Intro to Mobile Virtual Reality

http://is.gd/YDrbRF

Continuum from Reality to Virtual Reality

Figure 1: (Fitzgerald et al., 2013, p44)

The development of VR in education: From the fringe to the mainstream

Second Life http://secondlife.com/

• Interest in education peaked 2008-2009 e.g. (Warburton, 2009)
• Continued niche interest http://ift.tt/W4CtjB

Game development

• Oculus Rift (Facebook, 2014) http://ift.tt/1BWow5Y
• Microsoft Hololens (2015) http://ift.tt/1xZ0YtF
• Google Cardboard

Google Cardboard (2014)

• http://ift.tt/1H04cIP
• http://ift.tt/1eB4p8c

360 Panoramas

• QTVR Studio (1994)
• Google Maps (2005)
• Google Street View (2007)
• Google Street View Mobile App integrates Google Cardboard (2015)
• Example Google Street View Photo spheres
  • e.g. http://bit.ly/1NbBmpS
  • http://goo.gl/maps/1xirv
  • Check out Coventry on #StreetView
  • Search for AUT - create your own

360 Videos

YouTube

• Watch http://ift.tt/1KDo4B2
• Channel https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCzuqhhs6NWbgTzMuM09WKDQ
• Upload http://ift.tt/19ros69
• Create http://www.360heros.com

Apple - bought Metaio 2015

• 2015 project: U2 in VR via Vrse & Apple - A universe of virtual reality experiences https://t.co/MczElSf3By

Virtual Tours (2013)

Google Tour Builder http://ift.tt/1adXiig

Tour builder integrates Google Maps, Google Earth, Google Photos and YouTube videos,

allowing you to create an interactive virtual tour or event guide.

E.g: Coventry 2015

VR and Journalism (2015)

http://ift.tt/1OePTC2

http://ift.tt/1W2Yrxf

• Download the Jaunt VR App
• http://ift.tt/1Cq1omj
• http://ift.tt/1W3er2n
• Search for Inside Syria

NY Times launches VR App http://flip.it/tdFX2

Bibliography:

Amer, A., & Peralez, P. (2014). Affordable altered perspectives: Making augmented and virtual reality technology accessible. Paper presented at the Global Humanitarian Technology Conference (GHTC), 2014 IEEE.  http://ift.tt/1LMNXO3

Bruns, A. (2008). Blogs, Wikipedia, Second Life, and Beyond: From Production to Produsage. New York: Peter Lang Publishing. http://ift.tt/1H04dw5

Chen, S. E. (1995). Quicktime VR: An image-based approach to virtual environment navigation. Paper presented at the Proceedings of the 22nd annual conference on Computer graphics and interactive techniques. http://ift.tt/1LMNVWt

Cochrane, T. (2007). Developing interactive multimedia Learning Objects using QuickTime. [Journal]. Computers in Human Behavior, 23(6), 2596-2640.  http://ift.tt/1H04dw7

FitzGerald, E., Ferguson, R., Adams, A., Gaved, M., Mor, Y., & Thomas, R. (2013). Augmented reality and mobile learning: the state of the art. International Journal of Mobile and Blended Learning, 5(4), 43-58.

Hussein, M., & Natterdal, C. (2015). The benefits of virtual reality in education: A comparison study. Unpublished Student essay, Chlamers University of Technology, University of Gothenburg, Göteborg, Sweden.  http://ift.tt/1LMNVWw

Merchant, Z., Goetz, E. T., Cifuentes, L., Keeney-Kennicutt, W., & Davis, T. J. (2014). Effectiveness of virtual reality-based instruction on students' learning outcomes in K-12 and higher education: A meta-analysis. Computers & Education, 70, 29-40.  http://ift.tt/1ikkWhg

Maggi Savin-Baden (2013): Spaces in between us: a qualitative study into the impact of spatial practice when learning in Second Life , London Review of Education, 11:1, 59-75 http://ift.tt/1LMNXO9

