In this episode of The Immersive Lens, hosts Paul Engin and Dave Ghidiu sit down with Christine Parker, a Professor of Science and Technology and Finger Lakes Community College’s resident "Immersive Classroom Guru". The conversation centers on the transformative power of Mixed Reality (MR) in higher education, specifically focusing on the use of the Microsoft HoloLens to revolutionize how students learn human anatomy. Unlike traditional virtual reality that isolates the user, Mixed Reality allows students to remain present in their physical environment while interacting with high-fidelity, life-sized holograms of the human body, turning a standard classroom into a futuristic "Holography Lab".
Paul and Dave explore Christine’s journey from the pharmaceutical industry to the classroom, uncovering the technical hurdles - from sunlight interference to the necessity of "geometric carpets" - that come with pioneering new tech. The episode concludes with a powerful verdict: technology is merely a tool for storytelling, but when applied with intentional instructional design, it can significantly shift student performance and retention. As the HoloLens era begins to sunset, the team looks forward to the next evolution of immersive rooms that incorporate sound and even scent to simulate high-stakes environments for first responders.
Key Topics
Shared Presence Over Isolated Simulation The true power of Mixed Reality in a classroom setting lies in the "shared experience." Unlike VR headsets that cut users off from their surroundings, the HoloLens allows a class of 24 students to see one another while simultaneously engaging with the same 3D hologram. This collaborative environment enables a "student leader" to guide peers through complex anatomical systems, ensuring that learning remains a social and interactive process rather than a solitary one.
Environmental Mapping Requires "Visual Friction" Implementing Mixed Reality isn't as simple as turning on a device; the physical room itself must be "mapped" by the computer. Christine shared that early challenges included "lovely beige" rooms and sunlight, which caused holograms to drift or disappear. To solve this, the lab required high-contrast elements like geometric-patterned carpets and plastic plants to provide the sensors with enough unique visual data to anchor the digital assets accurately in space.
Pedagogy Must Drive the Technology An award-winning immersive experience starts with instructional design, not the hardware. Christine emphasizes starting with the "end goal"—what the student needs to walk away with—and then "storyboarding" the lesson. By treating the MR experience like a 3D PowerPoint, educators can highlight specific structures, like the cardiovascular system, and allow students to literally walk through a life-sized heart to understand its orientation and proximity to other organs.
The Shift Toward Multi-Sensory Immersive Rooms The future of immersive learning is moving toward "Holographic Labs" that don't require head-mounted hardware. These spaces use 360-degree projections and scent diffusers—simulating smells like gasoline or ozone—to mimic the chaos of an accident site for paramedic students. This approach reduces the "hand fatigue" and training barriers associated with headsets while providing a more visceral, high-stakes environment for skills-based training.
Mentioned in the Episode
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Transcript
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Paul Engin: Welcome to the Immersive Lens, the podcast exploring the technologies reshaping how we live, work, and learn. Dave Ghidiu: From AI and virtual reality to creative media and design. We're diving into the tools and ideas shaping our connected world. Paul Engin: My name is Paul Engin. Join us as we uncover the people and ideas driving the next wave of interactive experiences. Dave Ghidiu: And I'm Dave Ghidiu. This is The Immersive Lens. Paul Engin: As promised from last week, today we start our deep immersive dive into reviewing Peaky Blinders. We're starting at Season 1, Episode 1. Dave? Dave Ghidiu: Yes. Paul Engin: Dave, actually we have a special guest today. Dave Ghidiu: Oh yeah. Paul Engin: I want to welcome Christine Parker, Professor of Science and Technologies and the immersive classroom guru. She had spearheaded integrating augmented reality technologies into the classroom setting and even set up a pretty sweet holo room, which I'm hoping you'll talk about a little bit more today, and maybe give us a little details on how things were set up and all of that stuff. So welcome, welcome to the Immersive Lens podcast. Christine Parker: Thank you very much for having me guys. Happy to be here. Dave Ghidiu: Nice and early, get you going for your day. Christine Parker: Oh God. Dave Ghidiu: It is oh dark hundred hours out right now. Christine Parker: Right? Paul Engin: Well, I thought we could start off with maybe you could give us a little bit of your background and then how you got here with the technology thing. Christine Parker: Sure. Yeah. So going way back, before I came to FLCC, I was actually a researcher in the pharmaceutical industry. And part of my role there, I worked with a lot of tech. I worked with a lot of robotics, I did a lot of experiment assay development, a lot of testing of potential new, maybe future drugs, and that was my first real introduction into tech and equipment machinery. And I loved it. Absolutely loved it. And so then I changed careers and came here. This is my 17th year at FLCC. Paul Engin: Yay! Congratulations. Christine Parker: Thank you. And after I figured out how to be a teacher, I really gravitated towards the tech side of things, and I've always had that love. So I came across, of all things crazy, a social media clip back almost 10 years ago at this point. And it was a little blurb, a little article that had been done for Case Western Reserve University Medical School. They had created this brand new medical anatomy software, and the nature of the clip was "here is the anatomy classroom of the