Metallurgical Technology, September 11, 2023

This discussion about the role of augmented reality (AR) in welding as a learning tool was animated and had lots of great ideas for application in VT! There was a tour of what AR is and how we already use it in daily life to demystify the technology as being too advanced and out of reach for most people. Then, we explored how it is being used in certain VT centres: to support students with little pretraining experience, or students that are struggling to build up confidence and skill. We took a quick tour of how it works and what it looks like before we jumped into the discussion, where we spoke about how AR welding trainers could offer some interesting avenues for student learning:
– confidence-building
– cost effectiveness
– safe and secure environment to build basic comfort with welding tools
– remediation
personal technique analysis and checkpoint verification
One point in particular, the accessibility for remote learners, opened up an interesting discussion about how this tool could be a form of ‘elearning’ for VT, whereby the student practices at home to build a basic comfort level before coming into a centre to practice with the real equipment.
We wrapped up the discussion with a question for next time – the manufacturers claim that AR welding trainers improve performance, and we would like to find scientific research that links AR to improvement in learning outcomes.

This meeting was on September 11, 2023. It was hosted by Robin Long, Provincial Vocational Training Education Consultant and Marc Vézina, Education Consultant, RÉCIT-Vocational Training, English School Boards.