost effective. I mentioned augmented reality recently in a post about how such technology may allow relatively unskilled people to easily do the jobs of people who currently need to be skilled.
Have a look at the BMW Research Concept Video (YouTube Video below) to see what I mean:
I think that this type of technology may be particularly appealing for some industries as it could be more cost effective but also safer and less of a risk for employees.
We are still a little way off Augmented Reality glasses – this doesn’t mean that they don’t exist (they do!) they are just a little bit expensive at the moment and normally have to be plugged into a computer to work robustly.
However many people have an augmented reality viewer already in their pocket – their mobile phone (a recurring theme of this mini series!).
Modem smart phones know exactly where they are because they have GPS in them. They know which way they are facing because they have an accelerometer and / or digital compass in them. They also have a camera and large viewing screen so you can easily see the world though them. Finally, as long as you have a 3G signal most modern smart phones are constantly connected to the Internet – making them very powerful mini computers.
There are already lots of augmented reality / layer apps available for the iPhone and for the android platform. The new Android commercial shows some of the possibilities of this technology (YouTube clip below).
The potential is huge. Imagine walking down the high street and you are looking for somewhere to eat, you walk past a restaurant, hold up your phone to the restaurant and the latest customer reviews appear around it. Or, you go on a history field trip to a famous battle field and by holding up your phone you can actually see a re-enactment of the battle take place. Or, what about if you visited and extinct volcano (such as Arthurs Seat in Edinburgh) and you hold up your phone to see the geological information about the volcano or even what it might have looked at millions of years ago.
The potential for augmented reality in gaming is also huge. As part of out work at Learning and Teaching Scotland we have already put Sony Eye Pets for the Play Station 3 into a number of Early Years establishments(more about this in a separate post) and also have Invizimals and second sight for the PSP ready to go out to some partner schools early next session. The interesting thing about all of these games is that they use the ‘real world’ as the backdrop for immersive game play.
I’m convinced that these ‘real world’ augmented games will be the big thing of 2011 – 2012 and devices like the Parrot AR Helicopter will add to this new phase of game play. The Parrot helicopter is a hover helicopter with two cameras on it so that you can see what the helicopter sees. The amazing thing about the Parrot helicopter is that you control it over WiFi with your iPhone (and probably other devices as well).
All of these applications are interesting but the real point of my post is to think about what will happen when you combine augmented reality technology with facial recognition software.
Facial recognition software has been around for years and just like all technologies its got better and cheaper over the last few years as computing power has increased. If you’re a mac user facial recognition has been built into the last few versions of iPhone (that ships with all apple computers).
Google image search also now includes an option to search for just faces and Google Picassa allows you to do the same thing with your own photos that you have up-loaded.
In fact Google has had a real interest in facial recognition for years – this is one of the reasons why they bought Neven Vision back in 2006.
Now lets take all the parts and add them together to think about what will be possible in the not to distant future.
There are lots of people globally up-load pictures of themselves to the Internet, these pictures are often associated and tagged with the persons first and last name.
There are also a number of websites that allow web users to aggregate all of their social content to one place (Google Profile and Facebook are both good examples of this).
There are already websites that can build a profile of you from an email address, depending on what you have published about yourself on-line. If you don’t believe me check out spokeo – it scares me!
Also, in the UK (and probably other parts of the world as well) unless you are ex-directory (which we recommend all teachers are) then your address and phone number (including your mobile phone number) are all stored online.
What is my point? Well, very soon you will be able to run an App on your phone , hold it up to a group of people in a room and facial recognition software will be able to recognize their face (cross checked against images that they have on-line) and augmented around the face on the phone screen will be links to the persons likely on-line presence. This will probably include things like Facebook profile, Slideshare account, Flickr page, newspaper reports, LinkedIN profile etc…
The data displayed might also include links to their home address and / or phone number. The App will be able to make educated guesses about some of these things because it will know where it is (eg: its geo-sensitive). For example, just because there are tens of ‘Ollie Bray’s’ living in the UK there is only one (to my knowledge) living in the Edinburgh / Lothian region of Scotland.
