“You don’t know where you’re going until you know where you’ve been” is an old English proverb that I’m reminded of as I begin to shift focus to my PhD research area. It is important that I look at my background, find what I am passionate about, and pursue a topic that I am excited about in order to make the long road of research a little easier to travel. After three months on the programme, the process to begin extracting areas of interest has been initiated with the purpose of pinpointing a unique, niche subject of research. A starting point for reflection is my PhD proposal title;
“Bridging The Divide Between the Audience and Artefact: Using Interactive and Real-time Digital Technologies in Exhibitions to Increase Engagement, Education and Release the Promotional Power of Social Media.”
Though it is a lengthy title with wide-ranging subject matters, and essentially too broad for a PhD research area, it does contain themes I would like to research further. Specifically, employing digital technologies, such as Augmented Reality and 3D modelling, for real-time interaction and engagement in education.
For as long as I can remember I have had a passion for constructing things, a flair for shape and form and a natural curiosity of how objects are constructed. This inquisitiveness for construction/deconstruction fuelled my enthusiasm for pastimes such as Lego building and scale modelling from a very young age. During these early years I also became curious about computers and tinkered with basic coding on ZX-81s, ZX Spectrums, Amstrads and Amigas, all the while never recognising the potential of PCs and the impact they would have on the World. I would much rather get sore fingers building intricate models or dismantling appliances than code for no obvious reason. When the game console era began I preferred to examine how the virtual gaming worlds were generated instead of actually playing the games. It was only when I embarked on am MSc in Multimedia Technology at University College Cork that I realised I could combine my aptitude for computing with my talent for building models in the digital realm of Virtual Reality and apply it to an educational objective.
The digital project which formed the basis of my MSc thesis in 2001 was titled “Cork through the Ages: A Multimedia history of the walled city” and was essentially, what would now be considered, a Digital Arts & Humanities artefact. The purpose of which was to explore the possibilities of representing the historic core of Cork City as a 3D interactive multimedia educational experience suitable for a World Wide Web audience, with a target market of school children between the ages of ten and sixteen. It was a virtual heritage tool intended to excite and educate through exploratory VRML environments encapsulated in a web interface. Virtual heritage can be described as “the use of computer-based interactive technologies to record, preserve, or recreate artefacts, of cultural significance and to deliver the results openly to a global audience in such a way as to provide formative educational experiences through electronic manipulations of time and space” (Stone and Ojika, 2000).
The available information had never been accessible in multimedia form before making this virtual heritage venture innovative in its particular scope. The project was comprised predominantly of four VRML based 3D environments housed in a web interface that allowed more detailed information to be displayed to the side as the user navigated the worlds. Virtual reality was integral to the project in order for the visitor to be able to properly visualise the layout, size and appearance of 17th century Cork. While there was a lot of information available about the old city of Cork and its development over the last few centuries, it is difficult to imagine what it actually might have looked like. By using virtual reality to create a representation of 17th century Cork it was possible to present pre-existing information to users in new and exciting ways and bring this period of history to life.
The first VR domain gave a birds-eye view of the 17th Century walled city. This “fly-over” area allowed the user to take pre-programmed flight paths around the city or to handle and move the map themselves using the mouse.
The second VR world took the user to ground level at the North Gate area. This 3D location was designed around artists’ impressions and documentation detailing the layout and construction of the streets and houses of that time. Also, reports from archaeological digs of the area proved invaluable to the construction of the virtual world and gave an excellent insight into life at the time. Visitors were allowed to freely explore buildings, get further information on artefacts populating the scene and click on icons that would show what is there in the 21st century.
A virtual version of the present North Gate area was rendered for the third immerse environment. A substitute would have been to represent the locality using photographs, video footage and 360o images but these were deemed to be lacking in interactivity for the target audience. The virtual alternative allowed the visitor see the area in current form but also click markers that then showed buildings that once stood there.
The final virtual space came in the form of an interactive museum that displayed artefacts found in archeological digs in the area and also seen in the 17th Century North Gate VR world. When clicking on an artifact the visitor would be presented with more information in multimedia formats. The museum also cleverly used images and maps to act as gateways to the other VR locations.
The time spent on the virtual heritage project was time I didn’t notice passing. I enjoyed every moment as it catered to my skills and interests. This period of reflection has confirmed that I would like to pursue forms of interactivity, 3D modelling and education in my research area. As I have already worked on virtual reality in which the user was tethered to a desktop, I would now like to shift to interaction and education on ubiquitous mobile devices using mixed reality. I am particularly interested in how Augmented Reality (AR) can be used for educational purposes. AR is a very current technology that fuses elements of computing that is omnipresent, tangible and social (Kesim and Ozarslan, 2012). Unlike virtual reality, which aims to immerse a user in an entirely artificial space, AR doesn’t try to replace reality but extends it by combining virtual elements with the real world (Kaufmann, 2003). It is a technology that allows real and virtual environments to interact smoothly and enables the user to easily transition between both (Billinghurst, 2002). As I am a very visual and practical learner, I would like to investigate how interactive technologies, in particular AR, can be used in exhibitions, educational tours and in the classroom, to enhance the learning experience. I would subscribe to the thinking that in a learning environment the visualisation technology of AR can overcome the limitations of other forms of visual media especially in relation to spatially-related topics and those that require the practice of physical skills (Shelton, 2002). And I am inspired by, and fascinated with, works in the field such as MagicBook developed by Mark Billinghurst and Hirokazu Kato at HITLab (Billinghurst et al., 2001) and the Sea Creatures experience at the Orlando Science Centre (Hughes et al., 2005).
As I don’t have a research topic selected just yet, the questions of “what?”, “why?” and “how?” will have to wait a little while longer. In the meantime the phases of reflection, research and reckoning are enjoyable and all part of what I hope will be a very rewarding PhD journey.
Download PowerPoint presentation here (10MB)
References:
Billinghurst, M., 2002. Augmented reality in education. New Horizons for Learning 12.
Billinghurst, M., Kato, H., Poupyrev, I., 2001. The magicbook-moving seamlessly between reality and virtuality. IEEE Computer Graphics and applications 21, 6–8.
Hughes, C.E., Stapleton, C.B., Hughes, D.E., Smith, E.M., 2005. Mixed reality in education, entertainment, and training. IEEE computer graphics and applications 25, 24–30.
Kaufmann, H., 2003. Collaborative augmented reality in education. Institute of Software Technology and Interactive Systems, Vienna University of Technology.
Kesim, M., Ozarslan, Y., 2012. Augmented reality in education: current technologies and the potential for education. Procedia-Social and Behavioral Sciences 47, 297–302.
Shelton, B., 2002. Augmented Reality and Education. New Horizons for learning 9.
Stone, R., Ojika, T., 2000. Virtual heritage: what next? IEEE multimedia 7, 73–74.
