The Pull of Virtual Reality
Over the Christmas holiday, I was able to explore the world of virtual reality with the help of an Oculus supplied by my nephews, via Santa of course. Previously, I had been a person who vowed to never enter the Metaverse after watching one too many episodes of dystopian sci-fi shows based on the imminent doom that writers say technology would surely bring. After my first experience, that statement of staying away from virtual worlds sure did change; and it did so quickly. Over the course of my exploration of Instructional Design, I have often wondered in what ways it could expand beyond the computer screen. The Virtual Reality experience seems like one of the most prominent ways to take instructional design beyond slide decks and instructor-led training to truly equip workers with skills that change behaviors, wherever in the world they may be. Since that week, I have been thirsty for more information on the roles of Virtual, Augmented and Mixed Realties and the roles they could play in instructional design.
Magic Keys: A Mixed Reality Piano Learning App
Magic Keys is a Mixed Reality piano learning app created by Dominik Hackl. It aims to teach learners how to play the piano using a Mixed Reality capable platform, such as an Oculus. I first discovered Magic Keys while browsing LinkedIn. This app caught my attention because its highlight seemed to draw both positive and negative feelings regarding its ability to truly teach users to play the piano efficiently. The application is in its early development and currently is marketed as an entertainment tool, but Hackl has plans to “turn it into a virtual environment for home piano learning,” (Hackl, 2022) where users of the platform can learn notes, the piano keyboard, practice technical exercises, explore chords and scales and engage in theory lessons.
Contextual awareness as a Driver of Real-World Success. There are certain engagement strategies that feel as if they can guarantee success in teaching new skills and behaviors. Contextual awareness is one such strategy that can be implemented successfully in an Augmented Reality app such as this one. Presenting complex information in a way that allows appropriate interaction is a marker of engaging and successful instructional design work. Contextual awareness provides users with the minimally necessary information for a situation at appropriate intervals of time (Сороко, 2021). This practice shows learners exactly what they need to know and only what they need to know in the right moments and the most appropriate setting. In the Magic Keys app, the learner experiences the benefits of this engagement strategy. With each note, learners are shown which keys to strike at the appropriate time, on a keyboard or piano. The learner is centered in the appropriate environment, at a piano or keyboard, and given the most valuable pieces of information to learn to play the piano in real-time via the Augmented Reality software. The set up not only prepares the learner for real-world success but allows the learner to experience that success as they learn. It seems as if the learner is also shown what notes they are to anticipate. I wonder if that anticipation takes away from the overall effectiveness of the contextual awareness created by burdening the learner’s cognitive load. Overall, the program seems to embrace contextual awareness and uses the strategy effectively to teach learners how to play the piano.
Intuitive Interaction as Curiosity’s Fuel. In the article Intuitive design potential for optimization of material environment, the authors Jakaitis and Zukas (2018) say that “...intuitive interaction may be optimized by integrating principles of the world's mechanical causality, human sensory and cognitive abilities...to convey information and to create intuitively perceived, suggestive interaction scenarios, hence, providing more universal applications to add aesthetical and functional value to the spatial expression of...design.” In laymen’s terms, intuitive interaction is an engagement strategy that helps users to interact with the world, in a way that feels natural and well, intuitive. This strategy is employed in Hackl’s Magic Keys application. The user, with the help of an environment they find comfortable and the Augmented Reality tools, can learn in a way that is natural, comfortable and that I think could spark their curiosity. I am certain that the platform takes time to get used to, but I can imagine that once users are comfortable, the intuitive feel of the training could cause them to begin to think outside of the box, wondering what may happen if they try a new chord here or there or if they could take the piece that they are playing up or down a few keys. The comfort of intuitive learning could give newcomers to the piano the confidence to become curious and the room to experiment.
