Role of Virtual Reality in Geography and Science Fieldwork Education

Fieldwork has a long tradition in geography, and in certain sciences, notably geology, biology and environmental sciences. Fieldwork involves leaving the classroom and engaging in learning and teaching through first-hand experience of phenomena in outdoor settings. Exploration in natural habitats introduces students to the complexity and unpredictability of the real world, stimulates their curiosity, and increases their interest in scientific inquiry. However, over the last decade, there has been a decline in field-study opportunities in schools. This policy paper describes the first extensive user-centered research programme into the role of technology-enabled virtual field trips as a means for improving the effectiveness of the outdoor fieldwork experience. It draws on a year-long research project that investigated how Google Expeditions, a smartphone-driven mobile virtual reality application, bridges virtual fieldwork with physical field trips and facilitates inquiry-based fieldwork and experiential learning. It examines the role of Google Expeditions in primary and secondary school science and geography, outlining the opportunities and challenges of integrating mobile virtual reality in schools and the practical implications of our research for fieldwork education in further and higher education

Integrating Technology With Student-Centered Learning

Reviews research on technology's role in personalizing learning, its integration into curriculum-based and school- or district-wide initiatives, and the potential of emerging digital technologies to expand student-centered learning. Outlines implications

Emotional Qualities of VR Space

The emotional response a person has to a living space is predominantly affected by light, color and texture as space-making elements. In order to verify whether this phenomenon could be replicated in a simulated environment, we conducted a user study in a six-sided projected immersive display that utilized equivalent design attributes of brightness, color and texture in order to assess to which extent the emotional response in a simulated environment is affected by the same parameters affecting real environments. Since emotional response depends upon the context, we evaluated the emotional responses of two groups of users: inactive (passive) and active (performing a typical daily activity). The results from the perceptual study generated data from which design principles for a virtual living space are articulated. Such a space, as an alternative to expensive built dwellings, could potentially support new, minimalist lifestyles of occupants, defined as the neo-nomads, aligned with their work experience in the digital domain through the generation of emotional experiences of spaces. Data from the experiments confirmed the hypothesis that perceivable emotional aspects of real-world spaces could be successfully generated through simulation of design attributes in the virtual space. The subjective response to the virtual space was consistent with corresponding responses from real-world color and brightness emotional perception. Our data could serve the virtual reality (VR) community in its attempt to conceive of further applications of virtual spaces for well-defined activities.Comment: 12 figure

Methodologies of learning served by virtual reality: a case study in urban interventions

A computer-simulated reality and the human-machine interactions facilitated by computer technology and wearable computers may be used as an educational methodology that transforms the way students deal with information. This turns the learning process into a more participative and active process, which fits both the practical part of subjects and the learner’s profile, as students nowadays are more technology-savvy and familiar with current technological advances. This methodology is being used in architectural and urbanism degrees to support the design process and to help students visualize design alternatives in the context of existing environments. This paper proposes the use of virtual reality (VR) as a resource in the teaching of courses that focus on the design of urban spaces. A group of users—composed of architecture students and professionals related to the architecture field—participated in an immersing VR experience and had the opportunity to interact with the space that was being redesigned. Later, a quantitative tool was used in order to evaluate the effectiveness of virtual systems in the design of urban environments. The survey was designed using as a reference the competences required in the urbanism courses; this allowed the authors to identify positive and negative aspects in an objective way. The results prove that VR helps to expand digital abilities in complex representation and helps users in the evaluation and decision-making processes involved in the design of urban spaces.Peer ReviewedPostprint (published version

Stakeholder engagement in sustainable housing refurbishment in the UK

The UK government is committed to effectively implement a viable sustainable agenda in the social housing sector. To this end housing associations and local authorities are being encouraged to improve the environmental performance of their new and existing homes. Whilst much attention has been focused on new housing (e.g. the Code for Sustainable Homes) little effort has been focussed on improving the 3.9 (approx) million homes maintained and managed by the public sector (in England), which, given the low rate of new build and demolition (<1% in England), will represent approximately 70% of the public housing stock in 2050. Thus, if UK is to achieve sustainable public housing the major effort will have to focus on the existing stock. However, interpreting the sustainability agenda for an existing housing portfolio is not a straight foreword activity. In addition to finding a ‘technical’ solution, landlords also haveto address the socio-economic issues that balance quality of expectations of tenants with the economic realities of funding social housing refurbishment. This paper will report the findings of a qualitative study (participatory approach) that examined the processes by which a large public landlord sought to develop a long-term sustainable housing strategy. Through a series of individual meetings and group workshops the research team identified: committed leadership; attitudes towards technology; social awareness; and collective understanding of the sustainability agenda as key issues that the organisation needed to address in developing a robust and defendable refurbishment strategy. The paper concludes that the challenges faced by the landlord in improving the sustainability of their existing stock are not primarily technical, but socio-economic. Further, while the economic challenges: initial capital cost; lack of funding; and pay-back periods can be overcome, if the political will exists, by fiscal measures; the social challenges: health & wellbeing; poverty; security; space needs; behaviour change; education; and trust; are much more complex in nature and will require a coordinated approach from all the stakeholders involved in the wider community if they are to be effectively addressed. The key challenge to public housing landlords is to develop mechanisms that can identify and interpret the complex nature of the social sustainability agenda in a way that reflects local aspirations (although the authors believe the factors will exist in all social housing communities, their relative importance is likely to vary between communities) whilst addressing Government agendas

Virtual interactive innovations applied for digital urban transformations : mixed approach

© 2018 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V. This is an open access article under the CC BY licenseThe cities in which we live are changing rapidly, presenting the scenery to debate future visions of transformative designs and its impact on the city. In order to take advantage of the changes and opportunities offered by the inclusion of digital technologies, an accommodation of the digital transformation into the visualization of Urbanism is required. It is a challenge for organizations and society to question the status quo and experiment often. The discussion about the increasing integration of digital technologies in urban spaces involves a number of questions relating to the complex processes of transformation that impact cities, like economic, social, political, and environmental. The main goal of the paper is to present the use of Digital Transformation in processes of urban design through technological innovation in which the diverse forms of active citizenship operate from below as agents of innovation, inclusion and social development. The results showed that it is possible to empower Digital Transformation –as for example the use Augmented and Virtual Reality (AR/VR) systems in collaborative urban design– to improve public motivation, implication, and satisfaction in urban decision-making processes.Peer ReviewedPostprint (published version