How is IBM using Watson’s intelligent tutoring system? So we are attempting to mimic the best practices of human tutoring. The gold standard will always remain one on one human to human tutoring. The whole idea here is an intelligent tutoring system as a computing system that works autonomously with learners, so there is no human intervention. It’s basically pretending to be the teacher itself and it’s working with the learner. What we’re attempting to do is we’re attempting to basically put conversational systems, systems that understand human conversation and dialogue, and we’re trying to build a system that, in a very natural way, interacts with people through conversation. The system basically has the ability to ask questions, to answer questions, to know who you are and where you are in your learning journey, what you’re struggling with, what you’re strong on and it will personalize its pedagogy to you.
…
There’s a natural language understanding system and a machine learning system that’s trying to figure out where you are in your learning journey and what the appropriate intervention is for you. The natural language system enables this interaction that’s very rich and conversation-based, where you can basically have a human-like conversation with it and, to a large extent, it will try to understand and to retrieve the right things for you. Again the most important thing is that we will set the expectations appropriately and we have appropriate exit criteria for when the system doesn’t actually understand what you’re trying to do.
Learning from the Living [Class] Room: A vision for a global, powerful, next generation learning platform
By Daniel Christian
NOTE: Having recently lost my Senior Instructional Designer position due to a staff reduction program, I am looking to help build such a platform as this. So if you are working on such a platform or know of someone who is, please let me know: danielchristian55@gmail.com.
I want to help people reinvent themselves quickly, efficiently, and cost-effectively — while providing more choice, more control to lifelong learners. This will become critically important as artificial intelligence, robotics, algorithms, and automation continue to impact the workplace.
Learning from the Living [Class] Room:
A global, powerful, next generation learning platform
What does the vision entail?
A new, global, collaborative learning platform that offers more choice, more control to learners of all ages – 24×7 – and could become the organization that futurist Thomas Frey discusses here with Business Insider:
“I’ve been predicting that by 2030 the largest company on the internet is going to be an education-based company that we haven’t heard of yet,” Frey, the senior futurist at the DaVinci Institute think tank, tells Business Insider.
A learner-centered platform that is enabled by – and reliant upon – human beings but is backed up by a powerful suite of technologies that work together in order to help people reinvent themselves quickly, conveniently, and extremely cost-effectively
An AI-backed system of analyzing employment trends and opportunities will highlight those courses and “streams of content” that will help someone obtain the most in-demand skills
A system that tracks learning and, via Blockchain-based technologies, feeds all completed learning modules/courses into learners’ web-based learner profiles
A learning platform that provides customized, personalized recommendation lists – based upon the learner’s goals
A platform that delivers customized, personalized learning within a self-directed course (meant for those content creators who want to deliver more sophisticated courses/modules while moving people through the relevant Zones of Proximal Development)
Notifications and/or inspirational quotes will be available upon request to help provide motivation, encouragement, and accountability – helping learners establish habits of continual, lifelong-based learning
(Potentially) An online-based marketplace, matching learners with teachers, professors, and other such Subject Matter Experts (SMEs)
(Potentially) Direct access to popular job search sites
(Potentially) Direct access to resources that describe what other companies do/provide and descriptions of any particular company’s culture (as described by current and former employees and freelancers)
Further details:
While basic courses will be accessible via mobile devices, the optimal learning experience will leverage two or more displays/devices. So while smaller smartphones, laptops, and/or desktop workstations will be used to communicate synchronously or asynchronously with other learners, the larger displays will deliver an excellent learning environment for times when there is:
A Subject Matter Expert (SME) giving a talk or making a presentation on any given topic
A need to display multiple things going on at once, such as:
The SME(s)
An application or multiple applications that the SME(s) are using
Content/resources that learners are submitting in real-time (think Bluescape, T1V, Prysm, other)
The ability to annotate on top of the application(s) and point to things w/in the app(s)
Media being used to support the presentation such as pictures, graphics, graphs, videos, simulations, animations, audio, links to other resources, GPS coordinates for an app such as Google Earth, other
Other attendees (think Google Hangouts, Skype, Polycom, or other videoconferencing tools)
An (optional) representation of the Personal Assistant (such as today’s Alexa, Siri, M, Google Assistant, etc.) that’s being employed via the use of Artificial Intelligence (AI)
This new learning platform will also feature:
Voice-based commands to drive the system (via Natural Language Processing (NLP))
Language translation (using techs similar to what’s being used in Translate One2One, an earpiece powered by IBM Watson)
Speech-to-text capabilities for use w/ chatbots, messaging, inserting discussion board postings
Text-to-speech capabilities as an assistive technology and also for everyone to be able to be mobile while listening to what’s been typed
Chatbots
For learning how to use the system
For asking questions of – and addressing any issues with – the organization owning the system (credentials, payments, obtaining technical support, etc.)