Perceived Helpfulness as Motivation to Succeed. Designing an environment for learning that steers users away from perceived helplessness and towards perceived helpfulness can activate motivation in learners, making the consideration of perceived helpfulness when designing a powerful tool for motivating engagement. Hackl’s Magic Keys App sets the learner on the path to perceived helpfulness and motivation in a myriad of ways. In a sample of students who participated in an eLearning course with integrations of multimedia, some of the most defining successors to creating perceived helpfulness were the helpfulness of visual cues and instructor narrations (Hsiao, Mikolaj and Shih, 2020). In Hackl’s app, he provides the user with visual cues and instructor narrations via the Augmented Reality platform giving users with what would most likely be a mindset of perceived helpfulness. This mindset motivates learners to continue to learn and explore. Setting learners up for success early with the right conditions allows them to be in the mindset of continued success. Hackl seems to have done an extraordinary job creating a helpful environment for his learners. By engaging learners to begin the experience as pure enjoyment and eventually opening the experience to a greater depth of understanding of what it means to play the piano, he gives them the baby steps to success. Overall, I think that Hackl is on his way to an awesome product that really shows the depth of what Augmented Reality can teach.
References
Hackl, D. (n.d.). Game creation from the pencil to the code. Mr. GameDev. Retrieved February 16, 2022, from https://dominikhackl.com/project/magic-keys/
Наталія Сороко. (2021). The Augmented Reality Functions to Support the Steam Education at General Education Institutions. Фізико-Математична Освіта, 29(3), 24–30. https://doi-org.oclc.fullsail.edu/10.31110/2413-1571-2021-029-3-004
Hsiao, E.L.; Mikolaj, P; Shih, Y.T. (July 2020). Establishing a Multimedia-Rich Environment to Support Experiential e-Learning in Business Education. Journal of EducatorsOnline, v17 n2. https://eric.ed.gov/?id=EJ1268929
Jakaitis, J., & Zukas, J. (2018). Intuitive design potential for optimization of material environment. Proceedings of the Latvia University of Agriculture: Landscape Architecture & Art, 13(13), 81–86. https://doi-org.oclc.fullsail.edu/10.22616/j.landarchart.2018.13.09
Motivating Factors
Magic Keys is an immersive and interactive learning experience designed with the power of mixed reality technology. The learning app blends the physical realm or a piano with augmented and virtual reality learning elements. The mixed reality app provides various interactive features to develop learners’ interests and dimensional engagement with music. Magic Keys mixed reality and wearable technologies provide a unique environment for the improvement of learning performance and situational interest of learning music. (Sun et al., 2023). The overlap of virtual information with the real world enables a learners’ increased sense of presence with learning content and learning to play the piano from the comfort of home. The immersive virtual environment can improve the stimulation of learnin…
I have been captivated by augmented and virtual reality technologies for as long as I can remember. I was fortunate enough to test the original Oculus Rift during its first beta launch, and even in that primitive state, the technology was engaging and immersive. When Pokémon Go was first released, I was amazed by how seamless the blend of the natural world, and the digital world of the game, felt and how successful it was at getting players to explore their neighborhoods. As a mobile developer and teacher, I've followed the development of these tools for over a decade and assisted students in integrating their ideas into AR and VR spaces. I'm always fascinated by the new and innovative ways…
Using new age technology, such as virtual reality headsets, can be helpful in many ways to not only the student, but the instructor as well. Most importantly, the learner should be engaged and actively working towards a goal. This work and engagement can be brought on by curiosity and motivation. By simply projecting ideas, thoughts, and other figures over one's eyes, simulating a real life scenario, engagement is automatically heightened, thus increasing curiosity and motivation to learn a task. Using the Magic Keys simulator to teach piano engages the learners psyche and physical body. They are able to use their minds to create, anticipate, and process what is currently being played while also physically engaging giving 3 different types of…
The use of any augmented reality/virtual reality is still very new in the learning field. This type of technology allows learners to interact and look at a different world or space around them without leaving the classroom. Nowadays its easier to snag a VR headset like the Quest 2 and Oculus Rift. With this type of technology now available to use, it sparks curiosity to endless possibilities and ways to view instruments in this case with an interactive element. VR glasses allow the simulation of almost all technique-related activities without any risk. The focus of instructional design in this domain is on thorough task analyses (Reiser, 2018). In this new wave of tech and education, it allows learners to hav…
As a classically trained musician, innovations in music and music education always spark my interest. As a new Quest2 user, this concept was especially intriguing. The Magic Keys - Quest 2 interface allows for the user to learn the piano at their own pace without the need to learn to read music. The demo video reminds me to the Guitar Hero game I grew up playing but with the enhancement that, once learned, the player could sit at any piano and play the song.
Opportunity The accessibility of this platform and the engaging interface gives users the opportunity to lessons that they may not have due to time, money or location. Magic Keys allows the user to learn to play and…