“Avatars and digital humans” can teach classes in-person (sort of)

Uni Sydney’s Co-Design Research Group are working with facial recognition, animation and 3D modelling to record lecturers at work and synch their words and gestures onto a cartoon version of themselves, which say and do what the human did.

The Research Group explains it here.

Good-o but why?

* “ ‘chunking’ content into short explainer videos allow students to learn core concepts at their own pace before actively applying their knowledge in class with peers” is one reason.

* “the use of a character or avatar in these videos might offer a creative solution to engaging students with certain kinds of content, or it might align conceptually with the content itself,” is another

* “for some who are wary of having their faces on camera all day, there is a desire to play with other ways of representing themselves and how they appear to students,” is a third.

And then there is the one that budget managers will like, creating a generic presenter may mean course content is used by different lecturers.  As it stands people don’t like being in-person second banana, to a colleague’s star video turn

So far so good, unless the Brothers Warner licence Wylie E Coyote for use by strategy lecturers.