TIme for a reality check - an AR or augmented reality, check


   Need a reality check? Not just any reality check, but an expanded, strengthened reality check. This new reality, called augmented reality, or AR, is described by some techies as the next big thing since sliced bread. Some think it will so revolutionize the way we live that it would equal the change brought about by the internet.

     Yup, it’s that big. 

     What is augmented reality? Imagine walking in the woods. You point your camera towards a mountain and it will show an overlay of information - the mountain’s height, fauna and flora, etc. Your washer breaks. Just point your camera towards the washer and there will be an overlay diagram showing parts which need to be replaced. You point your camera towards a storefront and see an overlay of a sweater on sale. A voice message was left there by a friend who had recently been to that store and raves about that sweater. 

     Augmented reality will expand student experiences within their existing world – instead of newly created ones. Cell phones and AR-enabled headgear will be used more in learning sites that are not limited within classroom walls. For example, a student who misses a museum field trip can go back and at different points of the museum hear not only the museum’s information overlay but also comments left there by the teacher and classmates. 

     Some AR applications are already available for iPhones: AR Basketball (3D basketball at your desk), SnapShop Showroom (take a picture of a furniture, wall art, etc., and see how it will look in your living room),  AR Invaders (zap aliens invading your living room), Star Chart  (your camera will identify the stars, constellations, planets, their distances, brightness, etc.)  

     Ivan Sutherland, a visionary who is a pioneer in computer graphics, said “A display connected to a digital computer give us a chance to gain familiarity with concepts not realizable in the physical world. It is a looking glass into a mathematical wonderland.”

     Augmented reality combines virtual reality with the physical. If Sutherland can have his way, the two would be merged:  “The ultimate display would, of course, be a room within which the computer can control the existence of matter. A chair displayed in such a room would be good enough to sit in. Handcuffs displayed in such a room would be confining, and a bullet displayed in such a room would be fatal.”

     The fusion of the real and unreal, what is and what could be, is nothing new to a teacher. Every day in our classrooms, a teacher’s eyeballs are cameras we point on our students faces and an overlay of information appears  –  writings and drawings about hopes and dreams for the future, past years’ report cards, comments from other teachers.  The overlay also includes our lesson plan objectives, learning styles, brain research, and questions like how much time I have to teach this massive concept before I have to give a test.

     The merging of the physical with the non-digital virtual reality is also important in personal relations. For example, I have been writing this column for over three years now because my husband’s eyes always saw me doing it even before I saw it in myself. He augmented my view of myself as a writer. 

     Sometimes the overlay of information is negative. Some people see their loved ones with an overlay of unforgiveness and bitterness over something done in the past. This view is so relentless that it is like a black hole. Escape – joy and healing - is impossible. 

     The overlay of eternity can overshadow the physical in ways that not even Sutherland can imagine possible. CS Lewis in his book “God in the Dock” speaks of “undeceptions,” times and events when our eyes overcome the physical and are introduced to the eternal. In “Surprised by Joy”, Lewis describes being “dragged kicking and screaming” to the kingdom of God - the sheer weight of evidence for the Christian faith inescapably fused the physical to the eternal in his life. 

     In the Book of Genesis, Jacob is in the wilderness and wakes up from a dream about God blessing him. His eyes are opened to an overlay that he did not know was there. He said, “Surely the Lord is in this place and I was not aware of it.” He called the place the “gate of heaven”. Some people call these “thin spots” – a time and space when the presence of the divine is so palpable – one small step and we are eyeball to eyeball with God himself. 

     Meanwhile we sense him. And we achieve a reality check of the truly augmented kind when our reality is augmented by  the presence of God so near, and dear, so magnificent and terrible. So beautiful. And real. 

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