Makerspace: Building an AR Sandbox - Part 1

Toys as Tools - The Whether or Not Question of "Worth It?"


I was helping our education department get some quotes for - 5 SMARTBOARDS ON A GRANT THAT IS IN ITS SECOND YEAR AND THIS IS THE FIRST WE'VE HEARD OF IT - *breathe* - and one of the staff asked the consultant whether they made "AR Sandboxes". Now, I've heard of AR Sandboxes from prior work with Dr. Mina Johnson-Glenberg (to be clear I just got to do some testing of their cool AR setups), so I already think stuff like that is cool and designed to be used in "learning+play" spaces - but it made me wonder if there were actual commercial options to purchase an AR Sandbox. 

and JFC there are I hate it here. To be clear - companies finding this and providing the service isn't the problem. The problem is in the marketing of these sorts of "tools". 

Look - I get it, finding cool new toys that look like they can even vaguely engage learners in novel ways is great! Here is this thing that says "play with me! I'm engaging!" and there's a person trying to sell it to you demos it and tells you something about how great it is as a teaching tool. But teaching what? Topography. It teaches topography. Not a bad thing - but let's look at this analogically. 

First we have Jaq, they know how to do lots of different things. They do those things with a mediocre amount of success. Jaq knows all trades, but is a master of none. 

Fil knows how to do one thing. Fil does that thing really fucking well - but they really only know how to do that one thing.

When it comes to humans - we very often look for Jaqs in circumstances where we have an ill-defined problem set. If I'm not sure what sorts of skills I need to pursue a solution - better to lead that "swiss army life" and have someone who can approach a problem in many different ways. This is great! And it even provides space for Fil if managed correctly, because it might just turn out that Jaq needs someone like Fil to go deep in an area that Jaq isn't as well versed in.

Okay, so, BUT THAT'S PEOPLE. When we select tools for use in any situation, the tool only gets to dictate my interaction or capabilities insofar as it has been designed. If I pick up a screwgun to hammer a nail I am being a silly human who is not deploying their problem solving strategies very well. 

"But oh, what's this? The screwgun has a laser level you say? Oh that means I can use it to level things too? Oh thank you so much for showing me this additional feature - I'll take 2 instead of buying 10 hammers."

See what I did there? That's classroom tech. That's how they sell classroom tech. IT'S FUCKED. 

So we had 3D printers sold to administrators, who then gave them to teachers for "STEM" education - saying, "here figure it out", we have classrooms planning "virtual fieldtrips" before they know how much a standard VR headset costs, let alone how to use one. 

Well, now I'm going to see if I can't figure out how to make one ourselves - because I'll be damned if some dumbass "educational technology" company is going to rob me of the opportunity to learn something new.

https://ar-sandbox.eu/augmented-reality-sandbox-diy/

https://web.cs.ucdavis.edu/~okreylos/ResDev/SARndbox/

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