Looking through the lens of augmented reality, students can witness physiological events in three dimensions, not just read about them. They'll be able to watch blood move through the chambers of the heart and into arteries and veins, enabling students to separate each of these elements and study them in isolation.

That's among the top HoloLens priorities for CWRU right now — developing a digital anatomy curriculum that turns the tables on how students learn this crucial subject matter. But even this novel concept is merely scratching the surface of what could be possible in the future.

AR has the potential to change the social experience of learning and what it means to be “in class,” says Griswold. A professor could be hundreds of miles away, students could even be in another country, but this technology allows them to learn together in real time, he says.

In addition, HoloLens can eliminate the standard barriers surrounding technologies used in classrooms, enabling a truly social experience.

“With a computer or tablet, we always have to look at a screen. … The technology is always in between the people. With HoloLens, the technology very quickly becomes invisible, and we have seen groups of people have very intense interactions around models that are completely digital — they aren’t really there.”

Via Miloš Bajčetić, Stephania Savva, Ph.D