Mixed Reality and Libraries

Welcome to Mixed Reality

Mixed Reality is the new term coined by devices combining the elements of Augmented Reality and Virtual Reality to create a different type of interface that uses both elements.  One of the devices that promotes this type of use is the HoloLens from Microsoft.

The actual gear for the HoloLens is currently out of stock for individual purchase, but commercial purchase  puts the product at the lofty price of $5,000.00, but that includes the software necessary to create content for the HoloLens.

HoloLens Apps from Microsoft

The first app that I really liked with the HoloLens tool was actually the Vyzn app because it was a way to collaborate on 3-D content.  I thought this type of app would be wonderful when students may need to create community models with more than one person-  or a different type of 3-D project that takes more than one individual.  The app is available for free from Microsoft.com.

According to their website:  “Zengalt Vyzn lets you create and run augmented reality (AR) applications quickly and easily without requiring any specialized programming expertise. No need to use Unity or Visual Studio. With Vyzn, you can build highly immersive and interactive scenes that run on HoloLens. For example, you can build an interactive hologram of a machine tool to train operators, or overlay your NavisWorks model with the construction site to detect conflicts. Vyzn makes it easy to turn your existing 3D Content/vyzn_assets into a multi-user HoloLens presentation and add interactions such as animations, views, spots, movable and floating objects, labels, voice-overs and more. Vyzn does not require specialized expertise beyond 3D editing skills and you can design the experience in a 3D editor of your choice.”

I know for our second graders, they have to create communities (college, urban, suburban, or rural) over the course of the school year, and I thought this particular app would allow the students to collaborate on creating their unique environments in a more technological environment so that they could interact with their mixed reality community and add details that would be missing from a paper and cardboard model.

As Cynthia Cassidy mentioned in the Meyer (2017) article, collaborative projects are key to helping incorporate AR and VR (or mixed reality) tech into the classroom in a functional manner.  It’s key to choose simulations that are short enough to fit during one class period, that offer a challenge or problem to help stimulate critical thinking, and that have controls which are easy for students to learn quickly.  The Vyzn app could be such a tool for older students.

There are other websites that expound on the variety of other apps available through the HoloLens device that are educationally oriented.  Microsoft offers a selection of their current apps designed specifically for education here.  The following video is a demonstration of the HoloStudy app available through the HoloLens.

For those who are looking at how this type of technology can help with secondary education, there’s a blog through Bryn Mawr college that gives links to great resources and initiatives of how they are incorporating this technology in a variety of their programs.

Another really great website is the Mixed Reality for Education site.  The following video is a great TEDx talk AmsterdamED from Beerend Hierck advocating for mixed reality for more active learning for their medical students.

VREdTech also has a great post explaining how the HoloLens is being used in education.  Although the majority of these posts show the work being done in secondary education, this type of technology has potential to be used in a variety of classrooms of all ages.  Some tweaking will need to be done to help offset the complaints of headaches, dizziness, etc from our current technology; but the outlook seems promising for the use of such tools in our libraries during the course of the coming years.

What this type of tool does is bring the abstract concepts of practical knowledge forward in a way that allows students to actively participate in the learning experience.  As librarians, we can use this type of tool to help supplement our students’ experience in the classroom so that we can fully integrate our role of being curriculum supporters whether it be in helping by creating collaborative environments using the technology or by creating a more interactive environment in our libraries utilizing apps available in tools like HoloLens.

Sources

Blended Learning in the liberal arts. (2018).   Educational Technology Services Canaday Library.  Retrieved from:  http://blendedlearning.blogs.brynmawr.edu/educational-applications-for-the-microsoft-hololens/

Goerner, P. (2016). Augmented reality. What’s next?. School Library Journal, 62(9), 19-20.

Kevin M. (2018).  How microsoft hololens is being used in education.  VREdTech.  Retrieved from:  https://vredtech.com/blogs/news/how-microsoft-hololens-is-being-used-in-education

Massis, B. (2015). Using virtual and augmented reality in the library. New Library World. 116 (11/12).  796 – 799. http://dx.doi.org/10.1108/NLW-08-2015-0054

Meyer, L.  (2017).  Virtually There:  Kids are using VR to explore worlds and create new ones.  School Library Journal.  Retrieved from:  https://www.slj.com/?detailStory=virtually-kids-using-vr-explore-worlds-create-new-ones

Stott, L. (2018).  Hololens mr apps for education.  Microsoft Faculty Connection.  Retrieved from:  https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/uk_faculty_connection/2018/02/28/hololens-mr-apps-for-education/

 

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