Virtual Reality and Its Application in Education

Virtual reality is a set of technologies that enables two-way communication, from computer to user and vice versa. In one direction, technologies are used to synthesize visual, auditory, tactile, and sometimes other sensory experiences in order to provide the illusion that practically non-existent things can be seen, heard, touched, or otherwise felt. In the other direction, technologies are used to adequately record human movements, sounds, or other potential input data that computers can process and use. This book contains six chapters that cover topics including definitions and principles of VR, devices, educational design principles for effective use of VR, technology education, and use of VR in technical and natural sciences

Outwitting Shakespeare: Unpacking the Mechanics of Immersive Storytelling with Physiological Measurements

The core narratives of Shakespeare’s storytelling are built around human passions, such as love stories, ambition narratives, and betrayal and revenge plots. Immersive storytelling has been increasingly employed for educational purposes and awareness promotion. Both national agencies and international organizations are utilizing 360-degree videos to present immersive storytelling to garner social attention toward sustainability issues. Despite the prevalence of virtual immersion, there is a lack of understanding regarding how immersive narratives can facilitate knowledge acquisition. Drawing on the narrative transportation literature, we consider the effects of immersive narratives on sustainability knowledge acquisition and investigate the underlying mechanisms of the relationships. We tested our hypotheses in an experiment involving physiological measurements. Overall, this study contributes to IS literature by unraveling the effects of immersive narrative on green learning

Experimenting with electromagnetism using augmented reality: Impact on flow student experience and educational effectiveness

Educational researchers have recognized Augmented Reality (AR) as a technology with great potential to impact affective and cognitive learning outcomes. However, very little work has been carried out to substantiate these claims. The purpose of this study was to assess to which extent an AR learning application affects learners' level of enjoyment and learning effectiveness. The study followed an experimental/control group design using the type of the application (AR-based, web-based) as independent variable. 64 high school students were randomly assigned to the experimental or control group to learn the basic principles of electromagnetism. The participants' knowledge acquisition was evaluated by comparing pre- and post-tests. The participants' level overall-state perception on flow was measured with the Flow State Scale and their flow states were monitored throughout the learning activity. Finally, participants' perceptions of benefits and difficulties of using the augmented reality application in this study were qualitatively identified. The results showed that the augmented reality approach was more effective in promoting students' knowledge of electromagnetic concepts and phenomena. The analysis also indicated that the augmented reality application led participants to reach higher flow experience levels than those achieved by users of the web-based application. However, not all the factors seem to have influence on learners' flow state, this study found that they were limited to: concentration, distorted sense of time, sense of control, clearer direct feedback, and autotelic experience. A deeper analysis of the flow process showed that neither of the groups reported being in flow in those tasks that were very easy or too difficult. However, for those tasks that were not perceived as difficult and included visualization clues, the experimental group showed higher levels of flow that the control group. The study suggests that augmented reality can be exploited as an effective learning environment for learning the basic principles of electromagnetism at high school provided that learning designers strike a careful balance between AR support and task difficulty.This research has been partially supported by the Spanish project EEE (TIN2011-28308-C03-01, Plan Nacional de I+D+i, Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad) and the eMadrid network (S2009/TIC-1650, Comunidad de Madrid).Publicad

An aesthetics of touch: investigating the language of design relating to form

How well can designers communicate qualities of touch? This paper presents evidence that they have some capability to do so, much of which appears to have been learned, but at present make limited use of such language. Interviews with graduate designer-makers suggest that they are aware of and value the importance of touch and materiality in their work, but lack a vocabulary to fully relate to their detailed explanations of other aspects such as their intent or selection of materials. We believe that more attention should be paid to the verbal dialogue that happens in the design process, particularly as other researchers show that even making-based learning also has a strong verbal element to it. However, verbal language alone does not appear to be adequate for a comprehensive language of touch. Graduate designers-makers’ descriptive practices combined non-verbal manipulation within verbal accounts. We thus argue that haptic vocabularies do not simply describe material qualities, but rather are situated competences that physically demonstrate the presence of haptic qualities. Such competencies are more important than groups of verbal vocabularies in isolation. Design support for developing and extending haptic competences must take this wide range of considerations into account to comprehensively improve designers’ capabilities

Investigating The Impact Of Visuohaptic Simulations For Conceptual Understanding In Electricity And Magnetism

The present study examined the efficacy of a haptic simulation used as a pedagogical tool to teach freshmen engineering students about electromagnetism. A quasi-experimental design-based research was executed in two iterations to compare the possible benefits the haptic device provided to the cognitive learning of students. In the first iteration of the experiment performance of learners who used visual-only simulations was compared to the performance of those who used visuohaptic. In the second iteration of the experiment modifications were made to learning materials and experiment procedures to enhance research design. Research hypothesis states that multimodal presentation of information may lead to better conceptual understanding of electromagnetism compared to visual presentation alone

Game-based learning or game-based teaching?

