One of the goals of my newest book, The Kickstart Guide to Making GREAT Makerspaces, was to highlight best practices in makerspaces around the world. Since the book’s publication, I have continued to see many people creating not just makerspaces, but GREAT makerspaces. I honestly could write another book based on all of the amazing things I am seeing happening, but wanted to share with you in this post, 6 that recently have stood out to me.
It is with great pride that we announce the official launch our entrepreneurship initiative with the unveiling of our website: www.rockinhoodproject.com
As studies have demonstrated, only one thing consistently brings children raised in poverty into the middle class: entrepreneurship education. And so it is our mission to expose students from inner city schools to successful entrepreneurs, influencers, and accomplished individuals who can inspire and educate on the principles of thinking outside the box and on believing in their own achievements.
Essentially we are building the Ted Talks for Kids.
If you’d like to get involved, know of corporate sponsors, or would like to do an interview with our organization Rockin’ Hood Project, please email us at debra@rockinhoodproject.com.
Why Aren’t We Teaching Entrepreneurship in Our Schools? The Williams brothers’ story is one of countless examples from NFTE’s files that beg the question: If entrepreneurship education can create jobs, encourage students to stay in school, and provide economic rescue for people in our low-income communities, why aren’t we teaching it in every high school in America?
Let’s begin state and national discussions about owner-entrepreneurship education, focused on four goals:
Engage young people in school by teaching math, reading, writing and communication within the motivating context of starting and operating a small business.
Teach young people about the market economy and how ownership leads to wealth creation.
Encourage an entrepreneurial mindset so our youth will succeed whether they pursue higher education, enter the workforce, or become entrepreneurs.
Make young people financially literate so they can save and invest to achieve goals like home ownership and retirement.
What may surprise us though is how the underlying elements of these beautiful designs can follow certain principles–what Goldhagen refers to as “embodied metaphors.” These embodied metaphors suggest, reinforce, and captivate an action sequence from us that is both cognitive and non-cognitive in response. Examples of these natural, unconscious design principles that evoke conscious responses include:
Natural landscapes settle a person’s elevated heart rate after just 20 seconds
Bright lights stimulate creativity and bright ideas
Closed spaces offer a sense of refuge
Expansive spaces invite exploration
Colors can heighten (red for anger) and dampen (pink for calm) emotions
Sharp edge surfaces suggest retreat
Curving surfaces suggest approach
Repeating patterns with respites from that same pattern can stimulate problem-solving capacity
This has profound implications for the built environments of school buildings. Goldhagen cites one study of 34 different British schools where the six design parameters of color, choice, complexity, flexibility, light, and connectivity affected a student’s learning progress by 25 percent! The difference in learning between the best and worst designed classrooms was equal to the progress of an average student over an entire academic year.
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The difference in learning between the best and worst designed classrooms was equal to the progress of an average student over an entire academic year.
Too often, children in poverty live in dwellings that are cognitively dulling environments, often limited in natural sunlight, creative use of color, changes in texture, or sightlines to landscaping, greenery, or vegetation. Low-income housing often wrings out the least costly, most expedient design. These children of poverty often leave such home dwellings and enter school buildings and classrooms each day that are equally devoid of cognitive inspiration. Where is the inspiration in uniform rows of wooden desks and plastic chairs?
How well does your school’s built environment contribute to human flourishing?
From DSC: Why aren’t we further along with lecture recording within K-12 classrooms?
That is, I as a parent — or much better yet, our kids themselves who are still in K-12 — should be able to go online and access whatever talks/lectures/presentations were given on a particular day. When our daughter is sick and misses several days, wouldn’t it be great for her to be able to go out and see what she missed? Even if we had the time and/or the energy to do so (which we don’t), my wife and I can’t present this content to her very well. We would likely explain things differently — and perhaps incorrectly — thus, potentially muddying the waters and causing more confusion for our daughter.
There should be entry level recording studios — such asthe One Button Studio from Penn State University— in each K-12 school for teachers to record their presentations. At the end of each day, the teacher could put a checkbox next to what he/she was able to cover that day. (No rushing intended here — as education is enough of a run-away train often times!) That material would then be made visible/available on that day as links on an online-based calendar. Administrators should pay teachers extra money in the summer times to record these presentations.
