Virtual reality, 3D printers bringing future to our classrooms

Virtual reality, drones and 3D printers are bringing the future to Victoria’s classrooms, giving our students access to innovative technology.

Copper Marison and Taylah-Mae Grundy take part in Lilydale High School’s STEAMworks program. Picture: Jake Nowakowski

The future classroom is already here, with students using virtual reality goggles, drones and 3D printers.

And new schools are already being built with communities’ needs in mind, including accessible sporting grounds, workshop and function spaces.

Lilydale High School’s STEAMworks (Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts, Mathematics) program allows students to work with innovative technology.

These programs are written into the curriculum and provide a great base for students to get familiar with the latest technology.

STEAMworks learning specialist and science teacher Julie Colyer said students used virtual reality headsets, 3D printers and drones as part of the program.

“We want kids to be able to communicate, collaborate, problem solve and have critical thinking skills,” she said.

“They had a problem about building a sustainable car, they talked about it and then they made a model, they used VR to draw it in 3D so they can look over it under it, around it and from that they’re able to visualise it.

Copper Marison and Taylah-Mae Grundy working with virtual reality goggles. Picture: Jake Nowakowski

“They look over it and change anything to their original idea as you would in the workplace.”

Ms Colyer said the program was self-directed by students.

“I just facilitate it and at the start of the class I just explain to them what we’re going to do. They then run the lesson. It’s very much self-directed showing leadership from the kids.

“All 280 year 7 students have done 3D printing or know how to 3D print.”

The school’s principal Wendy Powson said tech skills were part of “education of the future”.

“I think there’s still space for content knowledge and there’s still space for other skills in relation to learning about different things through old-fashioned methods.

“But the self-directed methods are way more engaging, particularly in a technology rich world in which we live now.”

Ms Powson said the school also teamed up with Yarra Ranges Tech School.

“Their equipment is a step up from ours and that’s assisted us with what we’ve been doing as well.”

Two University of Melbourne studies are building tools to assess the educative value of modern, innovative classrooms and then to challenge teachers on how they might use these spaces to their full potential.

The university’s Graduate School of Education Associate Professor Wesley Imms said 21st century “classrooms” should look like learning environments.

“I’m still an advocate of lecture theatres and of didactic teaching spaces, because there are times where it is more efficient to teach big groups, where a teacher just has to say sit down, write this down, memorise it and give it back to me,” he said.

“But then you need to move quickly into getting five kids to go and nut it out together. Or for the walls to move to cut a space for 60 students down to groups of 20.

“Or for students to retreat into private cubby holes to research on their own. So the ideal space has that flexibility.”

The university’s research also showed that kids learning in flexible spaces improved their mathematics grades when compared to a traditional classroom.

“While the project is about space, it is really about our teachers adapting to change, about rethinking how they teach in light of innovative design and the future needs of their students.”

UNIVERSITIES TURN TO CARTOONS TO TEACH

Lecturers are being turned into cartoon versions of themselves by a university design research group working with facial recognition, animation and 3D modelling.

The project records lecturers at work and then synchs their words and gestures on to a cartoon likeness.

“Digital humans” are part of the process of “chunking content” into short explainer videos that allow students learn core concepts at their own pace.

This re-imagining of the lecture form means that avatars and digital humans will become the new “faces’’ of educational media

Mike Seymour, lecturer at the University of Sydney Business School said they were looking at a range of ways to help students, especially with tough concepts.

“It’s accessible, friendly and if the subject matter is difficult, it’s a way of tackling that

“We are not replacing any staff.

Prudence Murphy experiments with controlling one of the avatars. Picture: University of Sydney Business School

2D avatars of lecturers in educational videos in the Business School at the University of Sydney.

Dr Seymour said any new to way to engage students was a good thing.

“We need to be more innovative and adaptive. Can you imagine anything more dull than me talking in front of a whiteboard for hours?

“Best way is face-to-face learning but let’s agree that the generation coming into university now are the most digitally literate and they are familiar with technology.

“It’s up to us to meet them and we should acknowledge that.”

Dr Seymour, who has a film background and has worked in Hollywood and London, said that the animated methods engaged students and recall was improved, not just 24 hours but up to three weeks later.

“In no way shape or form does a digital human replace an individual lecturer because the educational experience with a real teacher is vastly more complex.

“We believe that you can have higher engagement by having a digital human as a new thing that augments those occasions when you would otherwise go to a video.’’

The design group has been piloting 2D avatars in educational videos in the uni’s Business School.

Six original characters have been developed by Business Co-Design to be “inhabited’’ by academics.

The head of the cartoon animation project is Boyd Britton said the style needed to be appropriate for adults.

“So we weren’t trivialising the content, or the student’s learning experience.’’

- Ian Royall