January 17, 2020

While students and faculty were away from campus during the winter break a group of 40 educators, instructional technologists and industry leaders gathered at Yale’s Center for Collaborative Arts and Media to discuss support strategies for XR.

The event leveraged the EDUCAUSE-HP sponsored research into the use of extended reality (XR) experiences in educational settings (https://www.educause.edu/ecar/research-publications/xr-for-teaching-and-learning-year-2-of-the-educause-hp-campus-of-the-future-project/executive-summary-key-findings-acknowledgments). The Educause research study explores the question: What factors influence the effectiveness of XR technologies for achieving various learning goals? The January workshop built on this work with a focus on strategic thinking and planning on how we will incorporate XR technologies into our learning environments. Through a series of workshop activities the participants scanned the XR landscape, explored 2-3 year scenarios and identified pathways to prepare our organizations to leverage the possibilities of XR technologies.

Sixteen colleges/universities met with industry experts over two days to discuss the larger question of how educational institutions can support emerging technology infrastructure at a sustainable scale. What works for core technical infrastructure and enterprise applications does not apply to emerging tech, but that doesn’t mean emerging tech can or should be a free-for-all. The event proceedings will be published as a report to be released summer 2020.

Attending: Barnard College, Bryant University, Columbia University, Dartmouth College, Florida International University, Hamilton College, Harvard University, MIT, NC School of Science and Math, Syracuse University, The New School, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, University of Pennsylvania. Wake Technical Community College, Yale University