04/15 Envisioning Technology & Motivation

Today our team focused on the technology detail of BABL and how might motivation can be exchanged between learners and native speakers.

From the last presentation, Irina and Kevin wanted us to clarify two main points:

• Doesn’t the learner has VR headset? Why and how does the local partner interact with the holographic learner?
• What’s the motivation of local people?

We referred to a couple of vision videos about immersive environment and the futuristic hologram technology and once again delved into how the learner get into the immersive abroad environment.

Technological Feasibility for Shared Reality

After the evaluative research presentation, we felt that It is hard to define the clear borders between VR, AR and MR and wondered if that’s necessary. Instead, we decided to focus more on our own definition — Mixed Reality as Shared Reality — and pulled up two HMW questions about technology;

• How might technology reduce the physical distance between learners and local people?
• How might technology help learners get integrated to a new environment?

We also shared the last Google Cardboard bodystorming experience and talked about Pros and Cons of VR technology. It is true that VR provides more immersive street view, but because it uses fully opaque view it would be hard for users to walk around with VR headsets.

Above video is the video game scene from Her (2013). We think this would be the great example of MR immersive view. Users can get into the immersive space and also can interact with virtual characters. In addtion, users still can see the space outside, reducing the chance of bumping. For the next week, we will play with Hololens and bodystorm with AR street view once again.

Next, we talked about how ‘meeting mode’ works and how local people interact with the hologram learner. So far, we figured that there are two ways of projecting holograms-using static hologram projectors or wearing MR headsets.

If we use projectors, then all people in the same space would be able to see the hologram learner. However, it would be impossible to meet the hologram learner outside. On the other hand, personal MR hardware would allow more freedom to local people, but those who don’t have the headgear wouldn’t be able to meet the hologram learner.

Well, let’s say it’s like wi-fi router and cellular data — why can’t we use both at the same time?

Motivation Factor

Another detail we need to consider is the relationship between the learners and the local partners. We are all aware that motivation will play the key role in BABL. It is quite hard to imagine how to recruit local partners without paying.

After the long discussion, we came up with the idea of ‘needs exchange’. Although BABL doesn’t support other purposes than language learning, people need other motivations to maintain the relationship in a long term. For example, if a local partner is a senior student and wants to get job mentoring from a learner, then he/she can schedule the meeting more often.