Notice Board

The Southern Alberta Council on Public Affairs (SACPA) presents a session with Lethbridge College educator Michael McCready as he discusses emerging technologies virtual and augmented reality.

What are the Possibilities and Challenges of Virtual and Augmented Reality?

Thursday, April 7, 2022, from 12 to 1 p.m. MDT

YouTube Live link:  https://youtu.be/svZtjJ71vSU

People increasingly spend a lot of time looking at screens, and particularly so during these past two years of the COVID-19 pandemic. Social media chatter and news on computers, phones and other devices have become a big part of our lives. Virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR) are two technologies changing the way we use screens, while creating new and exciting interactive experiences.

Virtual reality uses a headset to place you in a computer-generated world you can explore. Rather than transporting you to a computer-generated world, augmented reality overlays digital content on top of the physical world using a wearable headset of mobile device. The speaker will explain the exciting world of VR/AR and discuss the consequences of this ever-expansive technology.

Speaker:                    Michael McCready

Mike McCready is an educator and researcher with a focus on immersive technologies such as virtual and augmented reality. He has over 20 years of development experience and is driven to explore new technologies and understand their application within business and society. He introduced one of the first VR development course at Lethbridge College in 2016 when he taught students to develop mobile VR games. One of Mike’s focuses is the social interactions made possible with VR. He has planned and facilitated numerous social VR activities that have garnered national and international attention, including the world’s first full-day conference held in VR – Merging Realities.

Mike is also the Program Research Chair of the Spatial Technologies Applied Research and Training (START) Centre at Lethbridge College. In this role, he works with organizations to integrate immersive technologies to their workflow to improve organizational effectiveness.

In order to ask questions of our speaker in the chat feature of YouTube, you must have a YouTube account and be signed in. Please do so well ahead of the scheduled start time, so you’ll be ready. Go the YouTube Live link provided in this session flyer and on the top right of your browser click the “sign in” button. If you have Google or Gmail accounts, they can be used to sign in. If you don’t, click “Create Account” and follow along. Once you are signed in, you can return to the live stream and use the chat feature to ask your questions of the speaker. You can only participate in the chat feature while we are livestreaming.

Link to SACPA’s YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/SouthernAlbertaCouncilonPublicAffairs/videos

For further information, visit the SACPA website.