In what’s believed to be a first London’s Imperial College Business School is using holographic technology to present lectures to students. From California Marrowli NaicaGoogle’s product manager was beamed onto a stage like Magic. The head of Imperials EdTech Lab says, this presents a window to the world. Through Holograms we can bring in lectures from across the globe, and they can appear in front of our students in a realistic manner. That’s the key.
The developer of the technique explains how it works. We’re presenting a 2D image as a 3D image, and the iris is flat so we see everything in 2D. Our brain changes it to 3D. We’re doing exactly the same trick. We’re presenting a 2D image but with depth of field and a really good vision. My brain just changes it to 3D. Attendees say there are many ways this tool can help educators and students. With time differences, for example, Asian students, it’s not so easy to catch up the lectures in the US for example.
The second thing we could do with, that is having CEOs coming to the classroom, and engage with students. And the third way probably is maybe have Albert Einstein coming to the classroom. There might be a long wait for that. Meanwhile, master student Josephine Collin says she prefers the interaction a hologram lecture offers compared to those presented online.
I wouldn’t mind it. I think it’s very interesting if we can have access to different lectures and different like guest speakers, things that technology, that’s something I would definitely enjoy. Developers say the cost of holographic technology has dropped considerably since the days it was used mostly in big-budget music shows making it possible for educational institutions to afford it.