Now here is the really interesting thing, this fictitious App that I am describing relies on their being a picture of you on the Internet and then linking data to other on-line sources. When I describe this to people the first reaction I often get is, ‘thank goodness there are no pictures of me on-line’. Of course, these reactions are normally from people who don’t actually have a clue if they have pictures of themselves on-line or not. What they mean is that they haven’t put any pictures of themselves on-line but that doesn’t mean that other people haven’t. You see privacy doesn’t really exist anymore (I’ll come back to this in a separate post).
Of course all of this is fictitious at the moment, but all of the peaces are in place so it won’t be long (I think 12 – 24 months maybe less?). In fact MIT already have a working prototype.
So what does this mean for schools and education? A few things I think.
First of all, more than ever, we need to make sure that we educate our children and young people about what they put on-line. This has to include very young children (I’m talking from 3-11 year olds) and most importantly the teachers that care for them. For far to long we have concentrated our efforts surrounding the Internet safety and responsible use agenda on children that are already too old to really have any worthwhile impact. In short, rightly or wrongly we have been far to reactive and now with the technologies like I have described above just around the corner we need to be far more pro-active to ensure our children remain safe and secure.
I could be wrong, but I don’t think we can stop the above. In fact I think there will be a whole generation of Young People who tick the box (or just ignore the box) on their social networking profile and volunteer their data to be given away in the in the way I have described above.
What ever we do we need to make sure that we raise awareness for both children and education professionals.
Ken Robinsons 2010 TED talk is now available on the TED Website. As always Sir Ken uses great humor to deliver a very serious point and some important key messages. I have embedded the movie below that is definitely worth 17 minutes of your time and probably 34 minutes (as you will want to watch it twice!).
The messages that I took from the talk were:
“We are currently suffering a crisis in human resources”
“Many children endure rather than enjoy education”
“Human resources are like natural resources – you have to dig deep”
“Every education system in the world is under reform, but reform is not good enough. Reform suggests fixing and actually many education systems need to be completely revolutionizes”
“The time for them [young people] is everywhere”
“Human communities require diversity in order to survive”
“A 3 year old is not half a 6 year old”
“The fast food model of education system will destroy our schools in t he same way it has destroyed our bodies”
“Education must be customized”
“If you do something you love an hour feels like 5 minutes. But, if you do something you hate 5 minutes feels like an hour”
“Human flourishing is organic not a mechanical process”
“Technology, the Internet and Media education combined with good teaching can and should revolutionize education”
The presentation finishes with a lovely quote from W. B Yates:
“Had I the heavens' embroidered cloths, Enwrought with golden and silver light, The blue and the dim and the dark cloths Of night and light and the half-light, I would spread the cloths under your feet: But I, being poor, have only my dreams; I have spread my dreams under your feet; Tread softly because you tread on my dreams.”
His point being that every day children spread their dream under our feet [in our classes, under our care] and we must tread softly to nurture these dreams.
During the question and answer session at
the 2010 RM Strategic Forums I suggested to the audience that they needed to
think about how products could be used differently to really add value to
learning.
I am a big believer that ICT can provide
engaging experiences for children and that ICT can also provide engaging
learning experiences for children. The second thing requires good pedagogy from
the classroom teacher. I don’t like it that some teachers still think that good
learning will take place just by putting children in front of computers and I
also don’t like it when teachers use ICT as a reward or just to keep children
occupied.
ICT is expensive and only some ICT is worth
the investment. The challenge is to get teachers and school leaders thinking
about how they can get the most out of any resource that they procure.
I gave the example of Microsoft Surface
Globe that was being used being shown on one of the multi touch products and
tried to get the audience to think of the globe as more of contextual hub for
learning rather than as just a tool to teach place.
The links to use a 3D globe in geography are obvious, but why
do so few teachers think about using a 3D globe as an immersive environment for
creative writing? Or as a way to reinforce numeracy by measuring distance, scale,
direction and orientation? Or doesn’t it make a great way to study shape and
structure – you only have to zoom into the London Eye in the UK for a perfect
example and a ready made lesson.
