On Tuesday, the 15th of May, Monash Tech School hosted a Creator Class workshop focusing on the arrival of the revolutionary technologies: Augmented Reality (AR) and Virtual Reality (VR) in the education sector and its future for other sectors. Matt Jarvis, the host of this event began the session by explaining the differences between AR/VR and how through generations this technology has advanced, making it an essential tool for not only educators and entrainment industries but also for medical professionals, retail and even sports!
In the workshop, we explored different forms of AR currently available and already in practice such as “Pokmon Go”, Google’s “Draw and Dance”, and Uniqlo’s “Magic Mirror”. AR is everywhere now, and its advancement can only benefit humankind uncovering tasks that were once “too impossible” to do. Matt also explored how classrooms can adopt AR to make learning more interesting for students as they explore, use and understand a whole new side of technology.
Chava Rodriguez, co-host of this workshop then asked the audience to create their own app in less than 30 minutes!
We used Metaverse (an app creation website) with Chava guiding the audience on how to create an app experience in minutes. At first, it seemed a bit complicated but by the end of that 30 minutes, I had my OWN app experience on my phone, ready to be used!
It was absolutely shocking to see how easy it is to adopt new sources of technology and the things you can do with them in your classroom to engage students as well as assess their prior or post knowledge.
The workshop ended with us putting on a VR headset to “Walk in Space”. The use of a VR set and going into a whole new world was a thrilling experience, but it makes you realise the future possibilities these headsets can have for students or almost any individual. Using the headsets students can literally travel to space for a science project or visit Africa for a Humanities Assignment. It is impossible to set a limit on what these incredible technologies, AR & VR, can do for the world!
written by Farah Mahbub
