Google Glass: Great Assistant in the Study Process

Technology has been a major factor in the development of human education. Since the Stone Age era when the cave man carved figures on rocks, up until now when students can attend lectures in the comfort of their house, technology continues to take education to the next level. The use of technology in education could be traced back to when the “magic lantern” was discovered in 1870s, (Goldin and Katz, 2018). It was a primitive version of the modern-day projector that allowed the display of images on glass plates. Later in the 1890s, the chalkboard was developed, followed closely by the pencil (Siemens, Gašević and Dawson, 2015). The 1900s are significant for the revolutionary discoveries which have transformed education. In the 1920s, came the invention of a radio, the video tape and photocopier in the 1950s. Also, in the 1970s the calculator was invented and the Computer in the 1990s, which are just some of the most transformative discoveries made in education (Goldin and Katz, 2018). Recently, innovative technologies such as Google Glass have been developed to support education.

Google Glass, are a brand of smart glasses with optical head-mounted display designed exactly like that of a pair of eyeglasses. It was developed by X, which used to be known as Google X (Goldman, 2018) with the aim of producing a ubiquitous computer. This has created an avenue for schools to take learning experience a step further where teachers can now create lectures and materials that meet the necessities of their students. Today, there are a number of state-of-the-art technologies that are being used in education, and they are being applied in different areas of education. Examples include Quiver, which enables students to interact with graphics on the pages of their textbooks in a three-dimension format (Quiver Education, 2018). Another example is Blippar, which has also been developed using Augmented Reality (AR) to help students interact with textual content in books and magazines (Burns, 2018). The application scans the page and gives the reader more details related to the content.

The latest Google Glass technology has a number of improvements over the previous versions. It has a camera button which enables the users to make recordings of events. It can also be easily attached to safety glasses which are then worn by the users (Naughton, 2017). It has a processor that is much faster, Wi-Fi connectivity and improved security. It also supports the provision of instant feedback to the users. Google Glass makes use of the lecturers’ view of the ARS (Action Request System) Backchannel to produce a three-dimension feedback to the lecturer. The prototype mirrors the lecturers’ view of the feedback provided by the audience from the website. There would be bars to indicate the feelings of the students, from which the lecturer can see how effective his lecture is while it is still going on (Ebner, Mühlburger and Ebner, 2016).

To a large extent the success of any lecture is dependent on how well the lecturer can communicate with the students (Dorgu, 2015). With feedback, teachers can understand what it is like to be in a lesson of theirs from a students’ perspective. They can advance in their practice by understanding how much a student gained and what assisted them to, during their lessons (Morrison, 2018).

There is a need to continuously get feedback from students to be aware of whether they are understanding what’s being taught and how well delivered the lecture was. Many students feel reluctant due to being shy to make any comment when they are faced with a difficulty of following the lecture and end up not understanding anything taught in the lecture. Lecturers are then faced with the task of carrying everyone along and then depend on their facial expressions and attitudes to judge whether they are understanding or not, a method that is very subjective and can be easily misinterpreted (Zarraonandia, Telmo et al, 2013).

This Project is going to be focused on the aspect of using Google Glass to get live feedback during lectures. The feedback a teacher will get will help improve the students learning experience and their learning capabilities.