VR, AR AND AI WILL TRANSFORM UNIVERSITIES.

HERE’S HOW.By Rajiv Shenoy, Chief Technology Officer, Apogee

2CTO Perspective II

Astounding technological innovations in higher education are upon us. We see new breakthroughs in Virtual Reality (VR), Augmented Reality (AR) and Artificial Intelligence (AI) every day—breakthroughs which will impact not only education but also teaching, learning and research outcomes.

Virtual and augmented reality technologies are at the frontier of development right now; the market is forecast to reach $13.9 billion in 2017 (IDC), and change is happening at a frenetic pace. And while deep learning is still in its infancy, it’s a technology whose time has come and one that is already driving university research across the nation.

Indeed, high costs remain a challenge, but the day is not far, I believe, when AI and VR/AR tools will be as accessible as smartphones and desktop computers.

As shared in my last CTO Perspective, in the first half of this year, Apogee leaders spoke with more than 250 higher education decision makers and reviewed over 250 strategic plans. Nearly 74% of those plans listed “keeping up with innovation” as a top priority. This CTO Perspective offers our insights on how these up-and -coming technologies—VR, AR and AI—will impact highereducation and how tech-savvy leaders can evolve theircampus networks to be ready for the impact they willhave on the future.

Nearly 74%of plans listed

“keeping up with innovation” as a top priority.

3CTO Perspective II

VIRTUAL REALITY TAKES OFF IN HIGHER EDUCATION

Arguably the most established new reality-tech, virtual reality has been around for decades. After years of popularity in the gaming industry, it has become more immersive than ever before and is branching off into more practical applications. Market analyst firm Grandview Research, Inc., projects the VR market size to hit $48.5 billion by 2025 with a 46.7% CAGR.

But, what is virtual reality? In the most basic of explanations, virtual reality is a way to immerse users in an entirely virtual world. This virtual world is typically a multi-user, computer-based environment in which users interact with one another through pre-programmed avatars or digital representations of the user.

Virtual reality’s applications are already impacting almost every aspect of our lives:

• Caregivers are using VR to treat dementia, helpingpatients to regain memories and enriching elderlylives in other ways.

• People are virtually scaling Mount Everest, touringmuseums and attending concerts, athletic events andBroadway.

• Law enforcement is using VR to solve crimes.

• Pilots, soldiers, astronauts, teen drivers andconstruction workers are utilizing VR to conductpermit training without unnecessary risk.

In many of the ways that VR will enhance other human experiences, so too will VR enhance education. These worlds allow teachers to “take” students to otherwise impossible locations. By making remarkable experiences available to students, this new era of VR technology can transform education.

I recently visited Averett University in Danville, Virginia, and had an opportunity to immerse in their VR system to “virtually” explore the inner workings of the human body. It was quite an amazing experience. The way students study anatomy will be completely transformed.

VR market size to hit $48.5 billion by 2025

4CTO Perspective II

Today, hundreds of colleges and universities already offer virtual reality campus tours. But this is just the beginning. It only hints at the rich applications VR is capable of, and the high-impact education experiences about to be experienced by our college students. Picture these:

• An engineer can explore their CAD drawing frominside the machine – like Iron Man.

• A cultural studies student takes a guided tour of theGreat Wall of China.

• A marine biology student familiarizes herself with theGreat Barrier Reef, seeing evidence of bleaching upclose.

• And a history student walks through ancient Rome, oran astronomy student walks on Mars.

In addition to being an effective way to engage students, VR also provides university researchers an effective–and more affordable—way to experience their research. No need to create costly prototypes. Today, for example, university medical researchers are already exploring how VR can help treat everything from agoraphobia to burn wounds to stroke. Researchers creating new drugs, robotics or machines can experience the inner workings through modern VR.

Virtual reality also offers students the opportunity to learn by doing, which has been shown to be a more effective learning method than just seeing or hearing. Medical students, for example, can use VR to go inside the human body, gain a better understanding of their studies and even simulate real life surgery. The use of virtual worlds for simulation of medical procedures allows for errors to be made without the catastrophic consequences of real procedures.

5CTO Perspective II

AUGMENTED REALITY’S IMPACT ON TEACHINGVirtual Reality has been stealing the show until now, but Augmented Reality is on the brink of becoming huge business. AR simulates superimposed, computer-generated artificial objects in your real-world environment (think Pokémon Go and Snapchat Bitmojis) and printed material, enhancing your perception of reality.

In the last few months, AR has taken a powerful step forward with news from Toys “R” Us—a step that will impact everyday experiences and translate over to higher education. “The toy giant is debuting an augmented reality experience it hopes will help reinvigorate its stores and make them destinations for shoppers who might otherwise go online,” according to USA Today. “Geoffrey, the Toys “R” Us mascot, will greet customers virtually, giving them instructions on what to do. Young shoppers will point their tablet or smartphone at a sign on a shelf. Once the sign is scanned, a toy or activity will come to life on the screen. In the baby doll aisle, for instance, a cooing, virtual version of a doll on the shelf can be adopted, given a name, and even have its dirty diaper changed. In the basketball station, kids can sweep a ball in the hoop with a swipe of the screen, and compare scores with others on a leaderboard.”

This blended environment—one which combines online and offline—is the future. We are seeing this trend globally, as massive online-only companies like Amazon, for example, are venturing into the brick and mortar space through the acquisition of firms like Whole Foods. In time, our consumer experience will be blended – a seamless oscillation between online and in-person. And the same is happening in the classroom.

