Where It Started

First, a little background. Åbo Akademi University (ÅAU) in Turku, Finland is the only exclusively Swedish language, multi-faculty university in Finland (or anywhere outside Sweden). Looking to extend their campus into the immersive, virtual world of XR, a couple of years ago Podcast Host Tobias Andtfolk (ÅAU’s IT Projektchef, and IT Project Manager, ICT Services) bought a couple of headsets and began evaluating them with teacher and students. The major feedback received was that XR’s cool, immersive factor had the potential to expand and enhance education. Subsequently, they created a pilot project, “DUTAR,” to explore the use of XR in higher education.

Where It’s Going

In this third installment of The DUTAR Pod podcast, Tobias and his CoHost “sidekick” Matias Dahlbäck (ÅAU Communications Specialist) reached out to the University of Miami (UM) Frost Institute for Data Science and Computing’s Sr. Project Manager of XR Initiatives Thomas C. Merrick. Now that ÅAU’s DUTAR project has incorporated XR into lots of courses and is now expanding ÅAU’s presence in the Metaverse, they reached out to Thomas to explore:

• How is UM using XR technologies?
• What inspired UM to start exploring the possibilities of XR, especially with regard to UM’s partnership with ENGAGE XR?
• Which disciplines or subjects are using XR, and what are the success stories?
• What has the student feedback been regarding the simulations and software?
• How have teachers been receiving this technology? (Plus how immersion and AI are transforming language learning trends.)
• What are the future trends in higher education over the next 10 years?
• Branding the “UMverse” virtual environment, touching on First Year Directions programming, and possibly building virtual student/staff services.
• Were there any hiccups with the implementation of immersive media?
• For students or teachers who are interested in getting into XR, what recommendations does Thomas have?

Watch now on Spotify for all the answers!