future". And I remember seeing that going, "why do medical schools get to have all the fun toys? I want that fun toy." And the child in me and the tech lover in me... it kicked off a couple of years of "wow, this is really cool" and telling anybody I could cross paths with at FLCC about "wow, this is a really cool thing". And then it ended up being one of those hallway conversations with someone really pivotal at the college who basically said, "well, why don't you apply for a classroom technology grant?" And I was like, "A what? What's that?" Christine Parker: And so fast forward a couple years, got a couple of Microsoft HoloLens devices, brought them into the classroom to get student feedback, did a pilot study of sorts. And after seeing students' initial reaction to it, I said, "Okay, I think this is validating. I think this is something that we really want to try to pursue." So then that led to a much bigger initiative bringing in administration and selling the idea. And we had a very, at the time, very forward-thinking group of leadership at the college and helped enable it to happen. Paul Engin: That's really great. You said HoloLens, can you give a description for someone who might not know what that is and how you use it or what it is? Christine Parker: Absolutely. So I sometimes describe it to my students who come in every semester never having seen this thing before as it's a computer that you wear on your head. Okay? It's a Windows-based computer and it looks like this space-aged helmet. And it has a glass visor. Dave Ghidiu: That you can see through? Christine Parker: That you can see through. So that's where many of my students and many people in general have either heard of or experienced virtual reality VR, something that's been around for decades. And this is actually a little bit different. When it was first brought to the market, Microsoft HoloLens was considered a form of mixed reality where it has the interactive elements of virtual reality, it has a little bit of the elements of another not as well-known tech called augmented reality, but it was a blend of both. And what drew me to it was the fact that if I have a class of 24 students, I want them to be able to see one another. I don't want them to be in their 24 individual environments, right? So being able to still see their surroundings, see one another, but have this, in this case, very vibrant hologram in their field of view that they could engage with. It for me was the best of both worlds. Dave Ghidiu: So I just want to say, I grew up around technology and when you described it to me, I did not understand what you were talking about. And it was really one of those things where I went into the classroom when you were doing it and there's 20 learners walking around and it's this giant room that's completely empty. And as an observer without having the HoloLens on, I was just like, what are these people doing? They're just walking around. And then once you put the lens on, you can see, in this particular case I think you had bodies and it had different systems. So it reminded me of there used to be this exhibit, the human body or something like that. Christine Parker: Yeah. Body's exhibit. Yeah. Dave Ghidiu: Yeah, the Body's exhibit. But it was virtual. So once you put them on, you can see where all the learners are walking around. So it's a shared experience. Christine Parker: It is absolutely a shared experience. And that was the other aspect that was really, really important because if you have 24 students, you don't want 24 individual scenarios. You want the freedom to either have one big where we're all seeing the same thing at the same time, or maybe you have small student groups where there's one student leader leading their group. So all of that capability exists. Dave Ghidiu: It's really wild. I really appreciate that you had the vision to not only see it and be like, oh, this makes sense, because if I saw that same Instagram or whatever post it was, I'd been like, I couldn't make that happen. So you had the wherewithal to make that happen. Christine Parker: Well, I was a stubborn child and like, I want that fun toy! Dave Ghidiu: I want it now! Christine Parker: And that was pretty accurate actually. Dave Ghidiu: But I really applaud your vision of saying people need to be able to see the other learners in the class doing the same thing. That's the cool social aspect. Christine Parker: Yes. Yes. Yep. Paul Engin: So what were some hurdles besides obviously talking to the right people? I know when we talked, you said the amount of equipment that's needed, how it's stored, there was a series of things besides just the room setup. Can you talk us through what some of those hurdles getting started were and how you might have resolved some of them and where it's at now? Christine Parker: So many things to talk about there. So in the early days with this technology, because it was so new, I believe it was 2017 when the first developer editions of the device were publicly available. We had gotten some that year and then kicked off officially in the classroom fall of 18. And one of the really significant early learnings was, here you have this device that is projecting holograms somewhere into your field of view and you have to realize that the device needs to know where it is in order for it to accurately place holograms. In a particular place, it literally needs to know where it is in the space. And so, okay. Dave Ghidiu: Like to the inch? Christine Parker: Oh yeah. So the room is mapped. And we did know that, that wasn't something that was new in the sense of Microsoft tells you that when you buy the device. Yeah, it needs to be able to have the space mapped. One of the new things for us was the impact that windows have, right? Light comes through windows. And if you happen to turn this way and the sun is coming through the window, that can actually cause an issue. Another thing that we learned, alright, great, we can map this space and have this dedicated space, but if you look at your average classroom, and that classroom compared