Augmented Reality and Virtual Reality in Humanities Teaching

Dates

Wednesday, November 9, 2016 - 12:00 to 14:00

Augmented Reality blends the physical and digital environments, enabling graphics, sounds and touch feedback to be overlaid with the user’s physical world. Augmented Reality is a first step towards creating fully immersive experiences in Virtual Reality. In January 2016 Google reported that in excess of 5 million Google Cardboard kits (available for less than £10) had been shipped with over 25 million downloads of compatible apps from Google Play. Both Microsoft and Sony are expected to bring Virtual Reality to their next games consoles, thus making such technology much more widely available.

Paul Hogan, from The Open University’s Knowledge Media Institute (KMi) is developing a cross-platform mixed Augmented Reality / Virtual Reality application that can run on Android, iOS,  and web browser.

In this seminar, Paul will discuss the possibilities of Augmented Reality / Virtual Reality for Arts and Humanities teaching.

He will also demonstrate the current implementations of the app, which give students the ability to interact with a medically accurate human heart 3D model through interactive features such as:

• Pins to identify each specific part of the heart
• Blood flow arrows to demonstrate the oxygenation/deoxygenation of blood
• Multiple beat animations that depict a normal heart and a diseased heart
• ECG output linked to the heart model
• EGGs depicting diseased hearts
• Bluetooth connectivity to allow students to connect their own heart monitor and see the model beat to their own heartbeat
• Virtual Reality mode that places the students inside the heart atria and ventricles

The demonstration will be followed by a discussion of how Paul’s app is being included in the production of Open University modules.