Emerging technologies for learning report - Article exploring games based learning and its potential for edcuatio

IMMERSIVE VIRTUAL REALITY FOR EXPERIENTIAL LEARNING

Immersive virtual reality is any computer-generated environment capable of fooling the user’s senses with a feeling of presence (being there). Two different types of hardware are usually used to access immersive virtual reality: Head Mounted Displays (HMD) or Cave Automated Virtual Environment (CAVE). Due to its ability to generate any kind of environment, either real or imaginary, immersive virtual reality can be used as a tool to deliver experiential learning, as described by Kolb (1984) in his experiential learning circle model. Such model identifies four different steps that, as part of a circle, describe the process of learning by experiencing something, these steps are: (1) concrete experience, (2) observations and reflections, (3) formulation of abstract concepts and generalization, (4) testing implications of concepts in new situations. Immersive virtual reality has been out for decades, but in spite of the big buzz around it, a large adoption of the technology has not occurred yet. One of the main barriers to adoptions is the high cost of gear needed. However, recent development in technology are pushing prices down. For instance, Google Cardboard offers a very inexpensive way to experience virtual reality through smartphones. Moreover, the price of HMD and the powerful computers needed to run virtual reality software are expected to fall as it already happened with desktop computers before. The Technology Acceptance Model (TAM), as introduced by Davis (1989), is an attempt to understand the factors behind the adoption of new technologies. In particular, this model introduces the two key concepts of (1) perceived usefulness and (2) perceived ease of use. Looking at these, the manuscript attempts to bring some light in the current state of the adoption. The findings of this study have both theoretical and managerial implications, useful both to schools and vendors. The main finding of this study is that more research is needed to understand how people learn in immersive virtual reality, and how to develop software capable of delivering experiential learning. A tighter collaboration between schools, students, manufacturers, software developers seems to be the most viable way to go

Physical to Virtual: A Model for Future Virtual Classroom Environments

Virtual reality is a technology that has seen unprecedented growth since the turn of the century with increasing applications within business, entertainment, and educational applications. As virtual reality technologies continue to develops and markets expand, the world may see an increased demand for virtual classrooms: virtual environments (VEs) that students may access through immersive virtual reality technologies to receive guided instruction, conduct simulations, or perform tasks typical in a classroom setting. While many studies document how virtual reality is beneficial to educational processes, there is little discussion on how virtual environments should be architecturally designed. Thus one may hypothesize that physical design strategies translated to virtual environments may have similar results. This thesis investigates virtual environments for education by creating several virtual classrooms embedded within a selective digital twin of the University of Massachusetts Amherst campus. The design of the virtual classrooms was influenced by current architectural trends in classroom design while capturing unique abilities present within a virtual context. A physical teaching module was also designed to create a platform for educators within the university to deliver instruction within the virtual campus

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

Thirdspace: the Trialectics of the Real, Virtual and Blended Spaces

This article aims to redefine the concept of Thirdspace and make a trilateral relationship between the three concepts of real space, virtual space and the user. To do so, not only the concept of Thirdspace has to be redefined, but also a new understanding of virtual space as a relatively independent space is required. This three-sided relation requires a new understanding of the relationship between the body and virtual space. Special attention is paid to the role of the body in the relationship between the user and virtual space through a phenomenological approach. Borderline spaces - VR technology and video games such as Pokémon Go - which are resulted from the interpenetration of real and virtual spaces have been considered as the new edges of interaction between real and virtual spaces and they are on a constant rise. This article's key question is if using the concept of Thirdspace, one could build a bridge on the theoretical gap between real and virtual spaces and better understand the confrontation of the user with real, virtual and borderline spaces as well as their lived experiences. The authors believe that the answers are positive. This understanding paves the way not only to help the users improve their life skills for today's real-virtual world but also to manage the stresses caused by living in such surroundings