to the next classroom, often they're pretty similar. And so we had a lovely beige carpet and a lovely vanilla wall. And lovely vanilla ceiling tiles. And all of a sudden now, while very lovely, the device didn't have enough contrast. And so we in the early days had a hard time figuring this out until we realized, oh, there's not quite enough uniqueness in this room. And so there was a lot of liaising back and forth with Case Western in the early days and running across to Walmart or Home Depot and getting some geometric carpet and a big plastic plant and getting something that is dark and light, because that's going to be really what the device sees. And so when you actually go into our holography room right now, you see some of the residual from the old days. We had to make things unique. And I learned what the device could see really, really well and not. It can see this plastic plant that we have really, really effectively. And what is it about that plastic plant compared to the mini skeleton that's next to it? It doesn't see the skeleton so well, but boy does it see that plant really well. So these were some of the learnings in the early days, how different variables impacted the experience having that device on your head. Paul Engin: I thought what might be interesting is talking about, could you give us an idea of what you do in it? You said anatomy, but I'm not a biology major. I'm in your class, you tell me to put this thing on, what am I doing? What am I seeing? If you could explain a little bit of what an activity or what they're doing so this way when we talk about some things, people will understand why things are set up the way they are. Christine Parker: Absolutely. And maybe I should have said that in the very beginning in the introduction. I do actually teach human anatomy and physiology, by the way. So yeah, I teach human anatomy and physiology and the majority of my students are aspiring nurses or aspiring healthcare workers. And so obviously the human body and how the human body is put together and how those body parts work, that is my life. And the software that I'm using on this device is a medical anatomy software. So it is basically a set of 10,000ish assets. And when we say assets, we say body parts, right? So these are holographic body parts. And basically, I can go in and I choose, and I create a lesson that says, "Okay, today we're going to do cardiovascular system. We're going to do more specifically the heart. How do I want to present the story of the heart?" And so I build my lesson based on how I want to introduce my students to that heart. And so when students come in, I have already created the lesson. This is not a la carte, "Oh, I'm just going to go grab this, or I'm going to grab this and I'm going to show it to you right now." No, this is something that you do curricular development in advance. You storyboard out what the learning objectives are that you're trying to get at and then you build it, right? "How do I want to show this? What do I want to highlight? What do I want transparent?" And so when students come in, we basically have this running, I kind of describe it as a PowerPoint. If you can build a PowerPoint, you can build a holographic lesson using this software. And so students come in, they have the content, the narrative, the words in advance because I don't want them taking notes when they have a two-pound device on their head, right? I don't want them bending their neck and leaning over and trying to take notes while they're looking at holograms. So they come in, they know they are there to simply listen, observe, engage, discuss. And so I have in my classroom, large wall-mounted screens, six of them around the space, and I am actually displaying content on those screens. So if I say something and a student didn't understand what that word was, they can look over at the screen and see what that part was. And then they can go to their hologram, walk all the way around it. So it's going to be a hologram of a person, right? So this is human anatomy. And so it may just have transparent skin and a highlighted heart or a part of the heart is highlighted and part of it is transparent, or labeled or neon. Those are all things that you can do with it. And so students, as we go from scene to scene, they're walking around it, they're looking at it, they're comparing. I often use a couple of holograms. I'll use one that's a stripped down human being, maybe it's just the skin and a couple of key parts. Like, "hey, really look at this, look at the angle, the orientation." And then, "okay, hey, now direct your gaze to the hologram next to it that is a more intact human being. Now look at these structures as they exist in the proximity of everything around it in the human body." So they can sort of see both. They can see, okay, this is just the structure that I'm supposed to be focusing on for this particular learning experience. And then I can look at the hologram next to it and say, "Oh, that's actually what it looks like in the human body with all of the other body parts next to it." Dave Ghidiu: And you can walk around, right? You can actually walk around it, 360 degrees. Yeah, and this is internal and external. So if you want to see actually inside the heart, well, yes, I can make the wall of the heart transparent so you can just stand and look inside. Or if I haven't done that, you can walk up to it and put your head inside. Paul Engin: Like a big... it would be not to scale. It would be a much bigger heart. Christine Parker: You have the option. It's up to you. You have the option. Dave Ghidiu: So you can actually, can we interact... Christine Parker: I can grab it and make it big. Dave Ghidiu: I'm just curious about the instructional design. I mean, it sounds like you are like the Disney Imagineers where it's not just a lesson, there's this whole experience that you're shaping. Has that bled over into your other instructional design when you're not teaching in the HoloLens room? Paul Engin: The Holodeck. What do you call that room? Christine Parker: I