From HIT Lab NZ
A cross-disciplinary team from the Open Polytechnic of New Zealand is researching the potential of introducing Augmented Reality components into courses offered by the institution using HitLab’s augmented reality software, BuildAR.
The first students to trial the technology will be second year engineering students who’ll be asked to view some engineering components as 3D objects and to provide feedback on how this affects their learning experience.
The aim of the project, called Enhancing learning for engineering trade students: Augmented paper based materials in course design - a proof of concept, is to develop a process for integrating 3D images of engineering objects into paper-based material that can be read using a webcam.
“Each team member brings a set of different skills making it a small but exciting project”, says project leader Cheryl Brown.
Sandra Maathuis-Smith is from the Centre for Information Science and brings her extensive background in Information Technology to the project. Martin Glaeser is a tutor in the Applied Technology Centre in School of Workplace Learning & Development. “This is an exciting opportunity for our students to use three dimensional models to help them visualise and understand the detail of the bearings required for this course.” He says.
Gary Mersham, a Professor of Communication Science in the School of Information and Social Science, specialises in communication for e-learning and training, and Cheryl Brown, an Instructional Designer the e-learning Centre, is involved in a number of e-learning enhancements to course materials.
Members of the team have had several chats with HitLabs’ Mark Billinghurst and are grateful for his help and support. “Mark has been responsive to our calls and really supportive”, says project leader Cheryl Brown. “Hit Lab are the leaders in the field”.
The project is supported by a research grant from Ako Aotearoa.
Prof Gary Mersham DLitt et Phil, APR, MPRINZ, MBTI Admin, AFAWB, NQF Assessor (Cert)
l to r Martin Glaeser, Sandra Maathuis-Smith, Cheryl Brown, and Gary Mersham
