ARETE

Overview

Through multi-user interactions with AR Technologies from educational, professional and private environments, the ARETE project aims to support the advancement of pan-European interactive technologies from stakeholders in academia and industry.

Augmented Reality (AR) refers to the real-time digital overlay of information over physical elements. ARETE consortium will develop, integrate and disseminate interactive technologies via AR methods and tools. The creation of new technologies and the inter-connection of existing digital systems will build a pan- European sustainable competitive ecosystem. The ARETE ecosystem will support fast dissemination of augmented learning content to a wide audience, while strengthening the research and industrial capacities in Europe to develop future interactive devices for education, taking into account accessibility to a broader community. As Tim Cook (Apple CEO) noted in April 2017:

“I regard [AR] as a big idea, like the smartphone. The smartphone is for everyone, we don't have to think the iPhone is about a certain demographic, or country or vertical market: it’s for everyone. I think AR is that big, it’s huge. [AR] could improve a lot of lives. And be entertaining.”

ARETE will revolutionise and push AR through three unique and comprehensive pilot studies (English literacy skills, STEM and Positive Behaviour Intervention and Support), to validate the technology in real life settings. The basic principles of AR in education have been observed and the technology concept has been formulated but no other system currently exists to bring together the different components of such a digital ecosystem. To meet this challenge, ARETE aims to establish a sustainable competitive ecosystem of European technology and solution providers for AR interactive technologies, through a targeted community engagement process within the education field, which will be deployed, demonstrated and evaluated via the pilot studies around Europe.

The role of IET

IET and The Open University are leading the standards and technology development (WP3) of the project, leading on the development of a new interactive augmented reality toolkit fit for multi-user and multi-device learning activities in Augmented Reality. The toolkit apps will be tested with pilots in English literacy skills, STEM and Positive Behaviours Intervention and Support, advancing the technology in real-life environments and situations.

Through the engagement of the project, ARETE aims to promote awareness of innovative AR performativity and its relevance across industries and targeted markets.