Sontisirkit, S. (2014). SPECIAL STUDY ON VIRUAL REALITYTECHNOLOGY: VIRTUAL REALITY HEAD-MOUNTED DISPLAY AND INTERACTION DEVICE. Asian Institute of Technology.  http://ift.tt/1H04dwb

Warburton, S. (2009). Second Life in higher education: Assessing the potential for and the barriers to deploying virtual worlds in learning and teaching. British Journal of Educational Technology, 40(3), 414-426. http://ift.tt/1LMNXOb

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Exploring IFTTT and Evernote for blogging

If This Then That has just added some triggers for Evernote that can be used to automate blog posts from either creating a new Evernote in a notebook, or from adding specific tags to Evernotes. This sounds great to me as my blogging activity has been somewhat minimal lately - while my use of Evernote for constructing ideas and Twitter for sharing ideas and resources has grown - I just don’t feel the urge to blog like I used to! So linking the three platforms via IFTTT may provide a way of feeding my blogs with some notes that I just don’t seem to get time to blog could be useful in sharing these ideas to wider communities. This is first example of using IFTTT and a specific ‘Blogit’ tag with Evernote.

#Autmsm @dmulrennan presenting about online profiles

EdMedia2014 Conference Twitter Slideshow

From Evernote:

Presenting without Powerpoint

I have been asked several times to blog a "how to present without PowerPoint" post, so due to popular demand here it is!

The first question of course is WHY? Apparently almost everyone, including mobile learning experts, default to using PowerPoint to 'present' and 'teach' - and herein is the key issue - it's about changing the traditional teaching/learning paradigm that is all about transmission of content. I am interested in participatory and social forms of teaching and learning, and this is very difficult to do using PowerPoint. The second key issue is about enabling interaction and access beyond the model of locking the course content away until after the class, when the PowerPoint files are typically uploaded to the LMS for students to download and review after the class. The problem with this typical scenario is that there is no possibility of discussion or conversation before the class, students must have a copy of Microsoft Office to view the class content, and the PowerPoint slides are generally devoid of context or the class interaction and conversation that (hopefully) accompanied the 'presentation'. This can be alleviated somewhat by uploading your PowerPoint slides to an openly accessible online host such as Slideshare, however the teaching/learning paradigm remains fundamentally unchanged.

Recently I tweeted during a particularly boring conference presentation:

thomcochrane Thank you for reading your PowerPoint slides to me #ectel2013 19/09/13 10:46 PM

Which generated more discussion than the presentation: https://twitter.com/thomcochrane/status/380644059578392577

I received a reply from @jontrinder

jontrinder @thomcochrane thought you might appreciate/empathise with http://t.co/HcEV7k6oKI 19/09/13 11:27 PM

This Dilbert comic strip provides a great summary of many PowerPoint presentation experiences

http://dilbert.com/strips/comic/2010-02-22/

More recently @ATZ119 provided a link to a blog post about presenting without PowerPoint that I think summaries many of the issues:

thomcochrane Presenting without PowerPoint - take the risk and model authentic engagement with technology! http://t.co/vAaKCLgct7 #sharefest13 10/10/13 9:43 AM

This blog post describes the writer's experience of participating in a presentation that was devoid of PowerPoint, that used live interaction with web content instead, and the 'fear' that this engendered in the writer when they contemplated doing the same http://www.insidehighered.com/blogs/technology-and-learning/presenting-without-powerpoint#! This got me motivated to make this blog post :-)

Another key issue for me is that the vast majority of the world now access the Internet through their smartphones or other mobile devices (See the ITU 2013 statistics) - so material needs to be mobile accessible - PowerPoint or Slideshare are barely mobile accessible formats. Since the ability to screen mirror mobile devices has become baked into the OS of iOS, Android and Win8 over the past two years, mobile devices are now incredibly interactive and flexible presentation and teaching tools - no longer limited to personal productivity due to small screen size.

