The Smart Glasses Lab
The Smart Glasses Lab
Exploring the Future of Wearable Technology in Education
The Smart Glasses Lab was created to examine how smart glasses coupled with other wearable technology can reshape learning, research, and everyday practices. We focus on critical reflection, practical experimentation, and responsible integration of smart glasses within academic environments. The Hub brings together staff expertise and student perspectives to test real-world applications of smart glasses, uncover challenges, and design guidelines that align with ethical, inclusive, and human-centered values. Our goal is not only to build technical know-how but rather to question how wearable technology influences access, privacy, academic integrity, and equity. To achieve this, the Smaert Glasses Lab focuses on two key areas:
Research We collaborate with research, academic and industry partners to investigate the educational impacts of smart glasses.We support responsible AI innovation by helping policymakers consider the responsible integrate smart glasses into teaching practice. Awareness We build awareness by delivering workshops, creating resources, and working with media to share insights on the opportunities and challenges of smart glasses. Our aim is to foster a critical, informed educational community to critically conider emergent technologies.
The Smart Glasses Lab was created to examine how smart glasses coupled with other wearable technology can reshape learning, research, and everyday practices. We focus on critical reflection, practical experimentation, and responsible integration of smart glasses within academic environments. The Hub brings together staff expertise and student perspectives to test real-world applications of smart glasses, uncover challenges, and design guidelines that align with ethical, inclusive, and human-centered values. Our goal is not only to build technical know-how but rather to question how wearable technology influences access, privacy, academic integrity, and equity. To achieve this, the Smaert Glasses Lab focuses on two key areas:
Research We collaborate with research, academic and industry partners to investigate the educational impacts of smart glasses.We support responsible AI innovation by helping policymakers consider the responsible integrate smart glasses into teaching practice. Awareness We build awareness by delivering workshops, creating resources, and working with media to share insights on the opportunities and challenges of smart glasses. Our aim is to foster a critical, informed educational community to critically conider emergent technologies.
The Smart Glasses Lab in the media
What does good governance of smartglasses in schools look like?
Smart glasses offer exciting potential in K–12 education, but also significant risk. How might features like voice prompts and gesture recognition enhance access and engagement in the classroom? How is policy responding to the critical issues, such as deepfakes, surveillance, and novel forms of cheating?
Through our AIGE in Action initiative, we’re opening up the conversation with the goal of raising awareness about what we need to do to responsibly balance the benefits of smartglasses with the need for good governance.
Two of our researchers, Dr Janine Arantes and Dr Andrew Welsman have critiqued policy blind spots around AI-powered smart glasses in Australian schools. Discussed alongside topics such as governmentality and responsibilisation, they reveal how these devices may enable covert surveillance, shift accountability to educators, and normalize commercial influence in education. They call for awareness campaigns, and urgent policy reform. Paper forthcoming - contact Janine and Andrew for more details:
janine.arantes@vu.edu.auandrew.welsman@vu.edu.au
janine.arantes@vu.edu.auandrew.welsman@vu.edu.au
Does your policy cover smart glasses?
Smart glasses in schools raise urgent ethical, safety, and policy concerns - surveillance risks are real, and responsible regulation must follow swiftly. Read this blog to understand more about smartglasses in schools.
Current Smart Glasses Lab Activity
Smart Glasses readiness survey
Smart Glasses: Are we ready?
Are smart glasses a smart choice in classrooms?
Measuring Education’s Readiness for Smart Glasses Integration
A collection of short videos to prompt thinking about smart glasses in educaiotnal contexts
VU researchers, Dr Janine Arantes and Dr Andrew Welsman, head onto campus to get VU students POV on the topic and start up conversations.
We also want to hear your thoughts about smart glasses in the classroom! Head to the link in our the Link bio to find out more: https://www.instagram.com/reel/DKiWnr2vExJ/
The Smart Glasses Readiness Survey supports education providers in evaluating their preparedness to integrate smart glasses into teaching, learning, and research. Built on the CSIRO AI Impact Navigator and tailored specifically for education, the survey focuses on readiness for the impacts and implications of smart glasses, aligned with the expectations of the Voluntary AI Safety Guidelines.
It assesses readiness across key areas:
> Effective AI and Community Impact: Encouraging transparency and accountability to build trust and strengthen community engagement while managing the evolving ethical considerations of AI.
>Customer Experience and Consumer Rights: Promoting responsible data use to ensure privacy and fairness, balancing innovation with the protection of student and staff rights.
>Workforce and Productivity: Leveraging AI to drive innovation and productivity while addressing challenges like job displacement, regulatory compliance, and skills development.
>Social Licence and Corporate Transparency: Fostering ongoing transparency, monitoring impacts, and engaging openly with the community to maintain trust and accountability.
Designed as a tool for reflection and strategic planning, the survey provides an essential first step toward understanding how smart glasses could shape the future of education.
This thought-provoking video brings together a range of perspectives from across the internet on the rise of smart glasses,highlighting both their promise and their risks. From empowering people with vision and speech differences, and offering potential therapeutic applications for individuals experiencing psychosis or schizophrenia, to raising serious concerns around privacy, consent, and surveillance, the video unpacks the complexity of these wearable technologies. If you're involved in any educational context: whether as a teacher, policymaker, support worker, or student, we encourage you to watch. Understanding the implications of smart glasses now will help us shape the policies and practices needed to ensure these tools support, rather than compromise, safe and inclusive learning environments.
The SMART Glasses Lab Chief Investigators
Dr Janine Arantes
Dr Andrew Welsman
Academic and Researcher
Academic and Researcher
Dr Janine Arantes is an award-winning educator, researcher, and thought leader in AI governance in education. Based at Victoria University, she is thre founder of the AI Governance in Education (AIGE) initiative and co-leads VU's New Frontiers in Justice, Education, Policy, and Advocacy discipline. Her work bridges policy, ethics, and practice, focusing on digital equity, psychosocial risks, and responsible AI use across K–12, TAFE, and higher education. Janine’s research has informed national conversations on digital learning and leadership, policy and what good governance of AI for education might look like. With a commitment to justice and care, she collaborates globally to work towards an anticipatory governance of AI in education.
Dr Andrew Welsman is a scholar and educator at Victoria University, with expertise in digital learning, inclusive pedagogy, and teacher education. His work focuses on enhancing student engagement through technology-integrated curriculum design. As a collaborative academic, he supports interdisciplinary initiatives that explore the intersection of education, technology, and social justice, ensuring that innovation in education remains ethical, inclusive, and grounded in practice.
Researchers
Academic and Researcher
Dr. Bec Marland is an inclusive education academic and researcher. Her work bridges disability advocacy, educational policy, and emerging technology governance by applying Universal Design for Learning principles to investigate how AI can be deployed to enhance accessibility while addressing systemic inequities for learners with dyslexia. Her current research offers practical and policy-oriented strategies to ensure AI adoption in education aligns with ethical principles of fairness, diversity, and human well-being, challenging commercial models that perpetuate digital poverty.