The construction industry is often seen as hands-on and practical, but digital skills are central to how learners are trained and how construction businesses and self employed workers operate. To explore this in more depth, we interviewed teaching practitioners from further education (FE) colleges and an industry training board to understand what digital skills are currently being taught, what learners will need in the future, and where the biggest opportunities and challenges lie.
At Digifest this year, we hosted a discussion session with around 45 delegates to explore how smart glasses might be used in post16 education, either as an assistive technology or as a teaching and learning tool. We explored three scenarios: supporting visually impaired and hard‑of‑hearing learners, and using smart glasses in specialist environments such as […]
As part of ALT/ Jisc XR Community’s work investigating the ethical use of immersive technology, we’ve invited Matthew Coxon (Programme Lead (BSc, Psychology) and Senior Lecturer in Cognitive Psychology at York St John University), who is a member of our steering group, to share his experiences: Over the past decade, we’ve been developing our approach to using virtual reality in Psychology teaching at York St John […]
Immersive technologies offer new ways to engage learners and create transformative experiences. But with innovation comes responsibility. Using the Association for Learning (ALT)’s Framework for Ethical Learning Technology (FELT), we explored some of these issues in a community event for the ALT/ Jisc XR community, with 68 attendees. The work into this area was inspired […]
Despite the lunchtime slot, it was a solid turnout for the extended reality (XR) community meet up at Digifest, reflecting the growing interest and engagement in XR within the sector.
Defining data literacy “It’s about knowing how to use and communicate data.” “Data literacy is key to informing strategic planning.” These were just a couple of the responses from our recent data literacy workshop. Other examples included “using tables, spreadsheets, and infographics” to tell stories. What do you think? At Jisc, we believe that being […]
On the evening of Sunday 10th and all day Monday 11th November, Meta hosted an educators summit in London focused on XR in education, bringing together around 100 attendees primarily from UK but also including some European institutions. From the Jisc XR steering committee, Gary Burnett (Loughborough) and Matt Coxon (York St John) were in attendance and gave short talks – Gary and Matt also composed this blog post for the community.
In a recent community session, around 30 members gathered to discuss how they were integrating immersive technologies into teaching and learning at their institution. Through the discussion, participants explored some of the challenges, questions, and best practice tips with one another. Three key themes emerged from the workshop: (1) determining a plan for embedding XR, (2) getting teaching staff engaged, and (3) getting learners engaged.
Scott and Kathryn share their thoughts on an AI-themed workshop to the comms team of the National Institute of Health Research and flag some key topics for further discussion.
As immersive technologies such as augmented reality (AR), mixed reality (MR) and virtual reality (VR) become more prevalent, it is crucial to consider their wider impact on the environment and society. While these technologies offer exciting new possibilities for education, they can also leave a significant carbon footprint and contribute to e-waste. This blog post explores some of the sustainability related opportunities and challenges for education providers when using extended reality (XR) technologies.