Also, students could use these studios to practice their presentation and communication skills. The process is quick and easy:
I’d like to see an option — ideally via a brief voice-driven Q&A at the start of each session — that would ask the person where they wanted to put the recording when it was done: To a thumb drive, to a previously assigned storage area out on the cloud/Internet, or to both destinations?
Providing automatically generated close captioning would be a great feature here as well, especially for English as a Second Language (ESL) students.
From DSC:
After seeing the article entitled, “Scientists Are Turning Alexa into an Automated Lab Helper,” I began to wonder…might Alexa be a tool to periodically schedule & provide practice tests & distributed practice on content? In the future, will there be “learning bots” that a learner can employ to do such self-testing and/or distributed practice?
LAWRENCE — Researchers from the Juniper Gardens Children’s Project at the University of Kansas are improving kids’ response to literacy instruction in Kansas City area preschool classrooms.
The new program, called Literacy 360°, will train psychologists, early childhood special educators and teachers to individualize literacy interventions for children who are not making progress (sometimes due to disabilities or factors such as coming from a home where English isn’t the primary language).
The designers of the four-year project, funded by $1.4 million from the U.S. Department of Education, liken it to “personalized medicine” for literacy instruction.
“One of the challenges that teachers have is knowing what to do when individual young children aren’t making progress in learning their literacy skills,” said Charles Greenwood, director of Literacy 360°. “We see a gap in the information a teacher needs to make those decisions. In using direct observations of the classroom context and teacher talk-child response, a record of what the child and teacher were doing in the classroom can be provided back to teachers.”
To house this information, the Literacy 360° team uses is a classroom observational measure called “CIRCLE,” an acronym for Code for Interactive Recording of Children’s Learning Environment, a tool specifically designed to capture organizational and behavioral features of preschool classroom instruction to help guide intervention decisions.
Teaching is truly a Herculean challenge.Even the very best teachers can keep only so many of these insights in their heads and make only so many connections between expectations and circumstances. They can be aware of only a fraction of the research on best practices. They have only so much time to collaborate and communicate with the other adults in a particular student’s life to share information and insights. To be the best of themselves, teachers need to have access to a warehouse of information, a research assistant to mine best practices, note takers to gather and record information on each student, a statistician to gauge effective practices, and someone to collaborate with to distill the next best step with each student. In recent years, a plethora of vendors have developed software solutions that promise to simplify this process and give schools and teachers the answers to understand and address the individual needs of each student. One of the most promising, which I recently had a chance to learn about, is IBM’s Watson Classroom.
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IBM is clear about what makes Watson different than existing solutions. First of all, it is a cognitive partner; not a solution. Secondly, it does not require proprietary or additional assessments, curriculum, or content. It uses whatever a district has in place. But it goes beyond the performance of tiering difficulty, pace, and reading level that is now standard fare for the solutions promising individualized, adaptive and personalized learning. Watson takes the stew of data from existing systems (including assessments, attendance records, available accommodations), adds the ability to infer meaning from written reports, and is able to connect the quality of the result to the approach that was taken. And then adjust the next recommendation based on what was learned. It is artificial intelligence (AI) brought to education that goes far beyond the adaptive learning technologies of today.
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Watson Classroom is currently being piloted in 12 school districts across the country. In those classrooms, Watson Classroom is utilizing cutting-edge computing power to give teachers a full range of support to be the best versions of themselves. Watson is facilitating the kind of education the great teachers strive for every day–one where learning is truly personalized for each and every student. Bringing the power of big data to the interactions between students and teachers can help assure that every student reaches beyond our expectations to achieve their full potential.
To help everyone understand how AI can solve challenging problems, we’ve created a resource called Learn with Google AI. This site provides ways to learn about core ML concepts, develop and hone your ML skills, and apply ML to real-world problems. From deep learning experts looking for advanced tutorials and materials on TensorFlow, to “curious cats” who want to take their first steps with AI, anyone looking for educational content from ML experts at Google can find it here.
Learn with Google AI also features a new, free course called Machine Learning Crash Course (MLCC). The course provides exercises, interactive visualizations, and instructional videos that anyone can use to learn and practice ML concepts.
Chatbots and AI have become household names and enterprises are taking notice. According to a recent Forrester survey, roughly “85% of customer interactions within an enterprise will be with software robots in five years’ time” and “87% of CEOs are looking to expand their AI workforce” using AI bots.
