Now, bots and augmented reality bring text books to life

Augmented reality (AR) is one of the emerging trends in the nascent education technology space in the country.
Now, bots and augmented reality bring text books to lifeBENGALURU: Entrepreneur Pratima Rege’s daughters Navya (11) and Nyaara (7) are big fans of augmented reality startup Smartivity’s ‘Safari’ colouring kit. The girls go about colouring the animals on the sheet, scan them and watch in fascination as the animals come ‘alive’ on the screen. Moreover, the girls get to learn about the animals too.

Augmented reality (AR), a technique which enables superimposing digital objects over physical ones, thanks to its high levels of engagement and the ‘intrigue’ factor, is one of the emerging trends in the nascent education technology space in the country.

“They (the kids) were thrilled to see it ( an animal) come to life. It has impacted them in a wow way. It kept their interest for the longest time and they have retained the knowledge,” said Rege.

“Kids these days know what interaction is, through games. This (AR) will take it abit further than fun and help them in understanding concepts. It adds a new dimension,” said Tushar A Amin, cofounder of Smartivity Labs.

Another AR app firm, London-based Blippar, has plans to engage with the education ecosystem to look for potential uses of AR to enhance learning experiences. “Conversations with different stakeholders — colleges, schools, boards and publishers — are ongoing. We have Blippar Education as a separate vertical. In a couple of months, we will be closing a few deals. There is ahuge shift towards visualbased education here,” said Arnav Ghosh, managing director at Blippar India.

If AR is one emerging trend in ed-tech, bots is another. Bots are used to run automated tasks like revisions, feedback and announcements. These are tasks that any teacher or course provider will have to waste a certain amount of time every day.

“We have stared with what we know are pain points. For example, you studied something yesterday, revise today. It also gives reminders, acknowledgement of progress and also loops in the other players (tuition teachers and parents),” said Ravi Kittu, vice president of product and marketing at tutor aggregator platform Vidyanext. Its bot is called Vidyabot.

According to Allwin Agnel, the founder of education network PaGaLGuY, bots can have a lot of applications than just coaching and doing repetitive work. “Once you have data, the bots will become intelligent. The next generation of bots will do a lot of things. For example, a social bot, it will check for people who live nearby and ask if you want to meet. Bots will step up to do things that humans cannot,” he said. Agnel has introduced bots into Prepathon, a learning app which helps students prepare for MBA, IBPS and SSC, among others. Prepathon already has revision, feedback, motivation and announcement bots and has plans to introduce one new bot every month.

“As long as AR can help in augmenting learning, it will work. If it is going to replace, I’m doubtful if it’ll work for early-stage learners. But at higher learning, this is going to make a significant impact,” said Narayanan Ramaswamy, headeducation at KPMG India.


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