For asking questions within a course
As many profiles as needed per household
(Optional) Machine-to-machine-based communications to automatically launch the correct profile when the system is initiated (from one’s smartphone, laptop, workstation, and/or tablet to a receiver for the system)
(Optional) Voice recognition to efficiently launch the desired profile
(Optional) Facial recognition to efficiently launch the desired profile
(Optional) Upon system launch, to immediately return to where the learner previously left off
The capability of the webcam to recognize objects and bring up relevant resources for that object
A built in RSS feed aggregator – or a similar technology – to enable learners to tap into the relevant “streams of content” that are constantly flowing by them
Social media dashboards/portals – providing quick access to multiple sources of content and whereby learners can contribute their own “streams of content”
In the future, new forms of Human Computer Interaction (HCI) such as Augmented Reality (AR), Virtual Reality (VR), and Mixed Reality (MR) will be integrated into this new learning environment – providing entirely new means of collaborating with one another.
Likely players:
Amazon – personal assistance via Alexa
Apple – personal assistance via Siri
Google – personal assistance via Google Assistant; language translation
Facebook — personal assistance via M
Microsoft – personal assistance via Cortana; language translation
IBM Watson – cognitive computing; language translation
The opportunity to go to college for free is more available than ever before. States and cities, in the last year especially, have funded programs for students to go to two-year, and in some cases, four-year, schools.
Tennessee has taken the idea one step further. Community college is already free for graduating high school students. Now Tennessee is first state in the country to offer community college — free of charge — to almost any adult.
Republican Gov. Bill Haslam has long preached the importance of getting adults back to school. He says it’s the only way that more than half of Tennesseans will get a college degree or certificate.
And the program is simple: If you don’t have a degree, and you want one, your tuition is free.
From DSC: I’m listing universities and colleges as some of the selected keywords/categories here as well, as such institutions will certainly be significantly impacted if this becomes a trend.
Increasingly, people need to reinvent themselves in order to remain marketable and employed — and to do so as quickly and cost-effectively as possible. That’s what I want to be involved in/with. But the direction that I would like to personally pursue is the development of a next generation learning platform/paradigm/system that helps people reinvent themselves, quickly and cost-effectively.* A system that offers constant, up-to-date, curated micro-learning streams of content on a lifelong basis. Team-based efforts will leverage this platform within K-12, higher ed, as well as in corporate learning & development space. Such a system will be accessed on the road, at home, in the office, in group study spaces/learning hubs, as well as in the classrooms across the land.
*If you or someone you know is working on a state-of-the-art, next generation learning platform, please email me at danielchristian55@gmail.com and let me know. I would greatly appreciate being involved in the development of this kind of learning platform — working on what the various pieces/tools should be and how the various features should work and interoperate. I can plug into other areas as well.
From DSC — in regards to the below item involving Intel:
In the future, will we be able to bring remote students into our face-to-face-based classrooms using technologies similar to what Intel is working on? If so, that would offer some serious opportunities for learners worldwide. More choice, more control.
The tech giant has grand ambitions, and thinks that fully immersive live sports is the key to giving fans what they want–someday.