In an effort to drive increased labor efficiencies, reduce costs, and deliver better customer/employee experiences enterprises are quickly introducing AI, machine learning, and natural language understanding as core elements of their digital transformation strategy in 2018.
Human resources (HR) is one area ripe for intelligent automation within an enterprise. AI-powered bots for HR are able to streamline and personalize the HR process across seasonal, temporary, part-time, and full-time employees.
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There are 7 ways in which enterprises can use HR bots to drive increased labors efficiencies, reduced costs, and better employee experiences:
Recruitment
Onboarding
Company Policy FAQs
Employee Training
Common Questions
Benefits Enrollment
Annual Self-Assessment/Reviews
From DSC: Again, this article paint a bit too rosy of a picture for me re: the use of AI and HR, especially in regards to recruiting employees.
Every day we hear more and more about the impact that Artificial Intelligence gains in every sphere of our life. In order to discover how AI implementation is going to change the eLearning we decided to ask Christopher Pappas to share his views and find out what he thinks about it. Christopher is an experienced eLearning specialist and the Founder of the eLearning Industry’s Network.
… How to get ready preparing course materials now, while considering the future impact of AI? Christopher: Regardless of whether you plan to adopt an AI system as soon as they’re available to the mass market or you opt to hold off (and let others work out the glitches), infrastructure is key. You can prepare your course materials now by developing course catalogs, microlearning online training repositories, and personalized online training paths that fall into the AI framework. For example, the AI system can easily recommend existing resources based on a learners’ assessment scores or job duties. All of the building blocks are in place, allowing the system to focus on content delivery and data analysis.
Can You Trust Intelligent Virtual Assistants? — from nojitter.com by Gary Audin From malicious hackers to accidental voice recordings, data processed through virtual assistants may open you to security and privacy risks.
Excerpt:
Did you know that with such digital assistants your voice data is sent to the cloud or another remote location for processing? Is it safe to talk in front of your TV remote? Are you putting your business data at risk of being compromised by asking Alexa to start your meeting?
Automation isn’t a simple struggle between people and technology, with the two sides competing for jobs. The more we rely on robots, artificial intelligence (AI), and machine learning, the clearer it’s become just how much we need social scientists and humanities experts–not the reverse.
These four skills in particular are all unique to us humans, and will arguably rise in value in the coming years, as more and more companies realize they need the best of both worlds to unleash the potential from both humans and machines.
Why Students Forget—and What You Can Do About It— from edutopia.org by Youki Terada Our brains are wired to forget, but there are research-backed strategies you can use to make your teaching stick.
Excerpt:
5 Teacher Strategies When students learn a new piece of information, they make new synaptic connections. Two scientifically based ways to help them retain learning is by making as many connections as possible—typically to other concepts, thus widening the “spiderweb” of neural connections—but also by accessing the memory repeatedly over time.
Which explains why the following learning strategies, all tied to research conducted within the past five years, are so effective:
Peer-to-peer explanations: When students explain what they’ve learned to peers, fading memories are reactivated, strengthened, and consolidated. This strategy not only increases retention but also encourages active learning (Sekeres et al., 2016).
The spacing effect: Instead of covering a topic and then moving on, revisit key ideas throughout the school year. Research shows that students perform better academically when given multiple opportunities to review learned material. For example, teachers can quickly incorporate a brief review of what was covered several weeks earlier into ongoing lessons, or use homework to re-expose students to previous concepts (Carpenter et al., 2012; Kang, 2016).
Frequent practice tests: Akin to regularly reviewing material, giving frequent practice tests can boost long-term retention and, as a bonus, help protect against stress, which often impairs memory performance. Practice tests can be low stakes and ungraded, such as a quick pop quiz at the start of a lesson or a trivia quiz on Kahoot, a popular online game-based learning platform. Breaking down one large high-stakes test into smaller tests over several months is an effective approach (Adesope, Trevisan, & Sundararajan, 2017; Butler, 2010; Karpicke, 2016).
Interleave concepts: Instead of grouping similar problems together, mix them up. Solving problems involves identifying the correct strategy to use and then executing the strategy. When similar problems are grouped together, students don’t have to think about what strategies to use—they automatically apply the same solution over and over. Interleaving forces students to think on their feet, and encodes learning more deeply (Rohrer, 2012; Rohrer, Dedrick, & Stershic, 2015).