Just imagine Engineering/STEM classes of the future. A room full of students will learn about jet propulsion by scanning their textbooks to see the Thrust Equation come to life with a rocket’s take off, or learn what happens if they mix the wrong organic compounds in chemistry class without being exposed to an unsafe lab environment.

History, Art and Humanities will also take on a whole new meaning. Imagine a room full of students exploring the wreck of the Titanic, watching historic wars come to life, seeing FDR sitting on your desk delivering his WWII speeches, watching the Trojan War happen around them, or simply landing on the moon as astronauts — what a giant leap in education!

We are moving away from simply ‘learning’ a subject or topic to ‘feeling’ the content. AR allows a student to explore, to experience or to be involved in something, as if they are present in that environment or place. When combined with data driven analytics, these immersive experiences drive student engagement, success and outcomes.

Computer processors only recently became fast enough to power comfortable and convincing virtual and augmented reality experiences. Companies like Facebook, Google, Apple, and Microsoft are investing billions of dollars to make VR and AR more immersive, comfortable, and affordable.

6CTO Perspective II

DEEP LEARNING SET TO EXPLODE IN HIGHER EDUCATION IN NEXT 4 YEARSDeep learning is still in its infancy but is a technology whose time has come. According to Grandview Research, the Deep Learning Market will be worth $10.2B by 2025. That’s a CAGR of 52.1%!

It’s probably most helpful to think of Deep Learning as the cutting-edge of the cutting-edge of Artificial Intelligence. Deep Learning focuses on a subset of Machine Learning tools and techniques, and applies them to solving just about any problem which requires “thought” – human or artificial. These computing systems are inspired by how our brains function and do not require any task-specific programming. Instead it is based on connecting between artificial neurons that can learn much like the brain does.

To give some insight into why this is so ground breaking, we can look at examples of how Deep Learning is being used today. The applications span from giving computers “vision”, to speech recognition, machine translation, medical diagnosis, etc. Some that are either deployed or being worked on right now include:

• Deciding what you watch or buy - Deep Learning isused by Netflix and Amazon to decide what you wantto watch or buy next.

• Re-coloring black and white images – by recognizingobjects and learning what they should look like tohumans, color can be returned to black and whitepictures and video.

• Precision medicine – Deep Learning techniques arebeing used to develop medicines genetically tailoredto an individual’s genome.

• Automated analysis and reporting – systems cananalyze data and report insights from it in naturalsounding, human language accompanied byinfographics which we can easily digest.

I believe that deep learning is the new scientific infrastructure for research and learning that universities need to embrace and lead. Its research applications in higher education are profound.

• Researchers at one university are putting advancedimage recognition (“computer vision”) to work,detecting one of the most aggressive, but treatablein early stages, types of cancer. Melanoma can notonly be deadly, but it can also be difficult to screenaccurately. The team trained a neural network toisolate features (texture and structure) of moles andsuspicious lesions for better recognition.

• Researchers at some of the top universitymedical research facilities are working withGastroenterologists on improving colonoscopies.The scope of the future will pull in massive amountsof data to not only identify polyp growth, but alsopredict future polyp growth. The scope wouldshow “green, orange and red” boxes around safe orpotentially harmful growths.

When it comes to Deep Learning in teaching and learning, many of the more routine academic tasks (and least rewarding for lecturers), such as grading assignments, can be automated. Chatbots, intelligent agents using natural language, are already being developed by some universities; these will answer questions from students to help plan their course of studies. And virtual assistants can tutor and guide more personalized learning. At one prestigious university, students in one course could not tell the difference between feedback from a human being and a bot.

According to Grandview Research, the Deep Learning Market will be worth

$10.2B by 2025

7CTO Perspective II

READY, SET, GOVR, AR, and Deep Learning deployments may seem a long way off, but it won’t be long before higher education institutions will need to be ready to fully leverage them. The advantages these technologies present are vast and integral to institutions’ broader digital transformation and strategic visions. As a result, the speed and intensity with which these new technologies are heading for the Ivy Halls are accelerating.

But are we putting the cart before the horse? Do we, in the higher ed community, have the underlying network infrastructure in place to make the VR, AR and Deep Learning experience as seamless as possible for students, researchers, faculty and administrators? That is the critical piece to ensure success from the get-go, and ultimately that experience comes down to Internet bandwidth and latency.

We tend to forget that each device that enables fully-immersive VR/AR and Deep Learning experiences—sensors, cameras, microphones, smartphones, glasses and others that have yet to be dreamed up—are all connected. They’re part of this Internet of Things (IoT) era that we’re firmly in. And on the scale of bandwidth rapaciousness, VR/AR and Deep Learning are on the hungrier end of the IoT scale.

What steps should higher education administrators and IT leaders take now to be ready for these technologies?

The savvy higher education institution will do well to

The savvy higher education institution will do well to collaborate with a partner who understands higher education and the benefits these technologies can deliver to your constituents and your mission. Reality in any form comes at you fast. It was only about three to five years ago that BYOD was regarded as a new trend. Now VR/AR and AI are poised to transform teaching and learning. And it’s not too late to get ready, starting now.

8CTO Perspective 2A

ABOUT APOGEE

As higher education’s largest provider of managed technology services, Apogee helps colleges and universities transition to and excel in

today’s digital era. Its comprehensive Managed Campus Suite includes network services that connect the campus to enhance learning

outcomes, video that transforms the way students learn, and new digital engagement technologies that captivate students and drive

meaningful engagement. Partnering with Apogee enables schools to derive greater return on their IT investments and increases student

satisfaction while achieving budget stability and predictability.

apogee.us

By Rajiv ShenoyCTO, Apogee

rshenoy@apogee.us