EdSurge provides independent news and resources to help readers understand the role of technology in education. They published our Education Lead´s article about Finnish education. These education principles distinguish Finland and are built into 3DBearAR-appilication. Read the article here: https://www.edsurge.com/news/2018-07-31-6-key-principles-that-make-finnish-education-a-success

Teachers are highly educated in Finland. Traditionally teachers have primarily taught school subjects. At the moment we are moving away from subjects towards a future where teachers will teach problem solving, learning and thinking skills. This makes teaching more phenomenon and problem based. Finland´s national core curriculum provides a uniform foundation for local curricula to promote equality in education.

How 3DBear AR Helps Prepare Students for 21st Century

In today’s world of education, there have been a plethora of discussions about 21st Century Skills, and how important it is to have our students equipped with them. In Finland, these skills are called Transversal Competencies, which particularly focus on the competences that cross the boundaries of individual subjects and aim to link different fields of knowledge and skills. But no matter it’s 21st Century Skills or Transversal Competencies, they can be all boiled down to a group of words known as “4C Basic Skills”, i.e. creativity, critical thinking, communication and collaboration.

21st Century Competencies/Transversal Competencies

4C Basic Skills

At 3DBear, we believe that Augmented Reality and 3D-printing are beneficial in helping students develop these essential new basics. Here are how 3DBear AR makes them happen:

Creativity

3DBear AR empowers student-centered learning process. Students are the owners of their learning, they are free to decide how they would like to complete the learning tasks. All of our lesson plans provide open-ended design challenges, and there are multiple ways to approach to these challenges. During the class, students are encouraged to brainstorm as many ideas as they can before choosing one as their ultimate solution.

Critical thinking

The learning content of 3DBear AR lessons are interdisciplinary, which demand students to look at problems from different angles. In order to make smart decisions, students need to make connections to multiple subjects and ideas. For example, the Redesign Your School lesson presents students with a real-world scenario and ask them to identify possible issues or problems in their surroundings. By posing students as problem explorers, we are actually encouraging them to think critically while identifying needs and opportunities from different perspectives.

Communication

3DBear AR allows users to communicate themselves in a visual way, students can share their thoughts, ideas, solutions and creations using Augmented Reality. We are especially proud of the fact that the app is such a powerful tool for students who are not good at expressing themselves verbally. In the majority of our lesson plans, we have included various activities that require students to show their understanding of a concept or idea using AR, then engage them into discussions to further enhance the learning process.

Collaboration

3DBear AR aims at creating a shared classroom. All of the class activities invite students to work together in achieving shared goals. When students work in teams, they learn to collaborate, negotiate, and resolve conflicts. These skills support their social and emotional development and prepare them for the success in future workplace and life in general.

A classroom in the U.S. where the students are using 3DBear AR to restore a virtual Machu Picchu.

In addition to the “4C Basic Skills”, 3DBear AR is a good medium in assisting students developing ICT competence. Through the different lessons, students will get familiar with the emerging technologies like AR and 3D-printing; also the use of digital devices creates many opportunities for students to make their own thoughts and ideas visible in unique ways, thus developing their thinking and learning-to-learn skills.

From a bigger picture, it’s not about math, science or languages, 3DBear cares more about our students grow as a human being, cultivate their necessary skills for building a sustainable future.

Co-written by Maria Muuri and Junyi Sun, Education Lead and Pedagogy Specialist at 3DBear

It’s 2028. The day kicks off with physical exercise. The fifth graders of New Castillion School on Long Island, New York check that their augmented reality (AR) glasses are charged. They will be playing Quidditch known from Harry Potter. The players -witches and wizards- throw around a virtual ball visible only through their AR glasses. Goal posts and the golden snitch are also augmented. Quidditch is the most popular pesports - combination of physical sports and esports - game around. The best players of Quidditch in the World earn more than ice hockey players.

After a fun and tough PE, the fifth graders turn their attention to the design class. They are working on a project in which they redesign their school in augmented reality and then 3D print the best improvements. Amy and Mike are working on a study space on the second floor of the school. Amy looks at the area through AR glasses and with her hands she draws chairs and desks to exactly match the required dimensions in the space. Mike prefers to design using a mobile phone, and he uses his smartphone to add a small bookshelf and a stand to Amy’s design. With the help of augmented reality, design can be done on the spot and in the actual context.

Mike and Amy finish up their design and other students in the classroom vote their design to be 3D printed. They order the new study space using 3D printing as a service provider which 3D prints the students’ design at a remote location and sends the ready design to them by mail in a day. They will see the new study space live tomorrow.

Next up is the English class. Students have read or listened to The Diary of Anne Frank during last month. Today they will make scenes from the book alive in AR. This helps visual and kinesthetic learners in the classroom to interpret the story of the book. Students visualize also their feelings when making the book alive in 3D. The most active students spice up the story of the book with their imagination, doing creative storytelling on top of the real plot of the book. In the end of the lesson, the east wing of New Castillion School has turned into a parallel universe containing The Diary of Anne Frank. Students have collaboratively created this 3D world and while doing so learned about literacy, design, verbal skills, project work and most important of all - themselves.

The final activity of the day is project work on recycling. New Castillion School participates in global turn waste plastic into 3D prints initiative. They have gathered plastic waste from home and brought it to the school. The school hosts local recycler which grinds the waste plastic, melts it, and turns it into raw material for 3D printers, filament. Tomorrow, when they will receive the 3D printed study space from 3D printing as a service provider, they will in exchange give them the recycled filament which decreases the price of their order.

To your surprise, all of the examples described in this story are already possible today, with the exception of Quidditch. Redesign your school and creative storytelling lessons can be found within 3DBear AR - application which we have developed. Recycling plastic as described is possible with our open source recycler. Welcome to the future.

Jussi Kajala

Writer is the CEO of 3DBear, Inc., and Chairman of the Board of 3DBear Ltd. Jussi has a degree from University of Cambridge, UK, and Ph.D. in theoretical physics. Before joining 3DBear Jussi was the employee of the year in Tekes - the Finnish funding agency for innovation. Now Jussi is realising his passion of enabling the creativity of children in 3DBear.

Libraries have a fundamentally important role in modern societies. In fact, historically libraries - as well as schools - have been the early market for disruptions. Think of Augmented Reality (AR) or 3D-printing today or personal computers (PCs) in the 1980s.

With AR, VR and 3D printing, our digital world is becoming more 3-dimensional. There’s no doubt that educational institutions need to be on top of this change among others: technology skills are going to be even more relevant in the future.

“One of the kids impressed me by combining some nondescript furniture elements and cleverly resizing them to make his own video camera in the app.

It's been a long time since I've been stateside, but I flew home for a good reason just last week. 3DBear is working with numerous school districts in New York. This week we did the first two of a series of school districts in New York. I'm here to talk to you about how it went.