Periodic Reporting for period 1 - ARETE (AUGMENTED REALITY INTERACTIVE EDUCATIONAL SYSTEM)
Reporting period: 2019-11-01 to 2021-04-30
Currently in the educational sector, we experience lack of resources for the implementation of interactive technologies and a significant fragmentation in the field of AR with anchor systems incompatibility, file exchange formats exclusivity and interaction design unique to each operating system. In the meantime, we have increased needs for accessible interactive 3D content, increased difficulty in developing technology intensive content and retaining technical personnel. There is also an uneven coordination among educational institutions in terms of interactive content, making it difficult to articulate educational programmes. ARETE consortium will develop, integrate and disseminate interactive technologies via AR methods and tools. ARETE ecosystem will support fast dissemination of augmented learning content to a wide audience, while strengthening the research and industrial capacities in Europe to develop future interactive devices for education, considering accessibility to a broader community.
ARETE contributes to changing the traditional “low-tech” vision of education, attracting the interest of new generations. We believe that each pilot can have a large impact on society by stimulating the vision that advanced interactive technology is a key to increasing productivity. ARETE also has a social impact in modernizing and improving education via AR technologies. The ARETE ecosystem will support the development of creative problem-solving skills in students and will educate creative, analytical and innovative problem solvers. Partners have extensive experience in educational systems and play a critical role in designing the showcase scenarios so as to validate the potential of the three pilots developed in ARETE. The accessibility, functionality, and acceptability of current AR technologies is improved by the ARETE authoring toolkit. ARETE will help to generate new job opportunities for the market and acts as an enabler to leverage next-generation technologies.
The overall ARETE project objectives are the following:
1. To develop and evaluate the effectiveness of an interactive AR content toolkit
2. To apply human-centred interaction design for ARETE ecosystem
3. To pilot and evaluate the effectiveness of AR interactive technologies
4. To communicate, disseminate and exploit the project results
ARETE contributes to changing the traditional “low-tech” vision of education, attracting the interest of new generations. We believe that each pilot can have a large impact on society by stimulating the vision that advanced interactive technology is a key to increasing productivity. ARETE also has a social impact in modernizing and improving education via AR technologies. The ARETE ecosystem will support the development of creative problem-solving skills in students and will educate creative, analytical and innovative problem solvers. Partners have extensive experience in educational systems and play a critical role in designing the showcase scenarios so as to validate the potential of the three pilots developed in ARETE. The accessibility, functionality, and acceptability of current AR technologies is improved by the ARETE authoring toolkit. ARETE will help to generate new job opportunities for the market and acts as an enabler to leverage next-generation technologies.
The overall ARETE project objectives are the following:
1. To develop and evaluate the effectiveness of an interactive AR content toolkit
2. To apply human-centred interaction design for ARETE ecosystem
3. To pilot and evaluate the effectiveness of AR interactive technologies
4. To communicate, disseminate and exploit the project results
Work Package 1 Ethics Requirements has laid a solid basis for the execution of the activities in the 6 other work packages through the following objectives achieved:
- Ethical considerations and ethics approval prior pilots’ interventions and evaluation
- Principles for the protection of personal data
Work Package 2 Project Management: ensuring that the planned project activities are effectively performed, in order to pursue the project objectives in line with the time schedule, to budget the establishment of standards for quality, risk mitigation, innovation management, conflict resolution, ethical and data protection.
Work Package 3: Interactive Augmented Reality Toolkit: In this period, WP3 has focused in particular on app development, both for the authoring tool side as well as for the various prototypes, resulting in several releases of the authoring toolkit and player for standard-compliant AR learning activities and 3D learning objects, MirageXR. The pilot applications have been further extended, with additional exploratory breakout prototypes facilitating their innovative enhancement. Earlier than planned, work on the repository is well under way, with a first release of the Moodle repository plugin. As with regards to standards development, activities also started early and are bearing fruits.
Work Package 4: User-centred Interactive Design focused on understanding the needs and requirements of the target groups (teachers, primary and secondary school students) with regard to the use of AR educational applications for teaching and learning. Given the adverse impact of the pandemic, we have adapted our work plan, focusing on three major activities, namely:
(1) Conducting systematic literature review (SLR) to gain insights on usability and user experience
(2) Designing and implementing surveys with the ARETE target groups
(3) Collaborating continuously with other WPs
Work Package 5: In the first 18 months of the project, the activities of WP5 have focused on the research and development activities for the innovative application of AR for the PBIS supporting the behavioural teaching and engaging children in the acquisition of self-management and self-regulation of behaviour. So far, the research gaps within the state of the art have been identified and the scenarios have been identified for the use of the application leading to the requirements and specifications of the AR objects to be developed. During the reporting period the design of the technological architecture for the development of the interactive AR solution for PBIS has commenced.