Combine text with images: It’s often easier to remember information that’s been presented in different ways, especially if visual aids can help organize information. For example, pairing a list of countries occupied by German forces during World War II with a map of German military expansion can reinforce that lesson. It’s easier to remember what’s been read and seen, instead of either one alone (Carney & Levin, 2002; Bui & McDaniel, 2015).
So even though forgetting starts as soon as learning happens—as Ebbinghaus’s experiments demonstrate—research shows that there are simple and effective strategies to help make learning stick.
Americans are as eager to work as ever. Just no longer for somebody else.
According to FreshBooks, a cloud-based accounting company that has conducted a study on self-employment for two years, the number of Americans working for themselves looks to triple—to 42 million people—by 2020.
The trend, gauged in a survey of more than 2,700 full-time US workers in traditional, independent, and small business roles about their career plans, is largely being driven by millennial workers. FreshBooks estimates that of the next 27 million independent workers, 42% will be millennials. The survey, conducted with Research Now, also finds that Americans who already work for themselves are suddenly very content to keep doing so, with 97% of independent workers (up 10% from 2016) reporting no desire to return to traditional work.
From DSC: With the continued trend towards more freelancing and the growth of a more contingent workforce…have our students had enough practice in selling themselves and their businesses to be successful in this new, developing landscape?
We need to start offering more courses, advice, and opportunities for practicing these types of skills — and the sooner the better! I’m serious. Our students will be far more successful with these types of skills under their belt. Conversely, they won’t be able to persuade others and sell themselves and their businesses without such skills.
Oklahoma State University’s first inaugural “Virtual + Augmented Reality Hackathon” hosted January 26-27 by the Mixed Reality Lab in the university’s College of Human Sciences gave students and the community a chance to tackle real-world problems using augmented and virtual reality tools, while offering researchers a glimpse into the ways teams work with digital media tools. Campus Technology asked Dr. Tilanka Chandrasekera, an assistant professor in the department of Design, Housing and Merchandising at Oklahoma State University about the hackathon and how it fits into the school’s broader goals.
To set up the audio feed, use the Alexa mobile app to search for “Campus Technology News” in the Alexa Skills catalog. Once you enable the skill, you can ask Alexa “What’s in the news?” or “What’s my Flash Briefing?” and she will read off the latest news briefs from Campus Technology.
Computer simulations are nothing new in the field of aviation education. But a new partnership between Western Michigan University and Microsoft is taking that one big step further. Microsoft has selected Lori Brown, an associate professor of aviation at WMU, to test out their new HoloLens, the world’s first self-contained holographic computer. The augmented reality interface will bring students a little closer to the realities of flight.
When it comes to the use of innovative technology in the classroom, this is by no means Professor Brown’s first rodeo. She has spent years researching the uses of virtual and augmented reality in aviation education.
“In the past 16 years that I’ve been teaching advanced aircraft systems, I have identified many gaps in the tools and equipment available to me as a professor. Ultimately, mixed reality bridges the gap between simulation, the aircraft and the classroom,” Brown told WMU News.
Storytelling traces its roots back to the very beginning of human experience. It’s found its way through multiple forms, from oral traditions to art, text, images, cinema, and multimedia formats on the web.
As we move into a world of immersive technologies, how will virtual and augmented reality transform storytelling? What roles will our institutions and students play as early explorers? In the traditional storytelling format, a narrative structure is presented to a listener, reader, or viewer. In virtual reality, in contrast, you’re no longer the passive witness. As Chris Milk said, “In the future, you will be the character. The story will happen to you.”
If the accepted rules of storytelling are undermined, we find ourselves with a remarkably creative opportunity no longer bound by the rectangular frame of traditional media.
We are in the earliest stages of virtual reality as an art form. The exploration and experimentation with immersive environments is so nascent that new terms have been proposed for immersive storytelling. Abigail Posner, the head of strategic planning at Google Zoo, said that it totally “shatters” the storytelling experience and refers to it as “storyliving.” At the Tribeca Film Festival, immersive stories are termed “storyscapes.”
Learning through a virtual experience The concept to use VR as an educational tool has been gaining success amongst teachers and students, who apply the medium to a wide range of activities and in a variety of subjects. Many schools start with a simple cardboard viewer such as the Google cardboard, available for less than $10 and enough to play with simple VRs.
A recent study by Foundry10 analyzed how students perceived the usage of VR in their education and in what subjects they saw it being the most useful. According to the report, 44% of students were interested in using VR for science education, 38% for history education, 12% for English education, 3% for math education, and 3% for art education.
