{"id":99209,"date":"2026-09-16T10:02:13","date_gmt":"2026-09-16T14:02:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/danielschristian.com\/learning-ecosystems\/?p=99209"},"modified":"2026-09-16T10:03:17","modified_gmt":"2026-09-16T14:03:17","slug":"will-smart-glasses-impact-what-faculty-and-students-say-in-class-how-might-they-improve-accessibility","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/danielschristian.com\/learning-ecosystems\/2026\/09\/16\/will-smart-glasses-impact-what-faculty-and-students-say-in-class-how-might-they-improve-accessibility\/","title":{"rendered":"Will smart glasses impact what faculty and students say in class? How might they improve accessibility?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Will smart glasses make it too risky to speak up in class?<\/a> <\/strong>— from timeshighereducation.com by Georgia Luckhurst & Kieran Phelan
\n<\/strong>AI-powered glasses may boost learning but they also pose obvious threats to privacy, academic integrity and the sanctity of the seminar room as a safe space to explore ideas. Are universities doing enough to head off the risks, asks Georgia Luckhurst \u2013 while Kieran Phelan suggests they are not<\/em><\/p>\n

Smart glasses can superimpose information on to a viewer\u2019s field of vision, and they can access apps and communicate with your phone. Some are hands-free while some require touch, and some also respond to voice automation. Most controversially, they can take pictures and record footage, potentially without anyone else knowing that it is happening. And they are becoming ever more common.<\/p>\n

But, for academia, the biggest issue associated with smart glasses may be a decline in intellectual risk-taking and freedom of expression, Murray said.<\/strong><\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\n

How useful are smart glasses in improving accessibility in higher education?<\/strong><\/a> — from timeshighereducation.com by Helen Nicholson-Benn
\nSmart glasses have the potential to support learning for disabled students, but this technology also comes with significant privacy concerns. Helen Nicholson-Benn looks at how to balance functional benefits with data security and safeguarding<\/em><\/p>\n

Consider how different models of smart glasses might be used to improve accessibility in higher education. A deaf student might use XRai\u2019s ar2 captioning glasses during a lecture to view live captions in their eyeline, allowing them to follow the content without looking down at a separate screen. A visually impaired student might use Envision\u2019s Ally Solos glasses to generate a description of images on printed material or read text during a class. The glasses provide a hands-free option rather than scanning the materials with their smartphone.<\/p>\n

These examples are hypothetical, and smart glasses are far from an everyday teaching tool, but that may be about to change. Smart glasses available today are far more capable than their predecessors, particularly boosted by developments in artificial intelligence (AI) technology.<\/p>\n

\n

Which brings up the topic of how to handle these technologies in the classroom:<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

Are device-free classrooms the way forward?<\/a> <\/strong>— from timeshighereducation.com by Georgia Luckhurst
\n<\/strong>US universities embrace laptop and phone bans, but professor suggests policies may be more about political positioning than pedagogy<\/em><\/p>\n

Growing numbers of US universities are making some of their courses \u201cdevice free\u201d, drawing mixed enthusiasm from edtech experts.<\/p>\n

In the latest move the University of Chicago is introducing a no-laptops and no-phones policy on three of its 15 required undergraduate modules, aiming to \u201creduce distractions and encourage face-to-face discussions\u201d. Exceptions remain, including for students with disabilities.
\n…
\nDevice-free policies appear in other countries, experts suggested, despite the trend picking up pace in the US.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Will smart glasses make it too risky to speak up in class? — from timeshighereducation.com by Georgia Luckhurst & Kieran Phelan AI-powered glasses may boost learning but they also pose obvious threats to privacy, academic integrity and the sanctity of the seminar room as a safe space to explore ideas. Are universities doing enough to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[113,53,115,433,302,210,121,71,3,391,482,64,382,201,66,454,195,38,321,367],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-99209","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-21st-century","category-accessibility-udl","category-colleges","category-communications","category-community-colleges","category-emerging-technologies","category-face-to-face","category-faculty-staff","category-higher-education","category-human-computer-interaction-hci","category-intelligent-systems","category-it-in-he","category-neurodivergent-special-needs","category-policy","category-student-related","category-the-downsides-of-technology","category-tools","category-uk","category-united-states","category-vendors"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/danielschristian.com\/learning-ecosystems\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/99209","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/danielschristian.com\/learning-ecosystems\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/danielschristian.com\/learning-ecosystems\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/danielschristian.com\/learning-ecosystems\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/danielschristian.com\/learning-ecosystems\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=99209"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"http:\/\/danielschristian.com\/learning-ecosystems\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/99209\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":99217,"href":"http:\/\/danielschristian.com\/learning-ecosystems\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/99209\/revisions\/99217"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/danielschristian.com\/learning-ecosystems\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=99209"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/danielschristian.com\/learning-ecosystems\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=99209"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/danielschristian.com\/learning-ecosystems\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=99209"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}