Augmented Videos Calls

Two of my last posts were about video calls and augmented reality and a possible usage scenario of those technologies in education. Now, what would happen if we combined those two powerful technologies.

Video calls are a great new way to connect with people already today. It works very well for talking to each other but as soon as we add an interactive element, we need to switch to another display mode, adding an interactive whiteboard for collaboration, either to display slides, work on a text or browse the web. From this moment on, seeing the other person will automatically become less important as we need to concentrate on the things going on on the screen. All of a sudden there is the risk of finding ourselves back in a classic, well-known and still boring situation where we look at the screen but do not actively participate.

What if there was a technology that keeps the eye contact between the participants whilst simultaneously working on problems together. Two examples, one from MIT and one from Swedish Telecom company Tre show us how it can be done.

The concept video of MIT shows really interesting use cases that could be of great use in education. The time bubble that indicates how long someone spoke during the conversation could be used in debate scenarios where every participant has the to stay in a certain time frame. Building blocks and QR codes like shown in the video are of course very useful for math and architecture lessons.

The new online shop of Tre shows how a teaching environment could look like where the teacher is in the center of attention, describing and explaning whilst still be able to see the student and vice versa. This technique would work especially well in 1o1 sessions.

Image: Dreamworks