Among the many advantages brought by VR, the aspect that generally comes first when discussing the new technology is the immersion made possible by entering a 360° and 3-dimensional virtual space. This immersive aspect offers a different perception of the content being viewed, which enables new possibilities in education.
Schools today seem to be getting more and more concerned with making their students “future-ready.” By bringing the revolutionary medium of VR to the classroom and letting kids experiment with it, they help prepare them for the digital world in which they will grow and later start a career.
Last but not least, the new medium also adds a considerable amount of fun to the classroom as students get excited to receive the opportunity, sometimes for the first time, to put a headset viewer on and try VR.
VR also has the potential to stimulate enthusiasm within the classroom and increase students’ engagement. Several teachers have reported that they were impressed by the impact on students’ motivation and in some cases, even on their new perspective toward learning matter.
These teachers explained that when put in control of creating a piece of content and exposed to the fascinating new medium of VR, some of their students showed higher levels of participation and in some cases, even better retention of the information.
“The good old reality is no longer best practice in teaching. Worksheets and book reports do not foster imagination or inspire kids to connect with literature. I want my students to step inside the characters and the situations they face, I want them to visualize the setting and the elements of conflict in the story that lead to change.”
Just how much does it cost to set up a personalized learning plan for an entire school, and is it really sustainable? Could a typical school budget cover the expense — and what would happen if budget cuts had to be made? Those are the questions addressed in a new report out from LEAP Innovations and Afton Partners. LEAP works directly with schools to implement personalized learning; Afton focuses on financial and operational efficiency aspects of public school districts and charter schools.
A joint study examined six district and charter schools in Chicago Public Schools that have implemented personalized learning models over the last two years. All of the schools are part of LEAP’s Breakthrough Schools initiative, which supports the launch of innovative school models.
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For the schools in the study, introducing personalized learning models throughout the entire building required “modest investment to start.” Start-up costs ranged from $338,000 to $780,000; on a per-pupil basis that was between $233 and $1,135. The models could be sustained “without ongoing grant funding on typical district budgets,” even during severe budget cuts, Afton reported.
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The report offered a series of recommendations on improving the cost effectiveness of personalized learning and scaling the personalized learning model. Among the advice:
Make sure principals understand the flexibilities regarding funding and other categories that are at their disposal;
Try piloting a compensation structure that supports the teacher-leader model;
Combine resources across a district for common unmet needs, such as adoption or development of a learning management system; and
Be strategic in the use of grant funding; for example, develop a five-year financial plan that shows how the models will remain sustainable even after the grant-funding expires.
Also see:
Excerpt:
This report represents an exciting beginning. For any innovation to take hold, it must be effective and sustainable. Already, we’re seeing promising indicators of success: increases in scores on the Northwest Evaluation Association (NWEA) Measures of Academic Progress (MAP) test, taken by all Chicago Public Schools elementary students, in one Breakthrough Schools third-grade pilot classroom were striking. The school reports that reading attainment increased 51 percent in one year – growing from 35 percent of students meeting attainment benchmarks in 2015-2016 to 86 percent in 2016-2017. Their math results were equally impressive, reporting a 45 percent growth in student attainment – moving from 46 percent of students meeting attainment benchmarks to 91 percent within one school year. And as we outline here, not only can innovative school models be sustainable, but their innovative structures can make them so.
The VR / AR / MR Breakdown
This year will see growth in a variety of virtual technologies and uses. There are differences and similarities between virtual, augmented, and mixed reality technologies. The technology is constantly evolving and even the terminology around it changes quickly, so you may hear variations on these terms.
Augmented reality is what was behind the Pokémon Go craze. Players could see game characters on their devices superimposed over images of their physical surroundings. Virtual features seemed to exist in the real world.
Mixed reality combines virtual features and real-life objects. So, in this way it includes AR but it also includes environments where real features seem to exist in a virtual world.
The folks over at Recode explain mixed reality this way:
In theory, mixed reality lets the user see the real world (like AR) while also seeing believable, virtual objects (like VR). And then it anchors those virtual objects to a point in real space, making it possible to treat them as “real,” at least from the perspective of the person who can see the MR experience.
And, virtual reality uses immersive technology to seemingly place a user into a simulated lifelike environment.