Work Package 6: During the first 18 months of the ARETE project, WP6 focused on 1) reviewing the teacher requirements for Pilot 1 and 2; 2) defining the research parameters, methodology and instruments for both pilots; 3) launching a wide-scale dissemination campaign to attract teachers; 4) identifying teacher coordinators that will help with the training and follow up with the pools of teachers at national level, and starting the work to prepare the large scale pilots.
Work Package 7: In the first 18 months, WP7 has been focused mainly on raising awareness of the ARETE project. This has been realised through the following main actions:
- Communication through social media, project website, etc.
- Participation in different workshops and other dissemination activities.
- Publication of papers.
- Analysis of the Market Outreach.
- Ethical considerations and ethics approval prior pilots’ interventions and evaluation
- Principles for the protection of personal data
Work Package 2 Project Management: ensuring that the planned project activities are effectively performed, in order to pursue the project objectives in line with the time schedule, to budget the establishment of standards for quality, risk mitigation, innovation management, conflict resolution, ethical and data protection.
Work Package 3: Interactive Augmented Reality Toolkit: In this period, WP3 has focused in particular on app development, both for the authoring tool side as well as for the various prototypes, resulting in several releases of the authoring toolkit and player for standard-compliant AR learning activities and 3D learning objects, MirageXR. The pilot applications have been further extended, with additional exploratory breakout prototypes facilitating their innovative enhancement. Earlier than planned, work on the repository is well under way, with a first release of the Moodle repository plugin. As with regards to standards development, activities also started early and are bearing fruits.
Work Package 4: User-centred Interactive Design focused on understanding the needs and requirements of the target groups (teachers, primary and secondary school students) with regard to the use of AR educational applications for teaching and learning. Given the adverse impact of the pandemic, we have adapted our work plan, focusing on three major activities, namely:
(1) Conducting systematic literature review (SLR) to gain insights on usability and user experience
(2) Designing and implementing surveys with the ARETE target groups
(3) Collaborating continuously with other WPs
Work Package 5: In the first 18 months of the project, the activities of WP5 have focused on the research and development activities for the innovative application of AR for the PBIS supporting the behavioural teaching and engaging children in the acquisition of self-management and self-regulation of behaviour. So far, the research gaps within the state of the art have been identified and the scenarios have been identified for the use of the application leading to the requirements and specifications of the AR objects to be developed. During the reporting period the design of the technological architecture for the development of the interactive AR solution for PBIS has commenced.
Work Package 6: During the first 18 months of the ARETE project, WP6 focused on 1) reviewing the teacher requirements for Pilot 1 and 2; 2) defining the research parameters, methodology and instruments for both pilots; 3) launching a wide-scale dissemination campaign to attract teachers; 4) identifying teacher coordinators that will help with the training and follow up with the pools of teachers at national level, and starting the work to prepare the large scale pilots.
Work Package 7: In the first 18 months, WP7 has been focused mainly on raising awareness of the ARETE project. This has been realised through the following main actions:
- Communication through social media, project website, etc.
- Participation in different workshops and other dissemination activities.
- Publication of papers.
- Analysis of the Market Outreach.
Within ARETE we reimagine education from a new perspective in a new complex context. ARETE has the capacity to become the paradigm for disruptive innovative education and increase the European innovation capacity. Advancements beyond the state of the art, will be primarily realised within ARETE in the following areas:
● AR Human Computer Interface challenges;
● Interactivity of 3D content for AR disruptive education;
● AR for Positive Behaviour Interventions & Support (PBIS)
ARETE has the potential to lead globally into a new economic future to strengthen the EU research and industrial capacities to develop future interactive devices, based on the evaluation results from the pilot studies and collective feedback from the targeted community through direct engagement. ARETE project expected results include mainly the delivery of a sustainable competitive ecosystem which is borne out by several factors including:
1. the provision of an open-source AR Authoring toolkit
2. the intelligent and compelling pilots with analysis of objective data to assess the impact of AR technology
3. our carefully devised market outreach approach and the applied innovative approach for demonstrations with the target community which is the foreground of this project
4. the direct engagement of leading organizations in the project through the Industry Capacity Board
● AR Human Computer Interface challenges;
● Interactivity of 3D content for AR disruptive education;
● AR for Positive Behaviour Interventions & Support (PBIS)
ARETE has the potential to lead globally into a new economic future to strengthen the EU research and industrial capacities to develop future interactive devices, based on the evaluation results from the pilot studies and collective feedback from the targeted community through direct engagement. ARETE project expected results include mainly the delivery of a sustainable competitive ecosystem which is borne out by several factors including:
1. the provision of an open-source AR Authoring toolkit
2. the intelligent and compelling pilots with analysis of objective data to assess the impact of AR technology
3. our carefully devised market outreach approach and the applied innovative approach for demonstrations with the target community which is the foreground of this project
4. the direct engagement of leading organizations in the project through the Industry Capacity Board