Discovering the Practical Use of AR and VR in Education with Jamie Donally

She provides staff development and training on immersive technology and as an ed tech consultant. And our latest adventures include the launch of Global Maker Day and the ar vr and EDU community. She's also an author and speaker on the practical use of augmented reality and virtual reality in the classroom. So I'm excited to have her as a part of a vision for learning. Jamie, welcome to the show. Thanks for being here.

Jamie, you're wearing the meta glasses. you gotta tell me about that. Are you seeing displays in front of me or can you I haven't even used those. So tell me about those.

So anytime I wanna talk to somebody, it just comes in right here. it's very private people. If they hear anything, it's like they know something that they hear, but they can't hear anything specific. I can listen to music really crystal clear. I hear conversations, they hear me clear than being on any other type of headset.

and I think that just the flexibility it has, my music connected to Apple, my Apple Music and has all the connections that I would want, I can actually livestream 'cause you have two cameras here, to be able to capture. So I could say, Hey, meta, take a photo. There you go. I got a picture of you right

So the flexibility and the technology is actually super seamless. It's super, I wanna say non-disruptive. So I think that, the, I'm using it. All the time. It's hard to go without it, actually. So first I was like, eh, I got it back in October, and I was like, yeah, this is fun. But the more that they've been releasing and the more that I'm getting familiar with it, the more I just, I prefer it more than anything else.

And and I do believe that Apple is eventually gonna come out with something like what you're wearing, And you've been,

seeing how they started and where they've gone, and then the complaints about, on their face and the heat and, rubbing and things of that sort on the skin. So they've been able to see all this taking place while they're just patiently waiting before they release and Apple does, Like they, they get it right. And that's, I've been so excited about the Vision Pro for that very reason.

The reason we're not recording this with me wearing it is because, it's not quite there yet for doing the kinds, that kind of thing. And so Zoom, for example. donks out after a few minutes. I haven't gotten through a full zoom call with it on yet. I've gone through many hours of FaceTime calls and it is actually a delight to use during FaceTime calls. So you've been talking about this stuff for a long time,.

Let's talk about AR in education and because this is an area that you've been on the forefront of for many years and, and what about AR and VR in education makes you excited? Right now, what are the things you're seeing that, that are just, getting you up in the morning and excited about it?

For most classroom situations, and there's no learning curve with some new device, right? So I think that, when we're using this kind of technology, I'm super passionate about where can we start right, right away without any, problems or barriers that you're gonna face. I'm also very much practical about what we bring into the classroom. So jumping in head first is not my approach, nor do I recommend it to other people.

I think it is, exciting to see new technologies, but really talking through collaborating with schools and making sure that they understand what they're getting into and how to avoid as many. Roadblocks that they're gonna face. and that is typically something an afterthought after a purchase. So somebody will say, Hey, we bought a thousand of these. And it's oh my gosh, do you realize what you just did?

so there's this caution that I have for people that I, I would really love to chat with you and I always chat. I probably on a weekly basis do I chat with schools and talk through some of the things that they're implementing. So I love being a part of that. But most. Importantly Jethro, I think that most people don't think about is, that they haven't actually created any objectives or goals.

And so that part I really love being a part of because once we can clearly identify what they wanna accomplish from any technology, then helping them gather the right tools, seeing where the students are truly struggling, helping 'em reach those needs in ways that they could not do without the technology, that part really gets me excited.

thing. just to segue into artificial intelligence real quick, one of the things that I've just loved about AI is that creating unique and personalized experiences for every student is so much easier with AI than it has been in the past. It used to be a big load on the teacher's shoulders to do that, and now. It's a piece of cake because you say create 30 different scenarios for this one problem, and I want it to be according to this table. Joey likes these kinds of things. Eloise likes football.

Michelle likes this and being able to tie it into those things that are then personalized for those kids, that kind of stuff is just powerful. And what a great opportunity to be able to use that, to customize and personalize for our students.

Like I. I am so cautious about like this. I love ai, I share on ai, right? But I, also see that equally balancing out the risk, right? And recognizing what potential information can be out there. So while personalization today might be possible because we're giving this information, what does that mean for tomorrow when it comes to that same information being used against them, if you will.

Maybe those tests actually recognize where somebody is struggling and it makes assessments that pressure, that struggle, right? Who knows? Like you just think about somebody actually using or leveraging this information in a wrong way, and that's possible too. It's really interesting and I, again, I feel like there's a balance with AR and VR too. that there's people that ready to jump in and try these new things.

They're ready to give every kid a meta, RayBan glasses and it's like, no, no, no, no. The AI built in, let's think about like your student speaking into that system, if you will, and what kind of concerns there might be. do we love meta for its privacy? No. No, we don't. So all of these questions I think are really important. One, to establish a trust within our communities, and two, to know where this technology has a potential of going.

There's great things, and then there's risks too, and you gotta weigh out those risks.

are. W what is the process that you go through to help someone look at that as they're evaluating a piece of technology?

