What benefits does the use of XR bring to learning? XR is transforming the classroom in higher education by providing new ways for students to learn. Blended Reality is dedicated to investigating how this evolving field of technology can benefit students in their studies. Active projects explore new ways to get students engaged with immersive and expanded media and the CCAM acts as a convener for other universities and educators through hosting gatherings and conferences such as 2019 IEEE Games Entertainment and Media.

Example Projects:

The Verb Collective

The Verb Collective, available for free in the Unity Asset Store, is an open-source toolkit for making interactive experiences in Unity.  Inspired by Richard Serra’s artwork ‘Verb List’ it is a way to make interactive media feel more intuitive, personable, and approachable for those that otherwise might not be comfortable with coding. For teachers, artists, students, and those that are simply curious, this was created because we realized that sometimes those with the most to offer are not always the ones confident enough to dive right into emerging technologies.

Collaborators:

• Justin Berry, Critic Yale School of Art and CCAM Core Faculty 
• Bobby Berry, CCAM + Tsai City Belonging at Yale Innovation Fellow 2019-2020, and Yale Alum ‘19 
• Shayne McGregor, Ph.D. candidate, African American Studies and English literature 

Links:

Read more about The Verb Collective.

Visit The Verb Collective on the Unity Asset Store

Learn how to use The Verb Collective

The Clamshell “IO”

The first thing you might notice when looking at a controller for virtual reality is that it looks a lot like a gun, and that the primary interaction is to point at things and pull the trigger.  Why does this emerging medium use a pistol grip as it’s default interface?  In order to help reimagine what a better interface for virtual reality might look like, we hosted a workshop for people to prototype new controllers out of clay and other supplies. Inspired by the fact that not one or two of those ideas were good, but that all of them had interesting qualities, we decided not to focus on one controller design but on a device that would make it easier for people to try out ideas and brainstorm better options.  What started out as a clamshell shaped controller turned into a universal sensor input device. Lance-Chantiles Wertz and Isaac Shelanski started the company Indistinguishable From Magic to produce the device that they created.

Collaborators:

• Justin Berry, Critic Yale School of Art and CCAM Core Faculty
• Lance Chantiles-Wertz, Yale College ‘19
• Isaac Shelanski, Yale College ‘20
• Sara Abbaspour, School of Art MFA ‘19

Links:

Read more about the project.