As the 2018 Reimagine Education Conference draws closer – two days left to secure your Early Bird ticket! – we’re delighted to confirm that Google will be speaking alongside one of the world’s most innovative virtual reality companies, Imperial College Business School, and the US’s #1 university for innovation.
Our ‘Ed+Tech’ track – one of two at the conference – will explore the pedagogical and organizational implications of new technologies, and exploring ways of integrating VR/AR technology into the classroom is one key objective of this track.
To this end, we’re very proud to introduce our three speakers, and our moderator, for a panel that will examine Labster’s educational partnership with Google and Arizona State University. Labster – an award-winning company providing VR lab simulations to educators and students that would otherwise be unable to access them – were the Reimagine Education Overall Award Winners in 2016, and, we’re delighted to observe, have gone from strength-to-strength since then.
Most recently, they’ve partnered with Google to leverage the latter’s Daydream technology in ways that continue to facilitate a truly reimagined educational experience. Through the new Labster Daydream app, users are now able to receive easy access to Labster’s acclaimed VR virtual lab simulations – with new content to follow in the future.
Arizona State University is currently enjoying an ascendancy as the US’s best university for innovation, according to US News. ASU is co-founder of the University Innovation Alliance – a leading coalition of 11 major public research universities in the US seeking to ensure that institutional innovation can scale and diffuse – and have been recipients of Reimagine Education Awards in previous years.
ASU faculty played a central role in the development of The Labster VR labs, who validated the content of the labs and ensured that all learning objectives were met, while ASU were also able to provide full course credit to students using Labster VR simulations as part of their course.
The collaboration doesn’t end there: this fall, ASU will launch its first fully online biology degree using Labster VR. This degree will consist of 30 Labster VR simulations in cellular and molecular biology, ecology and animal physiology.
The collaboration between ASU, Google, and Labster makes manifest central Reimagine Education principles. It involves co-operation between edtech startups, major technology companies, and traditional brick-and-mortar universities – all with a passion for disruption and innovation. It leverages new technology in scalable ways. And it involves new modes of educational provision, allowing concomitantly new methods of acquiring credentials. We are extremely excited about the possibilities offered by this collaboration, and are sure that all delegates – irrespective of sector, nation, or discipline – will find the discussion illuminating. To meet the speakers – read on!