Excerpt (emphasis DSC):
There are hundreds of millions, if not billions, of passionate sports fans around the world. And yet, according to Intel, no more than 1% of those people will ever get to see their favorite team in person.
That massive experience gap is at the center of Intel’s ambitious live-sports virtual reality efforts, a series of initiatives that over the next couple of years should solidify the company’s “as if you’re there” philosophy about sports, said Jeff Hopper, the business strategy lead at Intel Sports Group.
In the short term, those efforts will focus on single-user, individual experiences. But over time, Intel plans on making it possible for fans to be right in the middle of their favorite team’s action, create personalized 3D highlights, and share them with friends.
…
Fans watching the games—via Intel’s True VR app on Samsung’s Gear VR headset—will be able to choose from multiple camera angles around a stadium, each of which will give them a wide, immersive view of the action.
From DSC: There are now more than 12,000+ skills on Amazon’s new platform — Alexa. I continue to wonder…what will this new platform mean/deliver to societies throughout the globe?
What Is an Alexa Skill?
Alexa is Amazon’s voice service and the brain behind millions of devices including Amazon Echo. Alexa provides capabilities, or skills, that enable customers to create a more personalized experience. There are now more than 12,000 skills from companies like Starbucks, Uber, and Capital One as well as innovative designers and developers.
What Is the Alexa Skills Kit?
With the Alexa Skills Kit (ASK), designers, developers, and brands can build engaging skills and reach millions of customers. ASK is a collection of self-service APIs, tools, documentation, and code samples that makes it fast and easy for you to add skills to Alexa. With ASK, you can leverage Amazon’s knowledge and pioneering work in the field of voice design.
You can build and host most skills for free using Amazon Web Services (AWS).
If you work in education, you’ll know there’s a HUGE array of applications, services, products and tools created to serve a multitude of functions in education.
Tools for teaching and learning, parent-teacher communication apps, lesson planning software, home-tutoring websites, revision blogs, SEN education information, professional development qualifications and more.
There are so many companies creating new products for education, though, that it can be difficult to keep up – especially with the massive volumes of planning and marking teachers have to do, never mind finding the time to actually teach!
So how do you know which ones are the best?
Well, as a team of people passionate about education and learning, we decided to do a bit of research to help you out.
We’ve asked some of the best and brightest in education for their opinions on the hottest EdTech of 2017. These guys are the real deal – experts in education, teaching and new tech from all over the world from England to India, to New York and San Francisco.
They’ve given us a list of 82 amazing, tried and tested tools…
From DSC: The ones that I mentioned that Giorgio included in his excellent article were:
AdmitHub – Free, Expert College Admissions Advice
Labster – Empowering the Next Generation of Scientists to Change the World
Blockchain: Letting students own their credentials — from campustechnology.com by Dian Schaffhauser Very soon this nascent technology could securely enable registrars to help students verify credentials without the hassle of ordering copies of transcripts.
Excerpt:
While truth may seem evasive on many fronts, a joint academic and industry effort is underway to codify it for credentialing. At the core of the effort is blockchain, a trust technology developed for bitcoin and used in solving other forms of validation between individuals and organizations. Still in its nascent stage, the technology could, within just a year or two, provide the core services that would enable schools to stop acting as if they own proof of learning and help students verify their credentials as needed — without waiting on a records office to do it for them.
From DSC: This article reminded me of two of the slides from my NGLS 2017 presentation back from February:
From DSC:
First, some items regarding the enormous emphasis being put towards the use of robotics and automation:
$18.867 billion paid to acquire 50 robotics companies in 2016 — from robohub.org by Frank Tobe Excerpt:
2016 was a banner year for acquisitions of companies involved in robotics and automation: 50 sold; 11 for amounts over $500 million; five were over a billion. 30 of the 50 companies disclosed transaction amounts which totaled up to a colossal $18.867 billion! .