know, everybody loves calling it the Holodeck. Yeah, it's officially called the Holography Lab. But Holodeck is more fun. So yes and no. As a designer of curriculum, it's all about the story. What is the story you're trying to convey and obviously the learning that you're trying to get at at the end of that lesson, of that experience. And so you actually start with the end. What is it that I want them to walk away with from this? And then from there, what's the story that I want to build to get there? Yeah. And so this is just an incredibly cool tool instead of just having to use a website or maybe an interactive app. Lots of apps exist that are actually really pretty cool, and now I can just say, alright, you're going to be literally in a room with a life-size human being where I can turn on and turn off different body parts so that you can have this live experience with it. Paul Engin: And from my understanding, you can actually break them up into groups. And you can also bring them all together and you can be in the center and they see you, they see the hologram, and people can be all around the body and you could turn the body around and you could point it to each of them. And then you could say, "Okay, now you're going to go into groups of quadrants." Christine Parker: Yeah, so I call them quadrants. You can call them quadrants, you can call them pods. And it's all about, okay, how big is your class? How many groups do you want? So I can create a varied number of groups if I wish. And so it has a lot of flexibility in how you create your teaching space. Paul Engin: What's the number of students you normally have and what do you think is a, now that you've done this for a few years, what's a good number? Cause I know sometimes managing 40 people would be like, no, I want a more focused... Christine Parker: Yes, absolutely. So going back to that mention of early learnings and maybe some challenges, right now I use four groups. And I actually think six might be a little bit better. And I can do six, but to your point about classroom management, if you have six individual groups, now it depends. Are you going to have six groups and then you're going to have a single teacher? Or are you going to have six groups where there's a student teacher in each group? Now maybe, and we're not saying that student teacher is the knowledge expert in conveying, it's a different role. It is them having the ability to control at what point they move on to the next scene. What are they making bigger? What are they making smaller? They serve that role. So they're really a student leader rather than a student teacher. But we say teacher because in this particular software with this tech, you have a teacher and for the shared experience aspect, the other students are joining that teacher. That's how, if you could have six teachers in the room and two to four students joining each of those six teachers, and then you'll have six different learning environments. Gotcha. Or you could have a single teacher and have the entire room join that single teacher. Right? So the direction I want to go is having probably more like six groups rather than four and having that student leader in each group. Paul Engin: And how many in each group? Total students. Christine Parker: So you could have, currently I will have between three and six in my four groups. Paul Engin: Okay, so that's a nice size. Christine Parker: Yeah, yeah. And I would love three to four, right? So I mean, we're not talking about a giant change here. Dave Ghidiu: But if people were thinking about implementing this in their own campus, I mean, the room is really the limiting factor. How big your room is. Christine Parker: Yes. Correct. Correct. Because depending on how you set up your classroom, let's say whether you have one, I'll call it a quadrant or a pod, say you have one pod versus eight pods, well a single pod, you really probably need about 8 feet all the way around, right? Conservatively. Okay. Certainly more is better. But yeah, this is not something that you just have two feet on either side. Dave Ghidiu: And if you have desks and furniture like a normal classroom, that's an issue too. Christine Parker: Correct. And so back in the early days, this was a shared space. This was actually a meeting space that we had identified as a room big enough. And so before every single class, we were scurrying in there and pulling out tables and pulling out chairs and laying down the funky carpets and putting the plant out, right? Dave Ghidiu: Because I have seen it and I see the power of it and I think saying holograms really undersells the potency of the experience because it's not like when I think of holograms I think of like when they projected Tupac after he died at a concert. Christine Parker: A little sticker that you do that and it shimmers, yeah. Dave Ghidiu: Yeah. Or Princess Leia in Star Wars. But it really is like when you walk in, you see the human bodies and you cannot see through them. They look realistic. Christine Parker: Correct. Correct. Dave Ghidiu: And so now that you've spearheaded this, how do you convince faculty members or how did you in the college community that this isn't just an expensive video game but it legitimately is a learning tool. And I hear your instructional design right now, but what were those conversations like? Christine Parker: Yeah, so it's funny. I remember being told in the very early days when I was getting this off the ground by folks at Case Western saying, "Well, you're going to run into two types of people from a faculty perspective. You're going to run into people like you who see it and go, 'Oh my gosh, I have to have that. I have to do that.' And then you're going to have people that see it and go, 'That is really cool, but I can't do that. That's way too different. That's just not the way I do things.'" And it's been pretty accurate where it is sort of a leap of faith. It is something really, really different and novel. You have to be okay going with it, just going with the flow sometimes because sometimes this really does not