It’s just about impossible to get your hands on Microsoft’s impressive mixed-reality HoloLens platform these days — unless you’re a computer science student at the University of Washington. Then you get to play with them whenever you want.
At least that’s the case for the students in CSE 481V, in which, according to the course description, you will “learn a ton about Virtual and Augmented Reality, get familiar with the latest technology and software, and build an app in 10 weeks.”
This is the first time the course has been offered in this fashion, with generous underwriting by local VR/AR players Microsoft, Oculus and Valve/HTC. The 36 students in the course had access to the HoloLens dev team and all the major headsets — there were 25 HoloLenses involved, which is probably more than have ever been in one place. Students also got to hear from guest speakers like Oculus Chief Scientist Michael Abrash and author Neal Stephenson — whose “Snow Crash” was required reading for the course.
All in all, it’s enough to make a guy want to matriculate.
“We pitched the idea of a VR/AR class last year to HoloLens leadership and they immediately got excited and were eager to make it happen,” wrote Steve Seitz, one of the class’s instructors. “I was initially quite worried about the idea of relying on a brand new device and development platform for a 36 person class. But I’m extremely impressed with the development environment… it was good enough that students with no prior experience could get up and running quickly and make some really compelling applications in just a few weeks.”
You can see what those applications were at the course webpage, complete with weekly blog posts showing progress from concept to execution. There’s augmented reality cooking, a painting app and the clever idea of gamifying the process of scanning a room so it can be used in other apps.
The class culminated in a sort of open demo day at the UW campus, where students could show off their work to the general public and serious players like Microsoft Research’s CVP Peter Lee.
It’s a great opportunity for students, no doubt, but also a fertile testing ground for the companies in the space. How did these fresh young minds interact with the technologies? What did they run up against? What tools did they wish they had? This kind of extensive focus testing is always valuable, not to say this was an ulterior motive, just that it was no doubt a fruitful collaboration.
“For the HoloLens team, this was an opportunity to evaluate the platform in a focused educational settings, and get early feedback,” wrote Seitz. The team also provided technical support and training.
Seitz and the class’s other instructor, Ira Kemelmacher-Shlizerman, aim to offer the class again next year. UW is, of course, a convenient location for Microsoft to work with, but the institution is also a hub for research in this area, having pioneered many VR and AR ideas early on in its famous HITLab.
Wiener successfully elevated organizational culture by championing a humanized workforce for over 75 employees at Managed Solution, resulting in a virtual hybrid environment, boosting productivity and increasing retention. Wiener’s nomination is largely due to her inspiring work with Bread of Life Rescue Mission and her ongoing support to cook and feed organic and gourmet meals to hundreds of homeless in North County, CA.
ABOUT THE AWARD:
San Diego Magazine’s Woman of the Year Award is given to one woman each year who has worked tirelessly to affect positive change and enhance the community. She is an unabashed leader, champion of helping others, and widely respected by her peers for her measurable success in business and outstanding character.
Nominations are evaluated based on the following categories:
· Leadership
· Passion and mission
· Challenges and perseverance
· Personal integrity, charitable contributions and volunteer work
· Achievement
· Humanitarian/social enterprise
· Impact/measurability
CELEBRATING WOMEN EVENT:
All finalists are honored at the Celebrating Women event on September 29 at MCASD La Jolla, which includes hosted bites and beverages, a networking hour, a panel discussion, awards ceremony and dessert. Last year’s Woman of the Year, Dr. Karen S. Haynes, Dean of California State University San Marcos will present the award to this year’s winner.
Celebrating Women
MCASD La Jolla
September 28, 2016
6:00 p.m. – 8:30 p.m.
Tickets can be purchased at sandiegomagazine.com/woman
ABOUT SAN DIEGO MAGAZINE:
San Diego Magazine, the city’s leading lifestyle publication with an award-winning history, gives readers the insider information they need to experience the city to the fullest – the best in food, fashion, culture, business and people. For more information please visit sandiegomagazine.com, or follow us on social media: Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and Pinterest.
[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]
We heard from teachers all around the world about the enthusiasm that has been bubbling around this new way of working. We heard from a teacher in Florida who told us how class notebooks have changed her life, a teacher from Wales who describes his school’s journey finding OneNote Class Notebooks and a Lithuanian teacher who uses class notebooks as an ePortfolio. In the UK, we heard from a school that declared OneNote has revolutionized the way they work. We had the chance to meet many of you in June at ISTE, including a teacher who told us the story of how class notebooks and her excitement for them inspired her to reconsider retirement and keep teaching this year. We have also continued listening and working with teachers, who have been the inspiration for the next set of improvements that we are rolling out today.
Today, we are rolling out new features and improvements across 44 languages and 63 markets. These 2016 back-to-school improvements will help save teachers valuable time in the classroom as well as allow OneNote Class Notebooks to be even more organized.
On the homepage of the Office 365 Class Notebook app, we updated the old Get Notebook Links button to include the new Manage notebooks button, and all of the improvements can be found under this button.
•Rename student sections—If you want to rename any student sections, click the pencil icon and type the new name of the section. Be sure to press Save after adding the student sections.
•Add section—To distribute a new section to all students, simply click the Add section button. Be sure to press Save after adding the student sections.
•Enable Teacher-Only section group—The Teacher-Only section group is a private space where only the teacher can see what is inside—students cannot see anything. To add a Teacher-Only section group to your class notebook, click the Enable Teacher-Only section group link. Co-teachers also have access into the Teacher-Only section group.
•Lock Collaboration Space—Enabling this feature makes the Collaboration Space read-only (or locked down) to disallow any students from editing. You can move the switch between a locked and unlocked state.
•Open—Clicking this link opens the class notebook.
•Link to the class notebook—Provides easy way to copy the class notebook link to share with others.
The Class Notebook Add-in Preview is the result of feedback and collaboration from teachers and school staff, whose input helped build these new tools. We’ve seen an amazing response to the add-in for our OneNote 2013 and 2016 teachers. In June, we also added many of the capabilities to our OneNote Mac app. Today, we are moving the OneNote Class Notebook add-in from preview to generally availability (GA). This means that IT admins and school staff should feel confident deploying the Class Notebook add-in broadly across a district, and it is officially now “Version 1.” In addition to announcing general availability, we all have some new updates detailed below:
•GA in 44 languages and 63 markets.
•Edmodo assignment and grade support.
•Firefly Learning assignment and grade support.
•Improved help and feedback options.
•For IT admins—Group Policy support for prepopulating LMS and SIS information. •New group policy deployment page: Class Notebook add-in group policy.
•General Download Center information.
To manually update your add-on just click the Update button that should appear if you have an older version of the add-in. This will download the latest version and also install the GA version.
And don’t forget: Office 365 Education is free for students and teachers! Get yours at Office.com/education.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row]
Chat with an expert about your business’s technology needs.