Next I spoke about the flasma Floor, there
seemed to be a lot of people interested in it at the conference. I agree, its
impressive, younger children in particular would love it. But how much value
does it add apart from improving the aesthetic of the learning space and the
obvious value that it would add to the early years and SEN environment?
Now don’t
get me wrong, I think the flasma floor, if used in the right way, can add real
value.Why? because it has a
Software Development Kit (SDK), which means that children could develop games
for the flasma Floor. Games development provides obvious curriculum links and
also the development of more soft skills. But the floor also then
becomes a way to showcase student work in an innovative and creative way. Lets
face it; it’s a lot more of an impressive way to showcase student achievement at the entrance to the school in comparison to a small plasma
screen.
By thinking about products as I have
described above they become part of the curriculum and then also part of the
learning.
The afternoon of the 2010 RM Strategic
Forums consisted on a debate / question and answer session with an expert panel and the
assembled audience. I was asked to be on the panel. I don’t like doing panels
partly because I’m quite inexperienced in doing them and also because I
normally say something that I passionately believe in but at the same time ends
up annoying who ever happens to be paying my salary at the time!
Anyway, the expert panel at the RM London Strategic Forums included my good friend John Davitt, My former Director of
Education David Cameron, Education Legend Sir Tim Brighouse, Award winning
architect Jayne Bird and me (who after seeing the names of the other panelist
was feeling even more out of his depth!).
Anyway, despite messing up the answer to my first
question or at least not answering it as well as I should have. The rest of the
questions seemed to go OK. The topics were fairly wide ranging from the future
of learning spaces, to the constraints of the curriculum, to the inflexibility
of the timetable, to the role of government in education, to assessment and
evidence gathering…
Overall the discussion seemed to go well
and I certainly learnt a lot.
One other part of the discussion focused on
what the audiences most popular products had been from the Learning Spaces
Exhibition.
They were:
iPod Touch
Vertable+UST+e-beam
Flasma Floor
T41
Audio Pod
Apple iMac (in particular showing Garage
Band)
T41 Wireless Hubs
Smart Table
Digital Graffiti Wall
I have to say I don’t agree with the order
of the list – but then it’s not my list. I thought that ‘Talking Products’ should
have got a lot higher mention as well as some of the Lego products on display,
the croma key, flip cameras, Windows 7 multi touch and also perhaps 3D projection.
When buying any ICT product for use in schools you must always come back to the question does the added value justify the cost?
Although a number of wonderful outdoor
instruments were showcased in the future learning zone. It was a shame that
were not more examples of how technology can be used outdoors. It would be nice
to see some good examples of GPS, geocashing, educahing, QR or AR Code /
Microsoft Tag or even and outdoor wireless solution?
Lots of computers, touch screens, laptops,
iPod Touches, netbooks and desk tops but no games consoles? A huge opportunity
missed here? Where was the Nntendo Wii with children swimming around inside
endless ocean? Or the Play Station 3 with children creating sophisticated
levels for Little Big Planet or the xBox with children carrying out complex
problem solving tasks with Microsoft KODU?
3) School
Based Mobile Phone Apps
Although we had some good education iPhone
/ iPod Touch Apps what about the one that could be created for a specific
school? Pulling in the schools twitter feed, its school radio podcast channel
and RSS feed of the latest school news?
4) Microsoft
MultiPoint and Multipoint Server Products
Also no sign of MultiPoint from Microsoft
to allow children to connect a number of USB mice to one computer and its
sister product Multipoint Server that turns one computer into 3 or 4.
Some people might think that the reason not
to showcase products like this would mean that schools would spend less on hardware.
In reality of course, schoolscan
only spend the money they have – if you sell them good products, at a
competitive price point, that add value to the learning experience or make a
school more efficient they will still always the money they have.
5) iPad
I know its only just come out….but come on!
A missed opportunity here and a definite crowd pleaser!
Perhaps this could have
been linked to the future of library spaces, ebooks etc...
