At the end of March the XR Developer Network organized a brainstorm meeting during the Saxion Reality Check festival. The topic of the meeting was sharing of XR materials between developers working in education and research - what, why, how?
One of the outcomes was that amongst XR developers there clearly is a wish to be able to share different types of content related to XR projects. Or, put differently, more seems to be available and sought after than what is currently shared. This varies from pieces of code to complete applications, as well as insights into how a project approached technical challenges and development, and best practices.
But there are hurdles, including some practical ones, that need to be overcome. Below is a summary of the meeting outcome, which identifies the main aspects and challenges.
We will use this summary as input for the next Developer Network meeting on the topic of sharing XR materials, which is scheduled for 11 October at SURF Utrecht.
See this event page for information on this meeting, including how to register.
Would you like to be involved in XR development topics? Please join the XR Developer Network meetings! Register with the network by sending an e-mail to xr@surf.nl.
Ik ben fan van het boek Wijze Lessen (download het boek gratis). Het boek bevat 12 bouwstenen/principes om effectiever onderwijs te geven. Daarbij heeft Wilfred Rubens (lees hier zijn blog) blogpost geschreven over hoe deze principes met leertechnologie toe te passen zijn. Omdat ik deze principes ook erg relevant zijn voor de TU Delft, heb ik een Engelstalige factsheet gemaakt, met daarbij concrete tips en leeractiviteiten voor docenten. Deze factsheets zijn te downloaden via de website Blending Your Education.
Recentelijk hebben wij, Iris en Barend, vanuit het SURF-project ‘Future Campus’ Californië bezocht voor de ELI-conferentie van EDUCAUSE. Voor wie niet bekend is met EDUCAUSE: het is in essentie de Amerikaanse tegenhanger van SURF, gericht op het bevorderen van het gebruik van IT in het hoger onderwijs. We willen graag de hoogtepunten en onze bevindingen met jullie delen.
It has been almost two weeks and the world of eXtended Reality feels a bit different, ever since Apple entered the XR market by announcing their Vision Pro headset. After years of rumors that such a moment might come, the XR market changed overnight, with an extra vendor the size and standing of Apple and with a corresponding Apple vision, next to major players such as Meta and Pico. After the silent death of the metaverse a few months ago, spurred on by AI taking the world by storm, it seems a feared XR winter has now been avoided.
Expecting a memorable occasion we were watching the WWDC23 keynote at the SURF Amsterdam office with a small group of people, while enjoying pizza and drinks. It took sitting through 80 grueling minutes of other product updates (MacBooks, iOS, Watch, etc) before the star of the show finally appeared.
The pizza might have arrived luke-warm, the Apple Vision Pro headset certainly did not...
In the days directly after WWDC23 there was quite a buzz on social media, and even people normally not that aware of XR developments seemed to have picked up on the Vision Pro news. The launch video on Apple's YouTube channel has 51M views in less than two weeks, the highest of any video on the channel (slightly more than the Apple Watch 8 launch video). As one Twitterer put it: "they may not have the market share but they are taking the mindshare".
So now that the dust has settled a bit and more pieces of news (and rumours) are coming out we wrote down some thoughts on the Vision Pro for a variety of topics, including what we expect it means, if anything, for XR in education and research. For a more in-depth discussion of the Vision Pro specs, features and qualities we'll defer to other sources online, listed at the end.
Een korte podcast van 15 minuten over eXtended Reality (XR), de mogelijkheden en ontwikkelingen, gebruik in onderwijs en onderzoek, en de National XR Day op 5 Juli aanstaande.
Heb jij ideeën over de toekomst van de campus in het mbo, hbo en wo? En wil jij hier graag over meedenken en praten? Dan hebben wij goed nieuws! Het SURF Future Campus project organiseert in mei en juni vier regiobijeenkomsten door heel Nederland, waarin we samen werken aan het creëren van diverse toekomstscenario's.
De challenges van de tweede editie van Startup in Residence EdTech zijn live! Daarvoor zoeken we startups die de uitdaging aan willen gaan. In het Startup in Residence EdTech programma werken onderwijsinstellingen samen met startups aan uitdagingen binnen het hoger onderwijs, waarbij educatieve technologie (EdTech) een mogelijke oplossing biedt. Ben jij met je startup een mogelijke match voor een van de 9 challenges? Meld je dan nu aan of maak je interesse kenbaar!
This Thursday and Friday, March 30-31, the Saxion XR Lab is hosting the 2nd edition of their Reality Check Festival. A two-day event for students, professionals, and enthusiasts to get together around XR, game technology, and storytelling.
SURF is contributing to the event program as part of its XR Developer Network activities, and is sponsoring a number of free tickets, of which some are left! Please read on for more information.
