How DesktopAR Can Connect Students to Museums for Global Discovery-Based Learning?

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Imagine if you were a student and there could be a way to interact with your choice of art or artifact in any museum in the world for discovery-based learning in your classroom or home, no matter where you were in the world. Your school, teacher, or parent could just use the equipment they probably already have: a computer and a webcam. It would be a great way for you, the student, to have a level of practical experience with what you’re learning from your textbooks. But this is all figurative, wishful thinking, right? (Spoiler: It’s not, and read on to find out how.) 

 

If you’re not familiar with the term, discovery-based learning is basically what it sounds like. It’s a way for students to learn through hands-on exploration and unique experiences. With the guidance of their teacher, students are encouraged to ask questions, build on their past experiences and knowledge, and discover answers and connections using their imagination and creativity. It’s not about repetition or textbooks, just the search for understanding and giving the students some control in how they would like to learn. You’ve probably experienced this through field trips and/or visits to museums where they have exhibitions to let you play and experiment. 

 

The concept has already been implemented with immersive technology at higher education institutions like Harvard University’s Innovation Labs AR/VR studio as well as in the primary education levels like Pennybont Primary School in Wales, the UK as part of the ClassVR Pioneer Program. But when applied to the global student population, many challenges arise: not all schools will have the same budget, same access to technology, or just simple geographical ease to visit first-class institutions to help their students learn hands-on. And especially in this time of lockdowns and stay-at-home orders, it might be better for the students’ health if they stayed home anyway. Despite all this, there is a way to implement discovery-based learning no matter where they’re learning.

 

The technology is called Desktop AR (for augmented reality) and its company, Perception Codes, a British-Thai startup, is using it to bring part of the collections of the UK’s Imperial War Museum and the Science Museum Group to 20,000 students in both the UK and Thailand. (That’s up to a little over a million artifacts, records, and artwork “in” the hands of students at home or at school.) Using the equipment we mentioned earlier along with the free Desktop AR software and easily obtained or made anaglyph glass (those blue-red glasses), they can view holographic exhibitions of collections that are physically in the UK. The program uses the webcam to track their head position so that each object “moves” with the viewer (bound by the dimensions of the screen). And by using the mouse or the keyboard, the viewer can rotate, zoom in, and interact with the hologram. 

 

Perception Codes has previously used Desktop AR to engage students in the classroom. In early 2020, they hosted a workshop at an English-curriculum-based international school in Bangkok. The students in the workshop, ages nine to fifteen with no previous coding experience, were taught basic coding skills to develop their own holographic game to be played in augmented reality. 

 

Because the core concepts are so similar, the benefits of using Desktop AR in an education setting are similar to the benefits of discovery-based learning. Studies covering similar technology show that there tends to be an increase in engagement, motivation, creativity, and promotion of independence and autonomy. Not to mention, students can go through the collection at their own pace and will more likely remember the facts they learned during the experience than if they had to study only from a textbook. 

 

Of course, the success of using such AR technology for discovery-based learning is up to the teacher. The actual implementation and use of the Desktop AR is simple. There’s hardly any learning curve other than the initial setup. The controls are intuitive for both teachers and students since the interaction is based on the keyboard and mouse. But teachers need to have a solid framework in place so that there’s little confusion about what should or could happen. This means teachers need to know ahead of time what to expect for their students, like the possible questions and avenues of discovery, and how, as the teacher, they can encourage or redirect the student to the subject at hand.

 

Augmented reality technology is changing many fields, including education. What’s wonderful about Desktop AR is that they’re bringing fun, “futuristic” ways to see the world to classrooms that may not have the funding or ability to get fully immersive equipment. 

Students can even download an educational license for free so they can develop their own holographic exhibitions and games. From there, who knows what the future holds?

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