work. And you have to have that backup. What happens if this really doesn't work? What am I going to do? And that's unsettling to many people. Dave Ghidiu: It is. And I've certainly had lessons that go off the rails that don't go the way that I want them to. But it seems like there's an overhead here. And I think there's a third category of people, and that's kind of me, where I see the power of it, but then I have a failure of imagination to be like, well, how would I do this in a Python class? And then maybe the question is like, well, should I be doing that in a Python class? But suspend that question. I'm not asking you to design a lesson for me right now although... but in your estimation, is this something that could be used across multiple domains or... Christine Parker: Heck yeah. Dave Ghidiu: Okay, really? Christine Parker: Yeah. Oh yeah. So here's the thing. And we're finally getting to a place it's been around long enough and it's getting more familiar. I always say when someone says that, I say, "This is a computer, right? It's a fancy computer. And it's a very different computer, but it's all about the software that's running on that computer." So the sky's the limit. What do you want to create? And then the next question is two questions. One, does software already exist for that Python experience? And if not, who can create it? What is it that you want? It's all about what is it that you want to convey. And then who can build it? Dave Ghidiu: I think the second question is Paul's new media learners can build it. Christine Parker: Yes, there are so many opportunities for collaboration. Dave Ghidiu: Super. Well, maybe we can talk offline about designing a Python experience for my learners. Paul Engin: It's funny because I always thought, I remember taking an undergraduate physics course and my instructor was awesome. He came in with Rocky blaring and he showed sine waves on a gas with flames burning. So you could see the... Dave Ghidiu: He had pyrotechnics? Paul Engin: Yeah, he had it. And I was like, you could do physics with hologram, you could do crazy physics experiments. Lots of different things I feel like you could do with it. In my head I keep going, oh my gosh, that'd be cool. That'd be cool. Christine Parker: And that's really it. It is about having the courage as an instructor not just to have the idea because all instructors have those ideas. They all have those things that they think would be super cool in their discipline. But go for it, right? Worst case scenario you can't create it or it can't be created within the confines of what you're looking for. But maybe it can. Right? And I think this is evidence of that. And when it does work, it's like, wow, really, really cool. Paul Engin: That's awesome. So I'm gonna go back to the support. You mentioned TA, but I also remember hearing you say you need a little bit of IT love when you're doing this. Can you just talk a little bit about that because the way you're set up, it seems and correct me if I'm wrong, you have a teacher station area that you get all the things ready. Your HoloLenses are all in a cart that are charged because they need to be charged, right? So there's some type of process that goes through it and to your point having they don't need to have the knowledge of anatomy, but there needs to be an additional support. Can you talk a little bit about why and what are they doing before you come to the class if that makes sense. Christine Parker: Yes, so it is absolutely the case. In the early days, we had a lot of IT support because it's tech, and that's the natural fit. And in the early days when we ran into challenges like, "Why is my hologram on the ceiling?" and it's like, "Oh, well this happened," right? So back to that initial description of, wow, it actually makes a big impact if your room is not distinct enough or sun is blaring in the front visor of the device. It can actually lead to your device losing its room map and therefore go find your hologram, who knows where it is. But along those lines, there's a couple different elements to the support side of things. There is the actual IT support in that, okay, software updates. It's a computer. It's a unique computer, but all of the computer-y type things that go along with that. And system updates, you don't just push a button and send it to all devices. And that's a challenge. And this is not uniform, this is not the same for all devices. But in the case of the HoloLens, you can't just push an update to all devices and have them magically update themselves. There is actually a step that a human being has to do on each device. And so there's that. And that's something that needs to be done on a pretty regular basis. There's remapping of the space that needs to be done because if you put 24 bodies or 26 or 28 bodies in a room, the device starts mapping them in. And so at the end of that class and you go and you look at your room map, you see all of the residual, "Oh, there was a body there, there was a bag there." And so for the most part that's fine, but if that goes on and on, it can deteriorate the experience. So you just want to refresh the room map. So those are things that IT... well, but really it doesn't necessarily have to be IT specific. If you were talking about getting new devices and getting them going, yes, that's definitely more of an IT role, install, uninstall kind of thing. But for the classroom support itself, it doesn't necessarily have to be IT. It's just what we did initially because these were folks that were super interested and super invested in this. But what happens prior to class? Well, it's really helpful if you have 10 minutes between classes that you have someone come in, fire up the screens, get four devices going, get one of them in quote teacher, launch the lesson, have three others that are in and join that student, 10 minutes into class have their device kick off. Rather than monkey around and trying to troubleshoot, no, just go grab another device. We have to have those set up. And so it seems like this little thing, but it