Festival of Learning 2018

This session will present the vision of UBC’s Emerging Media Lab (EML - eml.ubc.ca/) as a space dedicated to exploring how emerging technologies are evolving the way we learn. The presenters will share EML’s project development process and its support structure; how it established and continues to foster the connection with the industry, on-campus student groups, and k-12 teachers; how it built and has maintained a community of practice. Currently the EML serves two roles in the UBC community: 1) to enhance teaching and learning with immersive technologies - Virtual Reality (VR)/Augmented Reality (AR)/ Mixed Reality (MR) - while providing inspirational sessions such as demos, workshops, orientations and community of practice meetings, and 2) to incubate ideas by developing projects in collaboration among students, faculty and staff members.

Participants in the session will have opportunities to experience ongoing and completed projects in immersive media such as the HTC Vive, Oculus Rift, and HoloLens. Projects include the HoloBrain (http://eml.ubc.ca/projects/holobrain/), an AR teaching tool that could be implemented in neuroanatomy instruction, the Stanley Park Geography VR Field Trip (http://eml.ubc.ca/projects/geography-vr/ ), a project that focuses on Stanley park as a virtual reality experience using 3D spatial environment models, and landscape photogrammetry, and the Pterygopalatine Fossa VR project, ( http://eml.ubc.ca/projects/pterygopalatine-fossa-vr/ ) an interactive educational virtual reality tool to aid anatomy education with regards to the Pterygopalatine Fossa.
Participants will also be asked to create their own 3D objects as a demonstration of how guided task sheets can be used to aid faculty/staff/students in developing a better understanding of how immersive experiences are created. These projects will help participants to experience and better understand both the unique affordances of these technologies for teaching and learning and a better understanding of what is required in terms of development.

The session will end with a discussion of how emerging media can be used to support teaching and learning both in and out of the classroom in addition to what barriers and challenges are present.