I’ve written about the RM Future Learning Spaces Exhibition before and over the past few years I have been lucky to visit it twice at the BETT Show in London and also pay a visit to the RM Real Centre in Abingdon.
What I liked about the things on display is that there was a good mix between expensive and non-expensive items. There is also a good mix between items to improve the aesthetics of a learning space, items to improve the flexibility of a learning space, hardware and software.
I’ve listed some of the hardware and software products that were on display in the future learning space exhibition below:
1) Multi-touch LCD Screens - this one showing Microsoft Surface Globe(yes, you don't have to have surface to run this great free package - remember Windows 7 supports multi touch).
2) Lego Mind-storm - some very cool robots that children can make do wonderful things!
3) Great range of outdoor instruments
4) Plasma Floor - project on to the floor and the change the image / play a game with your foot prints.
5) 3D Projection - massive potential in schools and getting lower in price all of the time.
6) Green Screen / Chroma Key - coming to a Scottish School near you soon....
7) A wall that you can write on....
8) ... and the more expensive version!
9) Table top computing - has this really made the impact we thought it would?
10) Talking Products - I just love them - minimum spend and maximum impact (more information here).
I enjoy Sir Ken Robinson’s work and have been a fan of his ever since seeing him speak at the Scottish Learning Festival in September 2005. His key note speech back in 2005 inspired me to read his book “Out of Our Minds: Learning to be Creative”and I went on to read his next book “The Element” when it was published last year. If you have not read “Out of Our Minds: Learning to be Creative” and you are interested in creativity and thinking differently in education then you must read it.
I’m not sure if the films from the strategic forums will be available to people who didn’t attend but if they are not then a lot of Ken Robinsons work is available on the web. Perhaps his most famous YouTube Talk is from his presentation at TED a number of years ago. Again if you have not seen this – it really is worth a look.
Rather than just showing the pre-recorded videos they were complimented and interspersed with input from Richard Gerver. Richard has worked with Sir Ken Robinson a lot over the years and they made a pretty good double act. Richard is a former headteacher himself and made a good introduction to the conference.
During my visit I couldn’t help but notice the greenhouse that the staff, children and parents had built.
From a distance you might think it looked a bit flimsy….
But when you got close up and finally inside you could see that it had been constructed by hundreds of recycled plastic bottles. The children were able to describe in detail to me how they had built it and also what they were growing inside.
Hopefully, I’ll be invited back when all the vegetables have grown a little bit more!
Siobhan Reddy, Executive Producer and Kareem Ettouney, Art Director of Media Molecule did one of the opening keynotes to the Games Based Learning 2010 Conference. Media Molecule are the brains behind Little Big Planet. Little Big Planet is a game available for the PS3 (and more recently for the PSP) and it really is fantastic. In fact I bought my PS3 just so I could start playing Little Big Planet.
I have embedded a YouTube clip below of Little Big Planet if you haven’t seen it:
I thought Sionbhan and Kareems presentation was superb! They take a few minutes to get warmed up and used to speaking to a large audience but when they get going their passion, risk taking, playful, enterprising attitudes and personalities really start to shine through.
There presentation kicked off by talking about things that were important to them as they were growing up and learning to be creative. This included lego (building blocks), Tony Hart (animation) and the Commodore 64 (Computing). These were all principles that would eventually make it into Little Big Planet.
They also spoke about the ‘jamming’ culture – a phrase influenced by musicians getting together and just coming up with and experimenting to make music. They linked this to confidence and also to how collaboration, trying and effort can often produce the best product.
They also talked about and gave examples of how you can create your own levels with Little Big Planet – again providing audience and purpose for other peoples work. Apparently over 2 million user generated levels have been creating using Little Big Planet – which just goes to show how popular these ‘creation’ tools are.
Finally they ended with a quote, that I instantly turned into a presentation slide for the following morning,
“Only by watering ideas do you find out if it’s a weed or a flower”
Which I took to mean – some ideas are always going to be better than others BUT we need to always keep trying!
A Blip TV Video of Sionbhan and Kareems presentation is below (really worth a watch):
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