2017: The year people are forced to learn new skills… or join the Lost Generation — from enterpriseirregulars.com by Phil Fersht Excerpt (emphasis DSC): Let’s cut to the chase – there have never been times as uncertain as these in the world of business. There is no written rule-book to follow when it comes to career survival. The “Future of Work” is about making ourselves employable in a workforce wherethe priority of business leaders is to invest in automation and digital technology, more than training and developing their own workforces. As our soon-to-be-released State of Operations and Outsourcing 2017 study, conducted in conjunction with KPMG across 454 major enterprise buyers globally, shows a dramatic shift in priorities from senior managers (SVPs and above), where 43% are earmarking significant investment in robotic automation of processes, compared with only 28% placing a similar emphasis on training and change management. In fact, the same number of senior managers are as focused on cognitive computing as their own people… yes, folks, this is the singularity of enterprise operations, where cognitive computing now equals employees’ brains when it comes to investment!
… My deep-seated fear for today’s workforce is that we’re in danger of becoming this “Lost Generation” of workers if we persist in relying on what we already know, versus avoiding learning new skills that business leaders now need. We have to become students again, put our egos aside, and broaden our capabilities to avoid the quicksand of legacy executives no longer worth employing.
Below are some other resources along these lines:
Our Automated Future — from newyorker.com by Elizabeth Kolbert How long will it be before you lose your job to a robot?
From DSC:
Given that these trends continue (i.e., to outsource work to software and to robots), what will the ramifications be for:
Society at large? Will enough people have enough income to purchase the products/services made by the robots and the software?
Will there be major civil unrest / instability? Will crime rates shoot through the roof as peoples’ desperation and frustration escalate?
How we should change our curricula within K-12?
How should we change our curricular within higher education?
How should corporate training & development departments/groups respond to these trends?
Is there some new criteria that we need to use (or increase the usage of) in selecting C-level executives?
People don’t want to hear about it. But if the only thing that the C-level suites out there care about is maximizing profits and minimizing costs — REGARDLESS of what happens to humankind — then we are likely going to be creating a very dangerous future. Capitalism will have gone awry. (By the way, the C-level suite is probably making their decisions based upon how their performance is judged by Wall Street and by shareholders. So I can’t really put all the blame on them. Perhaps the enemy is ourselves…?)
Bottom line: We need to be careful which technologies we implement — and how they are implemented. We need to create a dream in our futures, not a nightmare. We need people at the helms who care about their fellow humankind, and who use the power of these technologies responsibly.
Don’t discount the game-changing power of the morphing “TV” when coupled with artificial intelligence (AI), natural language processing (NLP), and blockchain-based technologies!
When I saw the article below, I couldn’t help but wonder what (we currently know of as) “TVs” will morph into and what functionalities they will be able to provide to us in the not-too-distant future…?
For example, the article mentions that Seiki, Westinghouse, and Element will be offering TVs that can not only access Alexa — a personal assistant from Amazon which uses artificial intelligence — but will also be able to provide access to over 7,000 apps and games via the Amazon Fire TV Store.
Some of the questions that come to my mind:
Why can’t there be more educationally-related games and apps available on this type of platform?
Why can’t the results of the assessments taken on these apps get fed into cloud-based learner profiles that capture one’s lifelong learning? (#blockchain)
When will potential employers start asking for access to such web-based learner profiles?
Will tvOS and similar operating systems expand to provide blockchain-based technologies as well as the types of functionality we get from our current set of CMSs/LMSs?
Will this type of setup become a major outlet for competency-based education as well as for corporate training-related programs?
Will augmented reality (AR), virtual reality (VR), and mixed reality (MR) capabilities come with our near future “TVs”?
Will virtual tutoring be one of the available apps/channels?
Will the microphone and the wide angle, HD camera on the “TV” be able to be disconnected from the Internet for security reasons? (i.e., to be sure no hacker is eavesdropping in on their private lives)
The TVs will not only have access to Alexa via a microphone-equipped remote but, more importantly, will have access to the over 7,000 apps and games available on the Amazon Fire TV Store – a huge boon considering that most of these Smart TVs usually include, at max, a few dozen apps.
