Dr Michael Phillips and his team of researchers have recently been awarded significant funding from the Monash Education Academy for their Augmented Reality project.
As part of the Dragon’s Den initiative Mike and the team including Dr Jon Li from the Faculty of Engineering and Associate Professor Alan Reid (Associate Dean of Education from the Faculty of Education) convinced a panel of four ‘Dragons’ to part with $50,000 to further development and research into a pilot Augmented Reality application that has been in development for the past 10 months.
This funding will see the project move from a ‘proof of concept’ stage to a fully developed application for use in Melbourne’s Royal Botanic Gardens as a major component of their education program.
Focussing on two of the Australian Curriculum cross curriculum priority areas (Environmental Sustainability and Aboriginal and Torres Straight Islander history and cultures) the application will allow the 36,000 teacher and student visitors to the gardens to gain new insights into these two often under-resourced aspects of the curriculum. An example of which is illustrated in the proof of concept video above which allows students to ‘see’ an animated version of the Carbon Cycle on the screen of a tablet device. The device recognises unique aspects of the tree and maps information over the top of the real-life object.
Significantly, this project will also add to our understanding of elements of effective pedagogies and distributed knowledge in indoor and outdoor settings and the connections between these contexts.
To find out more about the project, click here to access a recent piece commissioned by the Australian Council of Educational Leadership or visit the project web page.