So that's hard to reflect on sometimes, but you gotta say, and I know for me, I really struggled with certain concepts to be able to teach because maybe I didn't have a great foundation on that concept as a former math teacher, if they didn't have that really solid foundation, how were they supposed to learn something more advanced?

When they couldn't even get the concepts here, they're learning a song and a dance, if you will, but I think that's where this technology can really support those learners to understand in greater depth. So going back and reflecting on let's talk about it. where do you notice in scores your benchmark exams, whatever it might be, where do you notice your students consistently struggle year after year?

And oftentimes they'll be like, oh yeah, and they can name it pretty easily, this is my area, or their area of weakness. and then you can say, okay, that's super abstract. That's hard for them to understand. So how do we bring this back to something tangible for them? how do we really make sure we're aligning with what they enjoy doing? Some kids would never put on a headset. some kids get really sick in a headset.

But let's talk about maybe when it comes to the augmented reality and what kind of devices do you have available. So while this may be even good in theory, in the area you wanna approach and budget for in the future, and. Have discussions about this is what you have today. So where can we start to help them reach those goals? there's o oftentimes those are the questions that we start having and initiating the general ideas of where they're going.

And then once they've really started becoming masters in those certain areas. They're ready to move on and expand, 90% of our teachers, they don't wanna do ar vr every week, nor should they, right? I think there should be a variety of things. Anything I recommend in AR or vr, there should be a supplemental hands-on activity worksheets that they're supporting, group collaboration that's happening, mastering some, projects that they're doing.

All of those factors that are aligned with learning it, so that you're meeting the various learning, preferences for our students. So I think that it usually boils down to us just having those, conversations and then those things really start getting revealed quickly.

also. and one of the things that I've said for a long time is that technology makes a good teacher, great and a bad teacher, even worse. And it's a polarizing thing. Do you agree with that or disagree? What do you think?

maybe I need to really embrace this instead of just being stuck in my, little narrow window of what this should and shouldn't look like. so sometimes I've seen some good things come from it. It all really depends. I think it really, it just all depends on how they're using it. if they're using it in the right way for good or bad teacher, I think there's potential for benefit for our students.

If they're using it in the wrong way, good or bad teacher, I think that there's some serious risk of damage, right? it comes down to training. It comes down to, really I think collaboration, in my opinion. I don't think anybody should be doing any technology and silo. I think it really does take the de, those departments collaborating and working together as well as. Across, your teachers, your peers. but it really does also, it does take skill.

It does take time to understand and feel confident in using new tools. But, sometimes those tools can be very simple tasks that they can bring in that really make a powerful difference. I hope, and I guess I, My hope in that is that it turns a bad teacher into a good one, because I think it could be an inspiration for them to want to be better.

Like my wife, is in a text thread with some youth who, who do some stuff in our church and she got a text message, from one of them at two o'clock in the morning, and she was like. What is going on? You should not be texting at two o'clock in the morning, as a teenager and you shouldn't even have your phone during that time. 'cause our kids don't have devices at that time and all of our devices are charged in the living room rather than in bedrooms.

And so those are like the things that we do to make sure that. We're keeping our kids safe, that we're doing smart things, but that extends to schools as well. And just throwing technology in somewhere is not the best thing to do all the time either.

so before, before we sign off, I do wanna talk about your, you've got two books, about ar, vr, The first one is called, learning transported, augmented, virtual mixed reality for all classrooms, and the second one is called the immersive classroom. Create customized Learning Experiences with AR and vr.

Now, we don't have time to go into everything about that, but what are the big ideas that you're sharing in these books that, that you want people, to get from them and how they should, could use these tools in their classrooms day to day?

The stories behind it, how is it impacting lives? So there were some accessibility aspects into it, the digital citizenship part of it. the purpose behind it and the power, I just, I think that, moving from, Hey, this is where we start, and this is where you get the context of what this can do in the classroom to where should we go in, in the future using this technology? What is the power behind it is really intended in the next book.

so then you really have the creation aspect starting to come into play once they become a little bit more mastered in, into the technology. so I love sharing code spaces. Code Spaces is a tool where you can create content. Augmented and virtual reality. It is so fun. It's like the ROBLOX for students, but it's education and, it is such a fantastic space to be able to design and build and collaborate together, to build 360 concepts or, learning.

Augmented reality, virtual reality for them to go in and explore on multiple devices. It's flexible for Chromebooks. I think that's a biggie when we're talking about some of this technology and what devices are in the classroom. So there's just a lot of really great benefits to using that tool. and it's such a simple tool that students will literally. Overspend, they will go home and work on it in the evenings and on the weekends.

You cannot get those kits, so does a fantastic purchase because you certainly get the benefit of using a tool like that.

awesome. Jamie, thank you so much for being part of a vision for learning. where would you like to direct people to learn more about you and connect with you?

I don't know if you've checked that out, Jethro, but they have so many augmented and virtual reality tool tools, including the McGraw Hill AR app that I've been sharing out like crazy. Tons of amazing experiences for our students in the classroom, so definitely check them out because there's so many additional resources out there for them to go and explore. Completely free.