“I’ve been predicting that by 2030 the largest company on the internet is going to be an education-based company that we haven’t heard of yet,” Frey, the senior futurist at the DaVinci Institute think tank, tells Business Insider.
EdSurge profiles the growth of massive online open courses in 2016, which attracted more than 58 million students in over 700 colleges and universities last year.
The top three MOOC providers — Coursera, Udacity and EdX — collectively grossed more than $100 million last year, as much of the content provided on these platforms shifted from free to paywall guarded materials.
Many MOOCs have moved to offering credentialing programs or nanodegree offerings to increase their value in industrial marketplaces.
A school bus, virtual reality, & an out-of-this-world journey — from goodmenproject.com “Field Trip To Mars” is the barrier-shattering outcome of an ambitious mission to give a busload of people the same, Virtual Reality experience – going to Mars.
Excerpt:
Inspiration was Lockheed‘s goal when it asked its creative resources, led by McCann, to create the world’s first mobile group Virtual Reality experience. As one creator notes, VR now is essentially a private, isolating experience. But wouldn’t it be cool to give a busload of people the same, simultaneous VR experience? And then – just to make it really challenging – put the whole thing on wheels?
“Field Trip To Mars” is the barrier-shattering outcome of this ambitious mission.
From DSC: This is incredible! Very well done. The visual experience tracks the corresponding speeds of the bus and even turns of the bus.
The United States Department of Education (ED) has formally kicked off a new competition designed to encourage the development of virtual and augmented reality concepts for education.
Dubbed the EdSim Challenge, the competition is aimed squarely at developing students’ career and technical skills — it’s funded through the Carl D. Perkins Career and Technical Education Act of 2006 — and calls on developers and ed tech organizations to develop concepts for “computer-generated virtual and augmented reality educational experiences that combine existing and future technologies with skill-building content and assessment. Collaboration is encouraged among the developer community to make aspects of simulations available through open source licenses and low-cost shareable components. ED is most interested in simulations that pair the engagement of commercial games with educational content that transfers academic, technical, and employability skills.”
Virtual reality boosts students’ results— from raconteur.net by Edwin Smith Virtual and augmented reality can enable teaching and training in situations which would otherwise be too hazardous, costly or even impossible in the real world
Excerpt:
More recently, though, the concept described in Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics has been bolstered by further scientific evidence. Last year, a University of Chicago study found that students who physically experience scientific concepts, such as the angular momentum acting on a bicycle wheel spinning on an axel that they’re holding, understand them more deeply and also achieve significantly improved scores in tests.
Virtual and augmented reality are shaking up sectors — from raconteur.net by Sophie Charara Both virtual and augmented reality have huge potential to leap from visual entertainment to transform the industrial and service sectors
Microsoft might not have envisioned its HoloLens headset as a war helmet, but that’s not stopping Ukrainian company LimpidArmor from experimenting. Defence Blog reports that LimpidArmor has started testing military equipment that includes a helmet with Microsoft’s HoloLens headset integrated into it.
The helmet is designed for tank commanders to use alongside a Circular Review System (CRS) of cameras located on the sides of armored vehicles. Microsoft’s HoloLens gathers feeds from the cameras outside to display them in the headset as a full 360-degree view. The system even includes automatic target tracking, and the ability to highlight enemy and allied soldiers and positions.
Bring your VR to work— from itproportal.com by Timo Elliott, Josh Waddell 4 hours ago With all the hype, there’s surprisingly little discussion of the latent business value which VR and AR offer.
Excerpt:
With all the hype, there’s surprisingly little discussion of the latent business value which VR and AR offer — and that’s a blind spot that companies and CIOs can’t afford to have. It hasn’t been that long since consumer demand for the iPhone and iPad forced companies, grumbling all the way, into finding business cases for them. Gartner has said that the next five to ten years will bring “transparently immersive experiences” to the workplace. They believe this will introduce “more transparency between people, businesses, and things” and help make technology “more adaptive, contextual, and fluid.”
