This technology is called Augmented Reality and is now mature enough to pass the 9C3 test (see previous post) and work. There are many Augmented reality systems (AR systems) and I am using one which works with any Sketchup model. This has enabled me to propose an Olympic project to a client. The students would design their own Olympic mascots on paper, judging the best one. The winner will be turned into a 3D Sketchup model and a free AR file. Students can then print out a marker for free and stick it anywhere, then view the 3D model through their Apple devices, Mac and Windows computers. This turns a flat paper drawing into a model that blends into real world.
The real trick is printing the marker 2 metres across and sticking it on a wall.. Then the mascot displays 4M high and can be walked round and rotated with a finger on the screen. But is this technology worth while? This is the question from a colleague I got yesterday.
In my opinion the problem with all new, previously unseen technology is that we can think so easily of so many ways to misuse it. Take a hammer, give it to a monkey, do you get work? Progress? Or just lots of crushed nuts. A tool is a tool because it s guided by us, mastering it, and as technology does increasingly amazing things, being amazed can become our only reaction. This brings us to Gold silver and Bronze. Most technologies evolve from simpler things, but technologies like AR appear seemingly from nowhere to the average computer user.
When mobile phones first came out, they were huge (I designed a system to display one that was the size and weight of three telephone directories, ) but as the cost fell and the features built up we gradually got used to it and that's why people have pretty well thought about opinions about whether pupils mobile phones should be allowed in schools, they understand the context, they roughly know the advantages and disadvantages, and they are familiar with the technology. AR and other utterly new technologies are more difficult to see the benefit of because what first springs to mind is fooling around, showing off, testing the limits. For every Gold medal winning idea that has great educational worth, there are a few silver ones that need careful explaining, and hundreds of bronze ones that though appealing, lack rigour. My job as a consultant is to mine for Gold ideas!
