Learning Technologists from the Centre for Fusion Learning Innovation and Excellence (FLIE) were recently invited to deliver a teaching seminar to BA Marketing and Communication students to demonstrate their experience with emerging technologies.

This seminar consisted of an introductory presentation by Dave Hunt covering various technologies including augmented reality, virtual reality, the application of 360° cameras, virtual worlds and eye tracking technologies.

Following the presentation, the students were split into 2 groups and given the opportunity to try out virtual reality led by Dave Hunt and eye tracking technology led by Stephen Pyne.

Students who tried out virtual reality were able to experience various simulations in virtual reality using Oculus Quest head mounted displays (HMD) or Google Cardboard.

Students in the eye tracking group were encouraged to wander through the Fusion building while wearing the eye tracking technology and then replay the footage back to the seminar group. Online and televised marketing campaigns were used as real examples of how these technologies can feed into various aspects of digital marketing.

Overall, the students were very engaged and thoroughly enjoyed themselves, providing very positive feedback on the session. A couple of students have requested to loan some of the technologies for their dissertation projects and 1 group of students have used the footage recorded through their eye tracking experience to report on their digital marketing dissertation project.

Here are some examples used to demonstrate the technologies used in the session:

Augmented reality: Zappar – Best AR and WebAR experiences of 2020

Virtual reality: 100% Real Virtual Reality – Old Irish

Virtual worlds: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LVNIQMqIU6g

360 Walkthrough: https://www.theasys.io/viewer/wf8cR2CyETDQQiFKLBqHPXkgwuPWbk/

Eye tracking: FLIE Blog article on Eye Tracking

If you would like to know more about the potential of using immersive technologies in your teaching discipline please contact your Faculty Learning Technologist for more information.