If digitally enhanced reality generates even half as much consumer enthusiasm as smartphones and tablets, you can expect to see a new wave of consumerisation of IT as employees who have embraced VR and AR at home insist on bringing it to the workplace. This wave of consumerisation could have an even greater impact than the last one. Rather than risk being blindsided for a second time, organisations would be well advised to take a proactive approach and be ready with potential business uses for VR and AR technologies by the time they invade the enterprise.
In Gartner’s latest emerging technologies hype cycle, Virtual Reality is already on the Slope of Enlightenment, with Augmented Reality following closely.
One place where students are literally immersed in VR is at Carnegie Mellon University’s Entertainment Technology Center (ETC). ETC offers a two-year Master of Entertainment Technology program (MET) launched in 1998 and cofounded by the late Randy Pausch, author of “The Last Lecture.”
MET starts with an intense boot camp called the “immersion semester” in which students take a Building Virtual Worlds (BVW) course, a leadership course, along with courses in improvisational acting, and visual storytelling. Pioneered by Pausch, BVW challenges students in small teams to create virtual reality worlds quickly over a period of two weeks, culminating in a presentation festival every December.
Apple patents augmented reality mapping system for iPhone — from appleinsider.com by Mikey Campbell Apple on Tuesday was granted a patent detailing an augmented reality mapping system that harnesses iPhone hardware to overlay visual enhancements onto live video, lending credence to recent rumors suggesting the company plans to implement an iOS-based AR strategy in the near future.
Virtual reality is a combination of life-like images, effects and sounds that creates an imaginary world in front of our eyes.
But what if we could also imitate more complex sensations like the feeling of falling rain, a beating heart or a cat walking? What if we could distinguish, between a light sprinkle and a heavy downpour in a virtual experience?
Disney Research?—?a network of research laboratories supporting The Walt Disney Company, has announced the development of a 360-degree virtual reality application offering a library of feel effects and full body sensations.
Literature class meets virtual reality — from blog.cospaces.io by Susanne Krause Not every student finds it easy to let a novel come to life in their imagination. Could virtual reality help? Tiffany Capers gave it a try: She let her 7th graders build settings from Lois Lowry’s “The Giver” with CoSpaces and explore them in virtual reality. And: they loved it.
After generations of peering into a microscope to examine cells, scientists could simply stroll straight through one.
Calling his project the “stuff of science fiction,” director of the 3D Visualisation Aesthetics Lab at the University of New South Wales (UNSW) John McGhee is letting people come face-to-face with a breast cancer cell.
In contrast, VR has been described as the “ultimate empathy machine.” It gives us a way to virtually put us in someone else’s shoes and experience the world the way they do.
This isn’t meant to be an exhaustive list, but if I missed something major, please tell me and I’ll add it. Also, please reach out if you’re working on anything cool in this space à sarah(at)accomplice(dot)co.
Hand and finger tracking, gesture interfaces, and grip simulation:
From DSC: How long before recommendation engines like this can be filtered/focused down to just display apps, channels, etc. that are educational and/or training related (i.e., a recommendation engine to suggest personalized/customized playlists for learning)?
That is, in the future, will we have personalized/customized playlists for learning on our Apple TVs — as well as on our mobile devices — with the assessment results of our taking the module(s) or course(s) being sent in to:
A credentials database on LinkedIn (via blockchain) and/or
A credentials database at the college(s) or university(ies) that we’re signed up with for lifelong learning (via blockchain)
and/or
To update our cloud-based learning profiles — which can then feed a variety of HR-related systems used to find talent? (via blockchain)
Will participants in MOOCs, virtual K-12 schools, homeschoolers, and more take advantage of learning from home?
Will solid ROI’s from having thousands of participants paying a smaller amount (to take your course virtually) enable higher production values?
Will bots and/or human tutors be instantly accessible from our couches?
These affordances are just now starting to be uncovered as machines are increasingly able to ascertain patterns, things, objects…even people (which calls for a separate posting at some point).
