Deakin wins Gartner innovation award for 3D app

Have you ever wanted to publish 3D immersive experiences but are unsure of how to do it? Deakin’s Emergent Technologies team was presented with this challenge and have since received the Gartner 2021 Eye on Innovation Award for Teaching and Learning in Higher Education for their solution to this problem. Using user-centred design principles, and in consultation with teaching teams they created the IdeAR solution and piloted it with two units in the School of Nursing and Midwifery.

What is IdeAR?

IdeAR simply enables teachers to design and develop 3D immersive experiences without the need for technological skills. It is an interactive web-based platform that translates ideas that are generally represented via 2D images, to 3D interactive experiences. In collaboration with teaching teams, these experiences were scaffolded to enable students to build their capability in discipline specific tasks by enabling access to interactive learning content in 3D and augmented reality. From learning how the heart operates to understanding the pelvic anatomy through simulations, IdeAR has enabled teachers to design experiences that enable complex processes to be scaffolded and built into a 3D immersive experience. To further support the students, artificial intelligence was used so they could ask a question related to the task and IdeAR would direct them to where the information was, without teacher intervention.

Why was IdeAR created?

IdeAR was created to meet the needs of teachers to create more immersive and engaging learning experiences for their students. It started with the School of Medicine who needed an app that allowed students to interact with the heart and learn the complexities of how it operates. From there, the ocular simulation was created to enable students to engage with the anatomy of the eye and the bony orbit. Through IdeAR students could learn the complex relationships of the layers of the eye, the extraocular muscles, associated nerves, blood vessels and test their knowledge using the in-built assess module. The success of these projects along with the positive feedback from teachers and students highlighted the need for these experiences, which is how the IdeAR pilot has evolved. Watch the video IdeAR – Gartner Eye on Innovation Awards winner to learn more about how IdeAR was developed and its applications for use.