Future Technology
Future Technology: New technology that is currently being developed, or will be developed within the next five to ten years.
Here at The Discovery School, we like to prepare children for their future by providing them with a well-rounded education. Future Technology is different in that it looks at the possible technologies, which are emerging that may change the way we look at the world. To prepare them for this exciting new world, our children will get the chance to engage, test and experience these exciting activities. We will share the work and good practice here on this website so come by to check out what exciting and innovative things we are doing! Click on a link below...
At our school we have been using the game Abzu as a stimulus for writing. We've spoken before on numerous occasions about how video games can be used as a contextual hub for learning and in the past we have used some games to help on the learning journey.
Some of the staff have played and completed Abzu in their own time and enjoyed the experience. The fact that the story line and its meaning were ambiguous, its visual style abstract and its music soothing and dramatic made many feel that this would be a good game with which to engage the pupils. At its core Abzu is a diving game but this is incredibly reductive as in the game most of the time is spent swimming with the myriad of underwater creatures, but it's distinctive visual style of flatter shapes, flowing lines and an expressive use of light and colour make it a unique and exciting experience.
In Abzu, you play a silent diver and explore a strange, underwater realm. In terms of gameplay, it's fairly simple as you swim and interact with a few mysterious objects. Because the game itself has a minimal HUD on screen, all you see are the gorgeous visuals with the natural environments in lush bright colours giving way to mysterious sunken ruins with strange hieroglyphs, which seem readable but for the need of a Rosetta stone equivalent.
But there are no question marks about Abzu's beauty. It's not so much that the individual elements are all that astonishing, but the way they're orchestrated, with the shoals of beautifully animated fish, the slowly undulating vegetation, the areas of coloured light and shadow, regularly takes your breath away. At its best the union of music and visuals can be absolutely magical.
In our lessons we used Abzu to write a descriptive piece of writing. The children were presented with an image of the cover and had to predict what the game was about.
When we started the game the diver is seen to be floating on top of the ocean, motionless and with its eyes closed. With the click of a button the eyes opened and the children gasped in delight as I ascended to the top of the sea, all around there was ocean and glimmers of seaweed in the distance.
We dove down into the waters and children started to note down describing words on their image proforma; azure waters, crystal clear sea, shimmering sparkling waters, refracted light etc. We then gently swam towards a shoal of brightly coloured fish and described their movements and how they reacted when our diver moved near; ruby red fish swam carefree, swishing their tail from side to side, the fish quickly darted away startled as the stranger came near etc We then got the diver to hold onto a giant fish and glided through an opening in the rocks and the children gasped in delight as the dark cave gave way to a bright green seascape full of wonderful creatures; verdant undulating seaweed gently swayed from side to side, shoals of fish swam in tight circles to protect each other etc.
Having played just the first 15 minutes of the game the children were entranced and engaged. They produced wonderful wordbanks of phrases and ideas which they shared made improvements upon.
Virtual Reality is Here
As teachers and educators, we like to immerse our children in topics to interest and excite them. With certain topics this is easy as we have to facilities and resources nearby to engage them, however with certain topics like history or geography, this can be difficult as the places we are discussing are often not within reach.
How would much more thrilling would it be to stand in the place we are learning about? We can't take our classes on an educational visit to Ancient Egypt, for example, when we are learning about the Pharaohs but what if we could take them there virtually? Well, with the power of Virtual Reality, we can.
We have been introducing VR into the school by getting some children to create Google Cardboard VR headsets. It may not look like much, a simple unassuming little cardboard box but through the use of magnetometers, accelerometers, gyroscopes and external head cameras, which come as standard in most mobile phones, we have the opportunity to transport our children to amazing places.
We made the kits ourselves by using the Brother ScanNCut machine to cut out the Google Cardboard template, buying lenses on amazon.com for 80p a pair and a large pack of magnets for 30p each. The whole cost was less than £1.50 but for this the children had a compete VR headset! For those not used to crafting for about £10, you can buy a cardboard housing for a smartphone running Google's Android mobile OS, a lens kit, some magnets, some velcro and a rubber band and an easily programmable Near-Field Communication sticker tag for launching the companion mobile app.
The cardboard app comes with 7 “experiences”;
- YouTube lets you watch a selection of Youtube videos on a simulated theater screen.
- Street Vue lets you wander around in a VR version of street view.
- Exhibit lets you look at a few 3D recreations of objects.
- Earth Flyover lets you zoom around a city in Google Earth. Push the “button” to start flying forward, push it again to stop.
- Photo Sphere Viewer lets you look around in pictures you’ve taken using Android’s built-in 360º panoramic feature.
- Windy Day is a cute, cartoony environment where you can watch animals sneak around as leaves fall.
- Tour Guide has you explore the Palace of Versailles.
The children loved making their headsets and took it into their classes to show their peers, there was a great buzz as pupils had a chance to immerse themselves in a roller coaster ride. Teachers were excited about the prospect of VR and what implications it could have for their practice.
As with any new technology, there needs to be discussion about its implications upon the world. With the emergence of VR there is a real fear that people may become plugged in but may not plug out. We need to ensure we talk to our children about being plugged in all the time- it is a real danger.
However on a more positive note, we hope to create a class set of VR headsets and with the use of devices download many useful apps which could be used across the curriculum.
As an interactive medium, video games can be an amazing teaching tool off which to hang learning. They have the ability to engage pupils in a way that other mediums like books and films can't as the games can simulate and adapt to the decisions of the individuals, if we want to go left we can go left! We are delighted to be using the PlayStation VR we have purchased at school to help us engage and immerse our pupils in the world of 'Kensuke's Kingdom', the adventure story by Michael Morpurgo. We thought that the most appropriate use of the technology would be to describe the setting when the protagonist, a young boy called Michael, wakes up on the shore of a beach after falling overboard his family's yacht after a storm.
We purchased the application 'Perfect' for the Playstation VR, which immerses you in detailed rendered worlds and hope that this will encourage the pupils to write wonderfully detailed descriptions about the deserted beach setting. Year 4 used the software to write a descriptive piece and below are the stimulus we used and the writing outcome.