… Where You’ll Find These New Realities Education and research fields are at the forefront of VR and AR technologies, where an increasing number of students have access to tools. But higher education isn’t the only place you see this trend. The number of VR companies grew 250 percent between 2012 and 2017. Even the latest iPhones include augmented reality capabilities. Aside from the classroom and your pocket, here are some others places you’re likely to see VR and AR pop up in 2018.
VR/AR for Impact experiences shown this week at WEF 2018 include:
OrthoVR aims to increase the availability of well-fitting prosthetics in low-income countries by using Virtual Reality and 3D rapid prototyping tools to increase the capacity of clinical staff without reducing quality. VR allows current prosthetists and orthosists to leverage their hands-on and embodied skills within a digital environment.
The Extraordinary Honey Bee is designed to help deepen our understanding of the honey bee’s struggle and learn what is at stake for humanity due to the dying global population of the honey bee. Told from a bee’s perspective, The Extraordinary Honey Bee harnesses VR to inspire change in the next generation of honey bee conservationists.
The Blank Canvas: Hacking Nature is an episodic exploration of the frontiers of bioengineering as taught by the leading researchers within the field. Using advanced scientific visualization techniques, the Blank Canvas will demystify the cellular and molecular mechanisms that are being exploited to drive substantial leaps such as gene therapy.
LIFE (Life-saving Instruction For Emergencies) is a new mobile and VR platform developed by the University of Oxford that enables all types of health worker to manage medical emergencies. Through the use of personalized simulation training and advanced learning analytics, the LIFE platform offers the potential to dramatically extend access to life-saving knowledge in low-income countries.
Tree is a critically acclaimed virtual reality experience to immerse viewers in the tragic fate that befalls a rainforest tree. The experience brings to light the harrowing realities of deforestation, one of the largest contributors to global warming.
For the Amazonian Yawanawa, ‘medicine’ has the power to travel you in a vision to a place you have never been. Hushuhu, the first woman shaman of the Yawanawa, uses VR like medicine to open a portal to another way of knowing. AWAVENAis a collaboration between a community and an artist, melding technology and transcendent experience so that a vision can be shared, and a story told of a people ascending from the edge of extinction.
Types of Virtual Reality Technology
We can segregate the type of Virtual Reality Technology according to their user experience
Non-Immersive Non-immersive simulations are the least immersion implementation of Virtual Reality Technology.
In this kind of simulation, only a subset of the user’s senses is replicated, allowing for marginal awareness of the reality outside the VR simulation. A user enters into 3D virtual environments through a portal or window by utilizing standard HD monitors typically found on conventional desktop workstations.
Semi Immersive In this simulation, users experience a more rich immersion, where a user partly, not fully involved in a virtual environment. Semi immersive simulations are based on high-performance graphical computing, which is often coupled with large screen projector systems or multiple TV projections to properly simulate the user’s visuals.
Fully immersive Offers the full immersive experience to the user of Virtual Reality Technology, in this phase of VR head-mounted displays and motion sensing devices are used to simulate all of the user senses. In this situation, a user can experience the realistic virtual environment, where a user can experience a wide view field, high resolutions, increased refresh rates and a high quality of visualization through HMD.
These workers already routinely use technology such as tablets to access plans and data on site, but going from 2D to 3D at scale brings that to a whole new level. “Superimposing the digital model on the physical environment provides a clear understanding of the relations between the 3D design model and the actual work on a jobsite,” explained Olivier Pellegrin, BIM manager, GA Smart Building.
The application they are using is called Trimble Connect. It turns data into 3D holograms, which are then mapped out to scale onto the real-world environment. This gives workers an instant sense of where and how various elements will fit and exposes mistakes early on in the process.
Also see:
Trimble Connect for HoloLens is a mixed reality solution that improves building coordination by combining models from multiple stakeholders such as structural, mechanical and electrical trade partners. The solution provides for precise alignment of holographic data on a 1:1 scale on the job site, to review models in the context of the physical environment. Predefined views from Trimble Connect further simplify in-field use with quick and easy access to immersive visualizations of 3D data. Users can leverage mixed reality for training purposes and to compare plans against work completed. Advanced visualization further enables users to view assigned tasks and capture data with onsite measurement tools. Trimble Connect for HoloLens is available now through the Microsoft Windows App Store. A free trial option is available enabling integration with HoloLens. Paid subscriptions support premium functionality allowing for precise on-site alignment and collaboration. Trimble’s Hard Hat Solution for Microsoft HoloLens extends the benefits of HoloLens mixed reality into areas where increased safety requirements are mandated, such as construction sites, offshore facilities, and mining projects. The solution, which is ANSI-approved, integrates the HoloLens holographic computer with an industry-standard hard hat. Trimble’s Hard Hat Solution for HoloLens is expected to be available in the first quarter of 2018. To learn more, visit mixedreality.trimble.com.
