Educational XRealities

Abstract

XRealities is a recently approved pedagogic fellowship project that will run for two years, during 2019 and 2020. This paper will introduce the project plan, some early experiments and expectations. XRealities relates to the many real and digital situations that we encounter in our digitally expanded life experiences. In contemporary education, we notice a problematic situation with abundant screens. People sit next to each other and stare at screens, looking for contact and content. We describe the current dichotomy between latent online learning materials and potential real-world experiences in campus education. The XRealities project is focused on finding alternative approaches for educational settings in which both real- world social interactions and virtual content provide new forms of intertwined learning experiences. We assume there is huge educational potential in the right juxtaposition of visual digital and real-world experiences and the embodied interaction within this augmented reality.