can be very disruptive to your classroom experience if nobody is there or no devices are there and then all of a sudden you have to stop class because I have to stop class. Dave Ghidiu: Or if batteries die. Christine Parker: I have never had that happen. Dave Ghidiu: Come on. Really? I think my phone's going to die in like five minutes. Christine Parker: No, I mean I should never say those words out loud, but I have actually not had that happen. Dave Ghidiu: How much training is it for the learners? Could I bring a class in there and you could give them a 30 second spiel and they'd be fine? Christine Parker: Not 30 second. So I usually I train all of my students. I orient them in advance of their first class. So I'm doing this right now, I have my first lesson with my particular classes right now in week three of the semester. Which means week one or week two everybody has to have that orientation. Because they need to learn how to fit it to their shape head. They need to adjust light. They need to practice hand-eye coordination because you're using your hand as your mouse. Right? And so if your desktop is in front of you, where does my hand have to be in relation to that desktop? It sounds like a simple little thing, but it's actually what students struggle with the most. Paul Engin: Hand fatigue. I was doing some VR on the Vision Pro and you get, well the nice thing about Vision Pro I'm gonna is that I don't need to have my hand out here. With the HoloLens you need to and for the folks at home, I'm putting my hands in front of my face versus just keeping it anywhere and it detects it. So with the HoloLens everything needs to be in front of... Dave Ghidiu: You need to be able to see it with your eye. Christine Parker: You can have it 12 inches below your face. I mean it's, when you're selecting things you have to have it out in front of your body. But there are gestures that you can do practically without even looking down because sometimes you do it by accident in the middle of a class. Paul Engin: Nice. Christine Parker: So yeah, every student gets an orientation. It takes about 30 minutes by my standards because it's just I don't know, I'm sure people can do it faster, but I usually take about a half hour. Dave Ghidiu: But it's worth investing time because you're doing it for the whole semester. Christine Parker: 100%. Yes. Dave Ghidiu: So beyond the cool factor, are you seeing a measurable difference in test scores or long-term retention since you've implemented this? Christine Parker: Yep. So way back in the early days we did some small scale quasi-experimental design basically asking, "Hey, do students who have this HoloLens and HoloAnatomy experience perform any better?" And at the time we had two shared assessments across all of the classes at the time that I was teaching this in and so that was what we looked at. And the short answer is yes. They were performing better on a laboratory exam. And then I did my own informal, because I had had at that point years of grade data, and I did a grade distribution analysis. And I saw a shift in a little bit more on the side of more students in the A and the B range and fewer students in the D and the F range. Not really changing the shape of the curve in terms of the grade distribution, but shifting it. Dave Ghidiu: Oh, that's really... That's amazing. That's really great. Christine Parker: Yeah. So that was very validating in those early days. Yeah, okay this isn't just that shiny new toy, we actually think this is having an impact on learning. Paul Engin: That's great. And by chance did you try other apps as well or how did you come to this one? Christine Parker: Yep, I did. So there was another one. There weren't a lot at the time. So basically, let's reframe this a little bit. With regards to the device, okay, so again, it's the computer, fancy computer. I need the software that runs on this device. And 10 years ago there actually weren't a lot that ran on this device. There was one and I looked at it and while cost was similar it didn't have as robust shared experience, right? So I had limits on the number of students that I could have. And so that was a no for our classroom design. And then the other aspect was the freedom of curricular design. That's huge. I didn't have to buy a pre-existing curriculum and just use that and have no choice to make my own or edit it. Dave Ghidiu: Yeah. Was that freeing for you or was it like, "Oh, the sky's the limit now I can do whatever I want, I'm not pigeonholed by a publisher's pack or something like that?" Christine Parker: It was absolutely very freeing and very daunting. To the question of getting other instructors on board with this, sometimes there is comfort in "I don't have to create everything." Right? And so that's sort of where we're at now that while every instructor does their own flavor and their own preferences and their own emphases, we have a set of curriculum right now that's been created and I'll say "Sure, use it and modify it make it your own." And if you improve it yeah let me know. Let me know what you did because in no way shape or form am I saying my curriculum is the end-all-be-all best because it's not. Paul Engin: So now that Microsoft has discontinued HoloLens... oh man, thanks guys, you guys are making me feel like I didn't do it. What a buzzkill. I didn't do it. So well first of all it's a Windows system so it's still Windows I mean you could still run it. But are you planning on continuing with HoloLens with Windows? Are you thinking about shifting to another tech or what are your thoughts? Christine Parker: So great question. Yep, so this was summer of 24 that Microsoft dropped that bombshell and we all had many months of mourning. And so it's being supported through 2027 so I am still using it right now. Dave Ghidiu: So they'll give updates. Okay. Christine Parker: Yes. So we are still using it right now and it happened to align with when I was on sabbatical. And so I ended up sort of shifting some of the focus for my sabbatical to "wow, okay let's do some device research" because