Pearson Education has partnered with Bryn Mawr College
to explore potential academic applications for the Microsoft HoloLens, an augmented reality device.
As a result, Bryn Mawr has created a series of augmented reality/virtual reality workshops,
where students are introduced to the HoloLens and its capabilities
as well as internships in which students get hands-on experience in virtual reality programming
by developing an educational application for the HoloLens.
These internships also provided small groups of female Bryn Mawr students the opportunity to collaborate and innovate
in Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts and Math, or STEAM, areas.
Here are what students have to say about their experiences.
I think what the HoloLens is able to do has always been a childhood vision of mine.
Just that I didn't that think that it would come true at any point, especially not when I'm still in college.
To actually try it on and experience it myself was something very different.
I was really inspired to see that it’s really versatile.
And it has a lot of different capabilities, there's like a spatial sound.
I can see something in real life that does not exist.
What I was most surprised about was just how much we were able to get done.
We just like came to the internship and they said "hey you're gonna make an app within 15 days.”
But during the internship I really felt like I had more freedom to explore things that I was interested in,
and also to just let all of my creativity go into the project.
Working with my team was really fun and we worked really well together. And it was really a learning experience.
And not all had computer science and programming experience.
We had a bio, physics, and computer science.
So from all those perspectives it was a really good experience to have to see
what their ideas were and how we eventually merged to create the Holo Orchestra.
We ended up with three apps; the HoloStrings, the BioBuddy,
and our most-- our biggest project, the HoloMuseum.
In essence the intention was to have a virtual museum,
where you could just walk into your bed room or wherever, put on the HoloLens
and be able to step into an actual museum but without covering up everything that is already around you.
HoloMusic is a virtual orchestra that you can see in your HoloLens.
Ideally we would have all the instruments in the orchestra,
I think there’s like 12 or 13. So, you'd have a lot to choose from.
We also got to share our final project with Pearson and show them what we were able to make at the end.
And it was really- It was really comforting to hear them like give feedback
and say like "Oh man this is something really cool and we're proud of what you were able to accomplish.”
We have technical support from Pearson from their apps that we can look at and see what they were doing and learn a lot from that.
I think it was really cool that we were able to meet Linda, an alum who’s working with Pearson and here with ETS.
She was kind of like a role model for us in some way.
We got all the HoloLens from them which I'm very grateful about. Because you know, not many people have the chance to try it.
We attended the Microsoft Hackathon where we meet with developers from Microsoft
and from other parts of the country. We go together, create things together.
They asked who actually worked with the HoloLens. We were the only two girls in the room.
But we were only, we were also among the few that had actually had experience with it ourselves.
I think it helped that we are all women.
Because Bryn Mawr is a women’s centered college,
We did a museum on women in Ancient Greek-- Ancient Greece
because we thought that would be-  we read about these but how were women represented back then.
I think there were a lot of important applications of the HoloLens and Virtual Reality in general that
women can contribute to. And basically only women would have the perspective and the insight of what to do.
Because I think there are a lot of women’s health issues and women education that
could be made through the HoloLens and Virtual Reality.
Everything is evolving and if you don't catch up with the digital trends you will fall behind.
I think that Virtual Reality and augmented reality have a lot of potential that hasn't been explored yet.
As the years go on I think it will definitely become more normal and integrated into modern society.
Through its partnership with Pearson Education,
Bryn Mawr has provided unique learning opportunities to students in emerging technologies
application development while also building technical and professional skills relevant to their futures
as leaders in education and industry.