So what do I use? The tools I use need to be:

• Mobile friendly - accessible either by a mobile web browser or a mobile App
• Online
• Shareable for open access
• Make the most of the affordances built into smartphones: camera, audio, video, geolocation, QR codes, augmented reality etc...
• Synchronised across my several mobile devices
• Provide opportunities for learner response/interaction/conversation/commenting
• Provide opportunities for serendipitous input from a global community

I have facilitated workshops on using these tools with @vnarayan for example:

http://is.gd/RsQOhA

Generally I will use a Mashup of mobile social media tools, linked via an outline with 'live' links via Evernote - a shareable mobile friendly multimedia note-taking App that is also a powerful presentation tool.

Because all my resources are collated and curated using social media, such as YouTube, Picasaweb, Soundcloud, Twitter, Storify, AudioBoo, etc... the Evernote page provides links to this media, which can either be viewed within Evernote's own browser, opened in Safari (on iOS), or opened in the appropriate App. This approach requires a decent Internet connection, either via WiFi or 3G/4G as a backup. Generally I will purchase a local 3G/4G data SIM at the airport of whatever country I am visiting as my backup connectivity option. Increasingly Eduroam WiFi is available on University campuses in NZ/Australia/UK/Europe. My Evernote page is effectively a window into my online curated content that can be accessed via any Internet connected mobile device (smartphone, tablet, laptop) or desktop computer.

I will usually preload any video files onto my mobile device for off-line presenting just in case, and use the native video App to present these. Switching between mobile Apps is far quicker and less obtrusive than switching between Applications on the fly on a laptop or desktop.

My basic suite of presentation tools includes:

• Evernote as the outline/launcher and shared resource link
• A QRCode and URL shortener and Twitter for sharing the Evernote URL
• YouTube playlists for video
• Picasaweb for albums used as curated slideshows & embedded video - cached offline (just in case) via the Web Albums App
• Soundcloud or AudioBoo for audio files, also cached via the built-in media player/library of my mobile device
• A Twitter hashtag as a back-channel/discussion forum
• Todaysmeet for the Twitter adverse
• Mendeley and ResearchGate for sharing references
• Google Maps and Google Earth for geolocated content - adding context to web hosted content
• Wikitude for locally accessible geolocation content

To facilitate live mobile device screen mirroring I use:

• either an AppleTV connected to a video projector via HDMI
• or the Airserver App (http://airservgrapp.comon) my MacBookAir connected to a video projector
• Airplay over WiFi directly from my iPhone and iPad so that I can be mobile - and this also means no accidental disconnections of the VGA/HDMI adaptor to the iPad/iPhone when you accidentally move them!
• A decent audio system connected to either the AppleTV or MacBookAir

That is basically my mobile-friendly, audience participatory, presentation toolkit!

Sometimes I will use Prezi on the iPad or iPhone, however I find most people merely substitute Prezi for PowerPoint, rather than leveraging the collaborative editing and presentation facilities of Prezi, so I minimise my use of it, using it within a broader suite of mobile social media tools for a bit of variety, rather than do a complete presentation using only Prezi.

The key is getting comfortable with risk - being able to troubleshoot connectivity issues, and building in conversation/interaction into any presentation. The world of mobile social media is a rapidly changing space, and so experimenting with new tools is essential. Curating your content on social media sites means that your are not limited to one presentation tool and you can immediately share content and embed your content within Twitter conversations etc... and I can change my presentation notes and linked media anywhere anytime as inspiration happens or in response to the group of learners on the fly.

Here's a couple of example presentations if you are interested:

• http://stadium.open.ac.uk/stadia/stadia/berrill/stadiamovies/2589-44-1-N.mov
• http://unitube.otago.ac.nz/view?m=o2PQ2Smspnv
• http://ondemand.aut.ac.nz/Mediasite/Play/db66598a78f94fbc966709f5623a30011d

Audiobus for iOS

Audiobus by A Tasty Pixel enables background audio on iOS Apps and interApp audio sharing - awesome for iOS musicians!

https://itunes.apple.com/nz/app/audiobus/id558513570?mt=8

Tips for Google Reader users migrating to Feedly

Feedly looks like a great alternative to Google Reader - which Google is shutting down soon :-(

http://feedly.uservoice.com/knowledgebase/articles/180048-tips-for-google-reader-users-migrating-to-feedly

ELVSS13 Intro Videos (playlist)