Spring - Summer - Fall XR Outlook

Notes Through 2/13

Dear Caro, Beth, Tammy, Alex, Jason, and Amelia

The instructional tech committee met yesterday and one agenda item was recent requests for VR headsets.  

To try to find some synergies, to start nucleating a small community of practice around these technologies, to expedite things, and to maybe save some $, I would like to chat briefly, in groups, or 1:1, soon. 

Given the uncertainty around when dedicated space will become available (like the proposed labs), and given that several of us are already starting to use such gear in courses and in research, I would like briefly to document user stories. 

Some topics of discussion: 

• in which courses or research projects would they be used?

• where devices would be used and when devices are needed?

• which vendors and models are preferred?

• do you have funding, or is funding from "Instructional Technology" requested?

• anticipated strategies for cleaning, storing, privacy, and safety?

• what, if any, possibilities for lending to different classes and instructors might be possible? 

JASON

This is great news.

Just to add to possible equipment lists and to accommodate more students since it won't be likely we'll have, say, 30 Quests for students to use, we also might want to think about lower tier prototypical options that will help us achieve or test on a lower fidelity level with a fairly quick workflow. Zappar makes a $99 product called Zapbox that is an MixedReality 'headset' that uses your phone as the technology but has marker-based batons and with trigger to approximate hand detection. I have tested one in class and it works sufficiently. If you need to test it before investing, I can bring one around for people to play with to see if it's actually worth it.

Thanks Dennis!

ALEX

Hi team -

Reply sent to the WhenIsGood, I'd love to hear how other people are using these technologies. They're so popular with students applying to the HCIM, and I know Ciara used Jason's equipment in her thesis last year. In my own classes I simply permit people to do development work with A-Frame for their final projects (it's a web framework for VR), so whatever unit supports that would be ideal.

Best,

Alex.

BETH

Hi  Dennis and all,

Yes - thanks so much for starting this thread and discussion.

Like Alex, I also responded to the WhenIsGood scheduling.

To respond to a few of your questions to the group (Tammy -- please correct or clarify anything below!)

• in which courses or research projects would they be used?

• Tammy and I are part of a multi-university group of Child-Computer Interaction (CCI) researchers who are working with a research arm of Meta to explore ethical questions around designing XR with and for youth (and their families and educators).

• As part of this: We've got a small grant to run some introductory sessions with youth and families over the next year to explore what they think of AR/VR/XR, what concerns they might have (e.g,. pros/cons for privacy -- are parents worried that they can't "see" what their children are doing and are youth concerned that their parents might "spy" on them?; are their any child dev or physical "moral panics" about VR/XR; what are the accessibility and equity issues with some of the high end stuff - esp in diverse learning contexts?; whose designing for whom? etc etc). 

• The above list is of course an oversimplification, but hopefully, it gives a sense of what the XR Ethics Consortium is hoping to explore.

• The other university groups are: Led by University of Iowa (CCI researcher/Professor JP Hourcade) and working with UMinnesota (Associate Prof/HCI designer Lana Yarosh); Boise State University (Associate Prof/HCI, Jerry Fails); UW (Associate Prof/HCI/Learning Sciences Jason Yip); Northeastern University (Associate Prof/CCI and neurodiverse youth Meryl Alper); UBalt (Associate Prof/HCI Greg Walsh); and Tammy and me.

• where devices would be used and when devices are needed?

• We are ordering a handful of ProQuest 2 headsets, maybe getting a couple from Meta, and have borrowed from IMD (courtesy of Jason's awesome connections - like Ian and Roger)

• which vendors and models are preferred?

• I Love, love, love Jason's ideas for the lower cost models for experimenting with and working with students, but.... we are likely going to use the Meta ProQuest for most of the youth we work with.

• We have used the old Google Cardboard thingy with KidsTeam children, but... compared with the ProQuest, it's a "meh..." Might be good for scalability and critically minded equity/access discussions, though!

• We would also be interested in seeing if HoloLens is workable as a comparable alternative...?

• Not sure about... Apple.

• Any other low-cost options you all recommend!!

• do you have funding, or is funding from "Instructional Technology" requested?

• As noted, we have some small seed funding for this, and possibly Meta's good will to squeeze out a few more ProQuest headsets and gloves maybe... this is only for about 1-year...

• .....but we will have an IRB that we could maybe add amendments to, if we want undergrads or HCIM students to participate in any community/family/education-related focus groups... (but no participant incentives and would be volunteers, since we don't have much funding for now... could lead to spin-offs, though!)

• anticipated strategies for cleaning, storing, privacy, and safety?

• Great question -- I'd really like to see if we can keep some "vanilla" configurations that retain the First Steps tutorials and maybe 1-2 other intro apps/games, since we may be using these with community members over the next year. One of the headsets we borrowed from IMD was great.... except it had a customized config with several students' prototypes and so we couldn't use it for a community focus group.... And this would likely only be a year... Or, maybe we could keep a couple that are easily reset from "prototype testing" to "community introduction" use...?

• I suggest that we get *cases* for them all and storage and inventory control to make sure we can put them somewhere with power strips, etc etc...?

• The other question, related to the "vanilla configuration" -- is how do we control modification and customization for class development? Do we care? Do we have a "reset" configuration? Do we see what happens in terms of upgrades/etc? Which account do we use for "buying" some of the Meta games, or other "add-ons"....? For example, for our iPads (Science Everywhere/KidsTeam), Chris and company managed a group app-id so that we could download apps (mostly free) to use in youth co-design sessions....

• H/W wise, can we purchase better head-mod/head gear....? (there is an expensive one for ProQuest that I think is totally worth it -- especially when working with little kids' head sizes..... o_O

• what, if any, possibilities for lending to different classes and instructors might be possible? 

• I would LOVE for us to be able to donate any of the headsets that we use for the Meta Ethics project to our instructors and students once we are done...... but... we probably have to figure that out.

CARO

Hi, all!

The game lab is partially up in HBK - room E (and will also be room D, but I don't want to kick out all the tutoring/etc. that seems to be going on in there). The keybox code for E is 1213, so feel free to let yourself in! (Paris and I are gonna do some more organizing today - so far, only the PS4 is set up, and my PS+ account is defunct, so there isn't much to do on that yet...)

There are two oculus rifts in there that folks are welcome to use anytime - there might actually be 3? But no paid apps on there yet :( 

Just wanted to let you all know about hte game lab and the oculi - if my schedule doesn't let me attend the meeting, just share any notes/etc. But the game lab and the materials in there are absolutely open to sharing!!

Thanks for pulling this together, Dennis!

Caro

AMELIA

Hi all,

My request was because I was thinking of how I would design an in-person version of 466 or a health tech course. We are working with VR and AR in our BELIEVE project for trainee and continuing education simulations, but those headsets would be paid for from the grant (and would probably only be 1 or 2 (not for class use). I'm actually taking notes on recommendations for that type of use.