Presented by Jill Morris, Frostburg State University
Reviewed by Shampa Biswas, Washington State University
Shampa Biswas is an PhD. student in Language, Literacy, and Technology (LLT) from the Department of Teaching and Learning, College of Education and a graduate writing consultant at Graduate and Professional Writing Center (GPWC) of the Writing Program, Washington State University. Her research interests are Graduate writing support, Writing tutoring, Writing Instruction, Sustainable Literacy Development, and Multi-criteria Decision Making.
I had the opportunity to participate another Google Glass session in the spring 2014. Through the presentation at Townhall 1, I realized that Google Glass needs to be experimented with in order to find the best use of this technology. Using Google Glass in a museum is a great idea to explore the best use of Google Glass in the classroom (See Fig 1). It provides an experiential teaching and learning opportunities to find the advantages and problems of using it in the public place. The use of Google Glass in the composition classroom focuses on the four key dimensions: 1) What it means to use the leading technology, 2) Problems talking to the tech, 3) Experience using it in the classroom, and 4) Future prospects.
What it means to use the leading technology
The research project addressed in this session was a collaborative project between faculty and graduate students. Graduate students reflected about using the glass and developing games for class projects, a great example for other teachers.
Problems talking to the technology
The presenter, Dr. Jill Morris, shared her personal experiences of using Google Glass. Google Glass allows students to connect to different places throughout the world. She said, ‘I know, I had to pay for the Google Glass. It was awkward to instruct a Google Glass. I hate to talk with technology. That’s why I was exploring a good use of the Google Glass in the classroom’
Experiences using Google class in the classroom
The class project intends to develop an augmented reality device for museum by engaging students in using Google Glass for developing several video and multimedia projects in museum. Graduate students reflections about working in the class project were very impressive to communicate the value of the research project to the audiences. Teacher instructed the class in such a way so that the Google Glass can be used in real problem solving tasks for example, Google Glass in the museum helps kids learn about the actual dinosaurs. As Frostburg museum does not have any tour guide, the Google Glass can stand in to provide information a tour guide might.
The APP, Aurasma, was the outcome of the project. The demo of Aurasma studio was presented so that others could experience how trigger image can use simple image, more complicated pic, or create a better shape image. The presenters invited the audience to ask questions, play with Google Glass, and log into the Aurasma studio: https://studio.aurasma.com/home (Aurasma is no longer a working website; for more information, please visit https://www.fonehow.com/what-happened-to-aurasma-com/).
Future prospects
Future prospects were discussed following the presentations. Google Glass is a great tool for documenting and translating language in the classroom. The use of the Google Glass might be further explored in different museums, professional writing, marketing operations, teaching technology, and transfer knowledge. If you would like to know more about Google Glass, you could search ‘Google Glass review’ in YouTube.