Hololens in Education: A New Dimension

The Hololens project “Beyond the Imaginable Technologies for Sustaining Remote Life” is a collaborative project involving several academic institutions and organizations, led by the University of Turku’s Department of Computing. Through engagement with students and teachers, the project seeks to overcome academic, motivational, and social challenges in remote education and work settings.

“Beyond the Imaginable Technologies for Sustaining Remote Life” is a collaborative four-year project funded by the Academy of Finland, led by the University of Turku’s Department of Computing, involving academics and students from NUST, Carl von Ossietzky University of Oldenburg, and Uppsala University. The project goal is to address research barriers hindering the use of immersive 3D video for remote communication. By focusing on quality, performance, and understanding user needs, the project aims to provide evidence to drive industry investment in this technology. A major focus of the project is to engage students and teachers in the design of use cases and technology affordances to overcome academic, motivational, and social challenges in remote education. People’s Primary School in Windhoek, Namibia and Pääskyvuori school in Turku, Finland are the main partner schools on the project.

In today’s interconnected global landscape, the exploration of technologies facilitating remote presence and learning holds greater significance than ever before. While the availability of mixed reality (MR) wearables, such as the Microsoft HoloLens 2, is expanding, their application within educational contexts remains under-researched. Therefore, it is imperative to delve into how this technology can be effectively harnessed in education to inform future research and development endeavors.

Engaging students, educators, educational specialists, and technology experts is crucial in discovering innovative methods to enrich learning experiences through MR live video streaming. Despite being in its nascent technical phase for widespread adoption, our focus lies in bridging social and emotional disparities in remote education by actively collaborating with students and teachers in challenging educational environments.

Funded by:

1. Academy of Finland

2. University of Turku’s Department of Computing

3. Namibia University of Science and Technology (NUST)

4. Carl von Ossietzky University of Oldenburg

5. Uppsala University

6. Main Partners of the project: People’s Primary School in Windhoek, Namibia and Pääskyvuori school in Turku, Finland.

Phase: Ongoing

Publications:

1. Bridging Spaces: A Student Perspective on Designing for Remote Presence with 3D Holograms. J Mendes, S Auala, H Winschiers-Theophilus, T “bgt” Suovuo, E Sutinen, C Suero Montero, and N Goagoses. In Proceedings of the 4th African Human Computer Interaction Conference (AfriCHI ’23). Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA, 249–253. 2024. https://doi.org/10.1145/3628096.3629063)

Awards and Accolades: None

For more information on the Tech Hub’s work with the app, you can contact us, info [at] ictechhub.com