From DSC:
Combining voice recognition / Natural Language Processing (NLP) with Mixed Reality should provide some excellent, powerful user experiences. Doing so could also provide some real-time understanding as well as highlight potential issues in current designs. It will be interesting to watch this space develop. If there were an issue, wouldn’t it be great to remotely ask someone to update the design and then see the updated design in real-time? (Or might there be a way to make edits via one’s voice and/or with gestures?)
I could see where these types of technologies could come in handy when designing / enhancing learning spaces.
There’s been a lot of cool stuff happening lately around Augmented Reality (AR), and since I love exploring and having fun with new technologies, I thought I would see what I could do with AR and the Web?—?and it turns out I was able to do quite a lot!
Most AR demos are with static objects, like showing how you can display a cool model on a table, but AR really begins to shine when you start adding in animations!
With animated AR, your models come to life, and you can then start telling a story with them.
If you’re in the market for some art in your house or apartment, Art.com will now let you use AR to put digital artwork up on your wall.
The company’s ArtView feature is one of the few augmented reality features that actually adds a lot to the app it’s put in. With the ARKit-enabled tech, the artwork is accurately sized so you can get a perfect idea of how your next purchase could fit on your wall. The feature can be used for the two million pieces of art on the site and can be customized with different framing types.
Bailenson’s newest book, Experience on Demand, builds on that earlier work while focusing more clearly — even bluntly — on what we do and don’t know about how VR affects humans.
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“The best way to use it responsibly is to be educated about what it is capable of, and to know how to use it — as a developer or a user — responsibly,” Bailenson wrote in the book.
Among the questions raised:
“How educationally effective are field trips in VR? What are the design principles that should guide these types of experiences?”
How many individuals are not meeting their potential because they lack the access to good instruction and learning tools?”
“When we consider that the subjects were made uncomfortable by the idea of administering fake electric shocks, what can we expect people will feel when they are engaging all sorts of fantasy violence and mayhem in virtual reality?”
“What is the effect of replacing social contact with virtual social contact over long periods of time?”
“How do we walk the line and leverage what is amazing about VR, without falling prey to the bad parts?”
In October, Gartner released a report with predictions about the top tech trends for business in 2018. Gartner uses the term the intelligent digital mesh to describe “the entwining of people, devices, content and services” that will create the “foundation for the next generation of digital business models and ecosystems.” These trends are classified within three categories.
Intelligent: How AI is seeping into virtually every technology and with a defined, well-scoped focus can allow more dynamic, flexible and potentially autonomous systems.
Digital: Blending the virtual and real worlds to create an immersive digitally enhanced and connected environment.
Mesh: The connections between an expanding set of people, business, devices, content and services to deliver digital outcomes.
What are the implications of these trends for education? Education often falls behind the business world in realizing the potential of new technologies. There are however a few bright spots where the timing might be right for the tech trends in the business world to have a positive impact in education sooner rather than later.
The top 10 trends according to Gartner are analyzed below for their implications for education…
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1) Artificial Intelligence Foundation
2) Intelligent Apps and Analytics
3) Intelligent Things
Software development is a dynamic field. New programming languages, frameworks, and technologies can emerge, become popular, and then fade away in the course of a few years. Developers need to constantly be learning new skills to stay relevant. At Coding Dojo, we’re continually evaluating which programming languages are in high demand from employers so we can prepare our students to enter the job market. There are many ways to measure a programming language’s popularity, but we believe examining job demand is most useful because it shows developers how to improve their career prospects.
To accomplish that, we analyzed data from job website Indeed.com on 25 programming languages, stacks, and frameworks to determine the top seven most in-demand coding languages as we move into 2018. This analysis is based on the number of job postings for each language. Some languages like Swift and Ruby didn’t make the top seven because they have lower job demand, even though developers love them. You can read the results of similar analysis from 2016 and 2017 on our blog.
Here’s our list, in order from most to least in-demand.