But mainly, for today, I wanted to highlight an excellent comment/reply from Nikos Andriotis @ Talent LMS who gave me permission to highlight hissolid reflections and ideas:
From DSC: Excellent reflection/idea Nikos — that would represent some serious personalized, customized learning!
Nikos’ innovative reflections also made me think about his ideas in light of their interaction or impact with web-based learner profiles, credentialing, badging, and lifelong learning. What’s especially noteworthy here is that the innovations (that impact learning) continue to occur mainly in the online and blended learning spaces.
How might the ramifications of these innovations impact institutions who are pretty much doing face-to-face only (in terms of their course delivery mechanisms and pedagogies)?
Given:
That Microsoft purchased LinkedIn and can amass a database of skills and open jobs (playing a cloud-based matchmaker)
Everyday microlearning is key to staying relevant (RSS feeds and tapping into “streams of content” are important here, and so is the use of Twitter)
From DSC: Consider the affordances that we will soon be experiencing when we combine machine learning — whereby computers “learn” about a variety of things — with new forms of Human Computer Interaction (HCI) — such as Augment Reality (AR)!
The educational benefits — as well as the business/profit-related benefits will certainly be significant!
For example, let’s create a new mobile app called “Horticultural App (ML)” * — where ML stands for machine learning. This app would be made available on iOS and Android-based devices.(Though this is strictly hypothetical, I hope and pray that some entrepreneurial individuals and/or organizations out there will take this idea and run with it!)
Some use cases for such an app:
Students, environmentalists, and lifelong learners will be able to take some serious educationally-related nature walks once they launch the Horticultural App (ML) on their smartphones and tablets!
They simply hold up their device, and the app — in conjunction with the device’s camera — will essentially take a picture of whatever the student is focusing in on. Via machine learning, the app will “recognize” the plant, tree, type of grass, flower, etc. — and will then present information about that plant, tree, type of grass, flower, etc.
In the production version of this app, a textual layer could overlay the actual image of the tree/plant/flower/grass/etc. in the background — and this is where augmented reality comes into play. Also, perhaps there would be an opacity setting that would be user controlled — allowing the learner to fade in or fade out the information about the flower, tree, plant, etc.
Or let’s look at the potential uses of this type of app from some different angles.
Let’s say you live in Michigan and you want to be sure an area of the park that you are in doesn’t have anyEastern Poison Ivyin it — so you launch the app and review any suspicious looking plants. As it turns out, the app identifies some Eastern Poison Ivyfor you (and it could do this regardless of which season we’re talking about, as the app would be able to ascertain the current date and the current GPS coordinates of the person’s location as well, taking that criteria into account).
Or consider another use of such an app:
A homeowner who wants to get rid of a certain kind of weed. The homeowner goes out into her yard and “scans” the weed, and up pops some products at the local Lowe’s or Home Depot that gets rid of that kind of weed.
Assuming you allowed the app to do so, it could launch a relevant chatbot that could be used to answer any questions about the application of the weed-killing product that you might have.
Or consider another use of such an app:
A homeowner has a diseased tree, and they want to know what to do about it.The machine learning portion of the app could identify what the disease was and bring up information on how to eradicate it.
Again, if permitted to do so, a relevant chatbot could be launched to address any questions that you might have about the available treatment options for that particular tree/disease.
Or consider other/similar apps along these lines:
Skin ML (for detecting any issues re: acme, skin cancers, etc.)
Minerals and Stones ML (for identifying which mineral or stone you’re looking at)
Fish ML
Etc.
Image from gettyimages.com
So there will be many new possibilities that will be coming soon to education, businesses, homeowners, and many others to be sure! The combination of machine learning with AR will open many new doors.
![The Living [Class] Room -- by Daniel Christian -- July 2012 -- a second device used in conjunction with a Smart/Connected TV](http://danielschristian.com/learning-ecosystems/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/The-Living-Class-Room-Daniel-S-Christian-July-2012.jpg)
