Trends in virtual reality technologies for the learning patient

NextMed convened the Medicine Meets Virtual Reality 22 (MMVR 22) conference in 2016. Since 1992, the conference has brought together a diverse group of researchers to share creative solutions for the evolving challenge of integrating virtual reality tools into medical education. Virtual reality (VR) and its enabling technologies utilize hardware and software to simulate environments and encounters where users can interact and learn. The MMVR 22 symposium proceedings contain projects that support a variety of learners: medical students, practitioners, soldiers, and patients. This report will contemplate the trends in virtual reality technologies for patients navigating their medical and healthcare learning. The learning patient seeks more than intervention; they seek prevention. From virtual humans and environments to motion sensors and haptic devices, patients are surrounded by increasingly rich and transformative data-driven tools. Applied data enables VR applications to simulate experience, predict health outcomes, and motivate new behavior. The MMVR 22 presents investigations into the usability of wearable devices, the efficacy of avatar inclusion, and the viability of multi-player gaming. With increasing need for individualized and scalable programming, only committed open source efforts will align instructional designers, technology integrators, trainers, and clinicians. Curriculum and InstructionCurriculum and Instructio

The Limited Effect of Graphic Elements in Video and Augmented Reality on Children’s Listening Comprehension

There is currently significant interest in the use of instructional strategies in learning environments thanks to the emergence of new multimedia systems that combine text, audio, graphics and video, such as augmented reality (AR). In this light, this study compares the effectiveness of AR and video for listening comprehension tasks. The sample consisted of thirty-two elementary school students with different reading comprehension. Firstly, the experience, instructions and objectives were introduced to all the students. Next, they were divided into two groups to perform activities—one group performed an activity involving watching an Educational Video Story of the Laika dog and her Space Journey available by mobile devices app Blue Planet Tales, while the other performed an activity involving the use of AR, whose contents of the same history were visualized by means of the app Augment Sales. Once the activities were completed participants answered a comprehension test. Results (p = 0.180) indicate there are no meaningful differences between the lesson format and test performance. But there are differences between the participants of the AR group according to their reading comprehension level. With respect to the time taken to perform the comprehension test, there is no significant difference between the two groups but there is a difference between participants with a high and low level of comprehension. To conclude SUS (System Usability Scale) questionnaire was used to establish the measure usability for the AR app on a smartphone. An average score of 77.5 out of 100 was obtained in this questionnaire, which indicates that the app has fairly good user-centered design

Innovating Pedagogy 2017: Exploring new forms of teaching, learning and assessment, to guide educators and policy makers. Open University Innovation Report 6

This series of reports explores new forms of teaching, learning and assessment for an interactive world, to guide teachers and policy makers in productive innovation. This sixth report proposes ten innovations that are already in currency but have not yet had a profound influence on education. To produce it, a group of academics at the Institute of Educational Technology in The Open University collaborated with researchers from the Learning In a NetworKed Society (LINKS) Israeli Center of Research Excellence (I-CORE). Themes: • Big-data inquiry: thinking with data • Learners making science • Navigating post-truth societies • Immersive learning • Learning with internal values • Student-led analytics • Intergroup empathy • Humanistic knowledge-building communities • Open Textbooks • Spaced Learnin

Proceedings of the International Workshop on EuroPLOT Persuasive Technology for Learning, Education and Teaching (IWEPLET 2013)

"This book contains the proceedings of the International Workshop on EuroPLOT Persuasive Technology for Learning, Education and Teaching (IWEPLET) 2013 which was held on 16.-17.September 2013 in Paphos (Cyprus) in conjunction with the EC-TEL conference. The workshop and hence the proceedings are divided in two parts: on Day 1 the EuroPLOT project and its results are introduced, with papers about the specific case studies and their evaluation. On Day 2, peer-reviewed papers are presented which address specific topics and issues going beyond the EuroPLOT scope. This workshop is one of the deliverables (D 2.6) of the EuroPLOT project, which has been funded from November 2010 – October 2013 by the Education, Audiovisual and Culture Executive Agency (EACEA) of the European Commission through the Lifelong Learning Programme (LLL) by grant #511633. The purpose of this project was to develop and evaluate Persuasive Learning Objects and Technologies (PLOTS), based on ideas of BJ Fogg. The purpose of this workshop is to summarize the findings obtained during this project and disseminate them to an interested audience. Furthermore, it shall foster discussions about the future of persuasive technology and design in the context of learning, education and teaching. The international community working in this area of research is relatively small. Nevertheless, we have received a number of high-quality submissions which went through a peer-review process before being selected for presentation and publication. We hope that the information found in this book is useful to the reader and that more interest in this novel approach of persuasive design for teaching/education/learning is stimulated. We are very grateful to the organisers of EC-TEL 2013 for allowing to host IWEPLET 2013 within their organisational facilities which helped us a lot in preparing this event. I am also very grateful to everyone in the EuroPLOT team for collaborating so effectively in these three years towards creating excellent outputs, and for being such a nice group with a very positive spirit also beyond work. And finally I would like to thank the EACEA for providing the financial resources for the EuroPLOT project and for being very helpful when needed. This funding made it possible to organise the IWEPLET workshop without charging a fee from the participants.

Electronic Social Networks as Supporting Means of Educational Process in Higher Education Institutions

Given research describes experience of electronic social networks use in educational practices. It was determined that electronic social networks can be a powerful tool for support of educational process in higher education institutions, namely to support study of different disciplines. There are main advantages of electronic social networks use for education: universal accessibility and free of charge; possibility of instant messaging and multimedia data; user-friendly intuitive interface; ability to search data and information; availability of event scheduling, invitations, reminder settings; support for synchronous and asynchronous communication between network members; access from different devices. It is emphasized that one of the main advantages of electronic social networks is receipt of quick feedback and convenience of their tools and services. Nowadays, it is important to include network educational interaction in existing models of study organization. It is advisable to use electronic social networks to manage educational process in higher education institution. Efficiency of electronic social networks use depends on intensity and need for their use in educational system management for implementation of organizational, educational, psychological and pedagogical functions and ensuring universal communication with subjects of educational process. Expediency of electronic social networks use to carry out research work at university is described. Electronic social networks are convenient tool to conduct surveys and questionnaires, to create thematic groups for specific issue discussion. Also it is possible to interact with researchers from different countries, share experiences and disseminate research findings, invite those who wish to participate in various scientific activities using these networks