Google has announced its plans for the Glass Creative Collective, a new partnership with film and design schools including USC, AFI, UCLA, CalArts and RISD. In an effort to help students and aspiring filmmakers become comfortable with Google Glass features such as the voice-activated interface and built-in video cameras, the company is loaning each of the schools three sets of the $1,500 Glass device for the upcoming semester. The goal is for students to start experimenting with more immersive forms of entertainment.

“We got Google Glass just before the opening of the new Interactive Media Building on June 12,” explains USC School of Cinematic Arts dean Elizabeth Daley. “That’s when George Lucas and Steven Spielberg and Don Mattrick, the president of Microsoft’s interactive entertainment business, told us about how not all entertainment, but certainly some entertainment, is going to become more immersive. And Glass is quite wonderful because you get that immersive experience without elaborate headsets.”

“We’re really interested to find out how Glass will contribute to the craft of storytelling, specifically through film,” Google said in a blog post yesterday.

“This technology is pretty revolutionary, and a lot of people in the film world are really excited about how it could drive not just film capture but documentary filmmaking, character development, action-based storytelling and things we haven’t even come up with yet,” suggests Ed Sanders, director of marketing at Glass. “That’s the beauty — the world will always come up with ideas better and faster than you can in a room by yourself.”

Variety reports that “the partnership entails the schools submitting ‘proposals considering how a first-person POV, hands-free communication, and the potential for new narratives will change the way we capture and tell stories through Glass.'”

“Aspiring filmmakers join a group of 10,000 ‘Explorers’ — from software developers to social media-friendly celebrities like Neil Patrick Harris — who have been invited to preview the buzzy gadgets,” adds The Hollywood Reporter. “A consumer-ready version is expected be available by spring, priced closer to the average smartphone.”