Augmented Reality for a Better Distance Learning Experience
If you watch it on a computer screen, you may mistake it for a newscast. The speaker's sitting behind a stylish wooden desk. On his right side, a screen features texts and images. A giant world map is looming on his back. But if you take your eyes off the screen and watch it live, the tv studio disappears and all you see is a man sitting beyond a green screen in a SDA Bocconi classroom. Markus Venzin, Professor of Global Strategy, Director of the SDA Bocconi Research Division "Claudio Dematté", is lecturing live for some Telekom Austria Group young employees scattered in Austria, Belarus, Slovenia, Serbia, Croatia, Bulgaria and Macedonia. Learning Lab team, in cooperation with Lamerweb Productions, are turning the conference into a pleasant and interactive experience.
It's called Webinar, a synthesis of "web" and "seminar". It's an on line seminar accessible from computers and mobile devices designed to empower distance learning. Chroma Key is a nice trick to make it aesthetically pleasing, but interactivity is the core of Webinar. Teachers create polls and interact with participants through a chat and Q&A sessions. Each long-distance attendee sees on his computer screen the live lecture and a few windows featuring the tools. The whiteboard is digital, of course: the speaker uses a tablet to write down notes that participants see on their screen in real time.
The augmented reality creates an augmented classroom. "Webinar offers a solution to two major issues of distance learning", Leonardo Caporarello, Director of SDA Bocconi's Learning Lab, says. "How can you increase concentration levels? And how can you mend for the lack of interactivity? Distance learning doesn't allow verbal communication with the whole classroom. It's replaced by the tools we give to the lecturer and the participants. The former can engage the latter every few minutes. He can propose a poll and gain their attention commenting the results in the form of a pie chart". The setting isn't just aesthetics: "We can customize it and offer a warmer learning experience".
Markus Venzin's lecture is called "Introduction to Strategy". It's part of the blended learning Group Young Potential Program aimed at Telekom Austria Group's high-potential young employees. The overall goal is to enable better business understanding, improve skills through hands-on assignments, learn about industry trends, strategy, innovation. The on line session is useful to motivate participants to prepare for what's following: a two-day workshop at Telekom Austria Group headquarters in Vienna next month.
"Webinar was made in an interesting and cool way: the interactive part enables participation, the technical tools are innovative and attractive for the young target group", says Ulrike Oswald, Expert in Talent Management & Organization Development and responsible for the Group Young Potential Program at Telekom Austria Group Business School. Doing the web seminar before the classroom training makes the learning process easier. "When theory and pre-readings are delivered upfront, the time in the classroom can be used for discussions and working on a better understanding. This enables a long-term learning success".