I know what I want. And I learned a great deal about devices that were out at the time. And there are devices obviously some other devices that are very prevalent in the field that were a natural look for "hey this might be the next evolution of what we use." And for better or for worse I haven't identified the device that I really want. I have device alternatives but I don't love them. Dave Ghidiu: But I mean two years is a long time for other devices to come to market. Christine Parker: Exactly. And that is the plan that we have, that is the approach that we have taken. So yeah, we were able to procure a newer set of devices and that has replaced our four and a half year old supply. And so that's going to hopefully hold us through the next year and a half. And there is some promise, I kind of have a sense of what I want and I am hoping within the six-month to a year and a half time frame I'm gonna know where I'm going. Dave Ghidiu: And I just want to point out the problem isn't because we've talked about the Meta glasses before and augmented reality. It's not a full lens but it'll be there. But then the whole other component is you need to be spatially aware of the room, which is hand and eye tracking. You need six degrees of freedom. Christine Parker: You need... yeah. And so I really a year, year and a half ago was thinking, "Oh, I want to go smart glasses. Oh, I want to go smart glasses." Because who wants to wear a two-pound thing on their head or have this massive unbalanced thing pressing on the front of their face, which is what a lot of VR devices do. And so yeah, it would be really slick to be able to just put on a pair of glasses but a lot of them don't have all that hand tracking. And now there are some of them do. Some of them do and so I have my eye on some. And I suspect at the end of the year that that's where I'm going. So I've identified a smart glass manufacturer that they are the device that I'd like, they're coming out with a replacement of that device this year. So I am eager that by the end of this year I want to see what that next device looks like. Dave Ghidiu: Oh cool. Well I can't wait to see it. Christine Parker: Yeah. Dave Ghidiu: I know there's a few more immersive learning experiences coming and maybe once they're implemented we can have you come back. But can you tell us a little about the immersive room? I've been hearing rumors. Paul Engin: Put those rumors to bed, tell us what's going on. Christine Parker: So while I love my holography work, the overarching broader concept is this idea of immersive learning, right? It doesn't just have to be wearing a device on your head, a VR device, an AR device, an MR device. It doesn't just have to be wearing this device on your head or using a tablet or a cell phone that may have AR experience. There are entire classrooms that use 360-degree cameras and interactive walls so that you can walk into an immersive environment and not have to have any hardware on your physical body. So this is actually one of the things that we're pursuing right now for a couple of different applications at the college. We're trying to get two of these immersive classrooms. And how those immersive classrooms would be used would actually be a little bit different because it's a very different thing to walk into a space where potentially three walls and the floor have imagery on them that's moving. Dave Ghidiu: What? Really? Christine Parker: So then you say alright, if you want to mimic so our paramedic program is a program that is going to be leading the charge with this. So you want to teach that paramedic student the chaos of an accident site. So you have three walls around you the devastation of an accident and then you have the sounds and this comes with a scent diffuser. So you can actually... Dave Ghidiu: Come on. Scent-o-vision? Christine Parker: Yeah you can have scents. Oh wow. So not to be graphic but blood or feces, gas, right? So how do you mirror or mimic the chaos that a first responder experiences, right? You don't. And this is a huge challenge in the training of future paramedic students or future health care workers right? The chaos of an operating room or of an emergency room right? So why not have that immersive experience. So from a skills training perspective this is hand catered for skills training in very specialized environments. So if you have certain equipment that you need, you can take that equipment and put it into a space and build the environment around it. Paul Engin: That is so you know and so it's less graphic I always think could you imagine doing an art history or architecture. You could go in okay so we're at the Colosseum today let's look at the ionic columns. Christine Parker: Exactly the columns. Yes. And that so that's natural like any kind of faraway place that you want to have your students experience that's easy to do on this. And so then you can build in and this is one of the things I liked about this particular one, you can build in interactivity with the wall itself. So do you want to assess? Do you want to assess some aspect of your student learning while they are walking through the Colosseum. They walk up and they touch the wall. You build those touch points. You the content creator says oh I want a touch point here. I want them to answer this question at this point. Paul Engin: Can you do a Python live coding on... I wasn't gonna go the opposite way. Could you have people in drama classes be character actors? Christine Parker: Yes, so you can green screen. Yeah. Oh my goodness. Yeah you can absolutely. So you take let's say you have a recording of a neighborhood and you want to actually put in actors to mimic a particular thing happening. Yeah you can do it. Paul Engin: That's going to be cool. It opens it up to I mean from architecture to physics again. You could do new media underwater exploration right? Go to the Mariana Trench right? Yeah. Dave Ghidiu: I feel like the future of education like I pass it because I haven't even been doing HoloLens and now you're onto this entire room. Christine Parker: