This story is from July 12, 2020

CBSE and Facebook to teach basics of Augmented Reality

The board has launched 'Digital Safety and Online Well-Being and Augmented Reality' curriculum in partnership with Facebook.
CBSE and Facebook to teach basics of Augmented Reality
Representative Image
In a first, the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) is introducing Augmented Reality (AR) in the curriculum. Given the shift and demand for such technologies now and in the future, it is imperative to equip students with new learnings and skill. The board has launched 'Digital Safety and Online Well-Being and Augmented Reality' curriculum in partnership with Facebook.
The course on AR is a three-week training program for the teachers and has 5 levels.
"The three-week training, to be conducted in batches, will cover fundamentals of AR and ways to utilise Facebook's software, Spark AR Studio, to create augmented reality experiences. The objective is to give the learners a platform to conceptualise, create and brand their own AR experiences. The hands-on learning experience of AR will help in preparing the students for a career in the digital economy," Facebook responded exclusively to queries from Education Times.
The first week will cover topics such as basics of AR, AR apps, tracking, scene understanding and rendering, setup and the way around Spark AR Studio, applying materials and textures, working with the face tracker. The second week will include visual programming on Spark AR Studio, working with Patch Editor, animation patches, managing and publishing AR effect. The third week will be focussed on the final submission of the first AR effect. "Schools will be required to nominate teachers for the first phase of AR courses and the board will release the list of selected teachers on the official website. The closure of schools due to COVID-19 has made it crucial for students and teachers to be familiar with emerging technologies to continue the learning process. The participants will get a joint e-certificate from CBSE and Facebook, on successful completion of the course," said Biswajit Saha, director (Trainings & Skill Education), CBSE.
In the first batch, 1600 teachers will be trained while in the second batch 8400 teachers will participate. These teachers will then train around 30,000 students. All that they need is access to a computer system/laptop with Windows 10; Facebook developer account, smartphone and stable internet connection.
Those who do not have strong internet connection will be able to access the courses from CBSE's DIKSHA portal soon. The registrations for all courses have already begun and interested participants can apply at http://cbseacademic.nic.in/fb/facebookforeducation.html.
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