Augmented Reality and Key outcomes of CONTSENS project from London Metropolitan University

By John CookProfessor of Technology Enhanced LearningLearning Technology Research InstituteLondon Metropolitan University, KR-2-07 Shoreditch Building35 Kingsland Road, ShoreditchLondon E2 8AA

Direct +44 (0)20 7749 3752Fax +44 (0)20 7749 3781

Email: john.cook@londonmet.ac.ukHome page: http://staffweb.londonmet.ac.uk/~cookj1/Twitter: http://twitter.com/johnnigelcookSlideshare: http://www.slideshare.net/johnnigelcook

ContentsKey success of CONTSENS......................................................................................................1Augmented Reality (the development of innovation?)..............................................................3

Key success of CONTSENS

The CONTSENS project (www.ericsson.com/contsens) investigated the use of mobile wireless technologies for context sensitive education and training. The project involves a European-wide consortium and is funded by the EU Leonardo Lifelong Learning Programme. Context sensitive education and training refers to training material which is directly relevant to the training situation. Location based education and training refers to material which is directly relevant to the location in which the students find themselves.

Collaborative Visualisation at Cistercian AbbeysCollaborative visualisation can be used to allow a group of people to explore a visualisation simultaneously, in order that they can analyse, discuss and annotate it collectively.

CONTSENS made use of the Open Source software MediaScape, which overlays digital sight, sounds and interactions onto the physical world to create immersive and interactive experiences. In Workpackage 5 of CONTSENS, London Met implemented a system for Adult Learners, in the vocational area of Landscape Architecture, to explore a Cistercian

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Abbey in Yorkshire, England. A series of reconstructed 3D models of this world heritage site (http://bit.ly/7ZP4SO) were used to explore the question of whether more can be learnt about a specific building or style of architecture if that building is provided as part of location-based 3D models. The evaluation of this workpackage obtained very positive feedback.

Urban Planning and Education

This workpackage involved training urban planners by exploring their knowledge and understanding of urban education in a meaningful context. An urban area close to London Metropolitan University was used to explore how schools are signifiers of both urban change and continuity of educational policy and practice. The application provides evidence of how the organisation and re/structuring of urban space worked alongside educational discourses and policies. The workpackage successfully examine the community from the past, in order to engage, understand and inform the present, as urban space and society becomes made and remade. A video describing the project (including the Mediascape process): http://learning.londonmet.ac.uk/TLTC/carl/urban_planning_and_education.mov

Augmented Contexts for DevelopmentThe nature of learning is being enhanced by mobile devices and the networks and media to

which they connect people. As a result of an analysis of the above CONTSENS work Professor Cook (2010), has argued for the need to re-examine approaches to the design of and research into learning experiences that incorporate mobile/cell phones in the learning context. He has describe an educational problem that mobile learning tries to solve, namely the design of Augmented Contexts for Development, these place context as a core construct that enables collaborative, location-based, mobile device mediated problem solving where adult VET learners generate their own ‘temporal context for development’; a case study (CONTSENS) was used to reify this Vygotskian-oriented initiative.

An important question is this: do theories from the past provide explanatory power in today’s context? In the 1930’s Vygotsky proposed the Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD) as follows:

“It is the distance between the actual developmental level as determined by independent problem solving and the level of potential problem solving as determined through problem solving under adult guidance or in collaboration with more capable peers.” (Vygotsky, 1978/1930, p. 86, my bold)

However, as is suggested above, society is currently witnessing a significant shift away from traditional forms of mass communication and editorial push towards user generated content and augmented communication contexts. This has led Cook to conclude that Vygotsky’s notion of a ZPD, which was developed in the context of 20 th Century Industrial Revolution, needs to be extended to what Cook is calling an Augmented Context for

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Development. It is noteworthy that the Augmented Context for Development that we have created for the adult learners appears to act as part of a substitute for what Vygotsky calls the ‘more capable peer’. To summarise, the elements of an Augmented Contexts for Development (ACD) are: (i) the physical environment (e.g. Cistercian Abbey); (ii) pedagogical/training plan provided in advance by the tutor; (iii) tools for visualisation/augmentation oriented approach that create an umbrella ‘Augmented Context for Development’ for location based mobile devices (acts as part of the substitute for Vygotsky’s “more capable peer”); (iii) learner co-constructed ‘temporal context for development’ (see below), created within a wider Augmented Context for Development through (iv) collaborative learners’ interpersonal interactions using tools (e.g. language, mobiles etc) and signs; (v) these aforementioned elements (i-iv) lead to intrapersonal representations of the above functions.

A key question for this project is/could be: What are the implications of the above conceptually driven (but based on CONTSENS case study analysis) notion of Augmented Contexts for Development for the emerging field of mobile augmented reality (which tends to be driven by commercial developments)?

ReferencesCook, J. (2010). Mobile Phones as Mediating Tools Within Augmented Contexts for Development. International Journal of Mobile and Blended Learning. Due March.

Vygotsky, L. (1978 / 1930). Mind in society. The development of higher psychological processes. Edited by M. Cole et al., Cambridge, MA. Harvard University Press.

Augmented Reality (the development of innovation) Augmented reality (AR) is a term for a live direct or indirect view of a physical real-world environment whose elements are merged with (or augmented by) virtual computer-generated imagery - creating a mixed reality. The augmentation is conventionally in real-time and in semantic context with environmental elements. With the help of advanced AR technology (e.g. adding computer vision and object recognition) the information about the surrounding real world of the user becomes interactive and digitally usable. Artificial information about the environment and the objects in it can be stored and retrieved as an information layer on top of the real world view.

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Below some examples of how Augmented Reality is changing the way we view the world, from: http://gigaom.com/2010/02/02/mobile-augmented-reality-apps-that-will-change-the-way-we-see-the-world/

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