I'm a child who likes shiny sparkly things. Paul Engin: Me too. Dave Ghidiu: Let me join you. Christine Parker: Please, absolutely. Paul Engin: So I figured thank you so much but I was thinking if you're okay with it we'll end with a little lightning round and we'll just do you think you could try to answer them in like 10 words or less? Christine Parker: We'll see. Paul Engin: Just and if you go over Dave will be critical. Dave Ghidiu: Yeah we're done. It was nice having you. Paul Engin: One two wait a minute. Alright you wanna start off? Dave Ghidiu: I'll start off. What is the number one mistake educators make when trying to use new technology? Christine Parker: I'm gonna say being too rigid. Dave Ghidiu: Being too rigid. Okay. Very good. Alright. Paul Engin: If you could only have one for a classroom, a state-of-the-art VR headset or a simple whiteboard, which are you choosing? And VR, it could be AR. Christine Parker: Either one. Either one VR or AR. Can I ask a follow-up question before I use my 10 words? Can my students have paper in place of the whiteboard? Paul Engin: Sure. Well that's not my question sorry. Well I will you have to teach with one or the other. Keeping in mind in your AR world you could have a virtual piece of paper. Christine Parker: Okay I'll let you AR. AR? Dave Ghidiu: I like her answer. Yeah I like her answer. What's one piece of tech you're dying to get your hands on for the classroom that doesn't quite exist yet? Christine Parker: I want that mixed reality smart glasses that does all of the degrees of freedom that I need and has shared experience. We're close. Dave Ghidiu: I think Tony Stark actually has those. Yeah. Go Xreal. Paul Engin: What's the most rewarding word a student has used to describe your holo room? Christine Parker: Rewarding word. I guess I'm gonna say wow. Yeah. Oh yeah. When they put it on right away they're like that does not get old. Like and you have the person who is demure and quiet and just sits in the back of the room and they just light up. Like that is just the coolest thing ever. As a teacher there is nothing better. Oh my gosh the aha moments. I had a student crawling on the floor. The first time when I brought these devices into a classroom 2017 to do a "hey this is what this device is what do you think? Do you think this could be used in the classroom?" I was in a lab and I remember thinking oh my gosh she's crawling on the floor. And she jumped out of her seat and was on the floor because she wanted to look at the underside of what she was looking at. And I said alright I think we have something here. I think so. Holy smokes. Dave Ghidiu: On a scale of 1 to 10 how tech savvy do you actually need to be to teach in AR? Christine Parker: Three. Dave Ghidiu: Really? Christine Parker: You have to have determination and perseverance. You don't have to be a tech expert. So anybody shouldn't feel like they can't do it. Yes they can do it. Dave Ghidiu: I think it also undersells like I'm probably like an eight or nine on tech savvy but I don't think I'd attempt it because there's other domains like the imagination or the visioning that I lack. Christine Parker: That's really the thing like you have to be able to dream what it is you want to do and then okay what's the tool that I'm going to use? Okay this new thing how do I run it? Right? You just have that's what you need. Anybody can do it. Paul Engin: Awesome. That's great. Low barrier we had an episode on low barrier it feels like this could be a low barrier entry way for somebody. Christine Parker: Don't be afraid of it just because you don't know it. Don't be afraid of it just have the perseverance and the willingness to be like okay I'll go with it. Paul Engin: So I'll ask you the last one. If you could beam one piece of information directly into a student's brain Matrix style what would it be? Christine Parker: If I could instill in them to never stop asking questions. Ask those questions. Ask those questions. Why is that like that? Why does that look like why does that sit that way? Why is that next to that? Never stop asking questions. Paul Engin: Awesome. True scientist. Yeah. Dave Ghidiu: Thank you for sharing your time with us. Is there anything else that you want to say that we didn't cover? Christine Parker: I don't think so. It's been a lot of fun. Been a lot of fun. Thank you so much for having me. Paul Engin: Would you be willing to come back and when I know you have a few other things stirring in the pot. Would come back and join us again in the immersive lens? Christine Parker: Yeah I'd love to. My pleasure. Paul Engin: Awesome well thank you so much for your time and everything. That's all the time we have today. I'm Paul Engin. Dave Ghidiu: I'm Dave Ghidiu and if you enjoyed today's conversation be sure to smash that like and subscribe button so you never miss an episode. Let's be careful out there folks. Paul Engin: And thank you Christine Parker for everything you're doing and for coming on the show with us. And for those out there make sure you share with a friend or colleague. Until next time stay curious stay connected and thanks for looking through the immersive lens with us. Announcer: This episode was engineered by Jeff Kidd. Recorded at Finger Lakes Community College Podcast Studios located in beautiful Canandaigua, New York, in the heart of the Finger Lakes region, offering more than 55 degrees, certificates, micro-credentials, and workforce training programs. Thank you to Public Relations and Communications, Marketing, and the FLX AI Hub. Eager to delve into passion, discover exciting and immersive opportunities at www.flcc.edu. As part of our mission at FLCC, we are committed to making education accessible, innovative, immersive, and aligned with the needs of both students and employers. The views expressed in this podcast are those of the host, guests, and do not necessarily reflect the official position of Finger Lakes Community College. Music by Den from Pixabay. This is the Immersive Lens. Thank you again.
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