Scientists from the Carlos III University of Madrid (UC3M) have developed a ssystem based on augmented realitythat allows theteacher, thanks to smart glasses, view notes or comments on the content of the class and check if their students understand the explanationsor, on the contrary, they have doubts or difficulties.
The proposed system is calledAugmented Lecture Feedback System (ALFs) andseeks to improve communication between students and the teacher during a master class such as those taught at the university. Its operation is quite intuitive: the teacher wears augmented reality glasses that allow him to visualize symbols on top of each student; symbols indicate what state the person is in while the activity is taking place. “These symbols are activated by the student through his mobile phone and serve to communicate to the teacher that his explanation is not being understood, that it has already been understood, that he slows down or that he knows or not the answer to the question that ends to do to the class ”, explains one of the researchers from the UC3M Interactive Systems Group, Telmo Zarraonandia. Thus,the teacher is able to know, simply by looking at what symbol a student has displayed on his head, what he wants to communicate. In addition, the system displays a diagram on the upper part of the glasses with the percentages of the answers given by all attendees, which can be especially useful in large groups.
The main advantage is that the student has a new means of communication that allows him to contact the teacher immediately and privately, so it is not necessary to interrupt the class. “This channel that we have created can be used to overcome the problems of shyness or fear of expressing themselves in front of the class that some students experience,” says another of the researchers, Ignacio Aedo, professor in the UC3M Computer Science department. In this way, eThe teacher has an immediate source of information about what his students are capturing from his presentation. “It is expected that the system will allow the development of more efficient master classes, because having amayor feedback and continuously allows the teacher to adapt the class to the real knowledge of the students, providing extra examples, varying the pace or skipping those parts that the students indicate and know or remember ”, concludes Aedo. On the other hand, the system allows the teacher to view notes or comments that he has previously entered and that he does not want to forget to mention at certain times through glasses.
The architecture of the system is described in a scientific article published in the journalBritish Journal of Educational Technology in a special monograph dedicated to the education of the future. The prototype that the researchers have developed is controlled by gestures,captured with a Microsoft Kinect. With these gestures, the teacher selects the support slide for an explanation or activates predetermined questions to which the students will respond by displaying various symbols selected through their mobiles. The system can identify students through facial recognition (by pre-uploading their photos to a database) or, in larger groups, through a marker-based positioning system.
Today, augmented reality glasses models are still expensive and not very ergonomic because they weigh too much and make it difficult for the teacher to move, but “it is expected that in the coming years models will be on the market that allow their use in the classroom. , as could happen with the new Google glasses, to which this system could be adapted ”, Ignacio Aedo points out.
