Exploring mixed reality in distributed collaborative learning environments

Society is moving rapidly towards a world, where technology enables people to exist in a blend of physical and virtual realities. In education, this vision involves technologies ranging from smart classrooms to e-learning, creating greater opportunities for distance learners, bringing the potential to change the fundamental nature of universities. However, to date, most online educational platforms have focused on conveying information rather than supporting collaborative physical activities which are common in university science and engineering laboratories. Moreover, even when online laboratory support is considered, such systems tend to be confined to the use of simulations or pre-recorded videos. The lack of support for online collaborative physical laboratory activities, is a serious shortcoming for distance learners and a significant challenge to educators and researchers. In working towards a solution to this challenge, this thesis presents an innovative mixed-reality framework (computational model, conceptual architecture and proof-of-concept implementation) that enables geographically dispersed learners to perform co-creative teamwork using a computer-based prototype comprising hardware and software components. Contributions from this work include a novel distributed computational model for synchronising physical objects and their 3D virtual representations, expanding the dual-reality paradigm from single linked pairs to complex groupings, addressing the challenge of interconnecting geographically dispersed environments; and the creation of a computational paradigm that blends a model of distributed learning objects with a constructionist pedagogical model, to produce a solution for distributed mixed-reality laboratories. By way of evidence to support the research findings, this thesis reports on evaluations performed with students from eight different universities in six countries, namely China, Malaysia, Mexico, UAE, USA and UK; providing an important insight to the role of social interactions in distance learning, and demonstrating that the inclusion of a physical component made a positive difference to students’ learning experience, supporting the use of cross-reality objects in educational activities

European Distance and E-Learning Network (EDEN). Conference Proceedings

Erasmus+ Programme of the European UnionThe powerful combination of the information age and the consequent disruption caused by these unstable environments provides the impetus to look afresh and identify new models and approaches for education (e.g. OERs, MOOCs, PLEs, Learning Analytics etc.). For learners this has taken a fantastic leap into aggregating, curating and co-curating and co-producing outside the boundaries of formal learning environments – the networked learner is sharing voluntarily and for free, spontaneously with billions of people.Supported by Erasmus+ Programme of the European Unioninfo:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Translation from Croatian into English: Tourism, Finance and a Little Bit of History (Translation and Analysis)

This B.A. thesis focuses on the translation of articles of different genres from Croatian into English. At the beginning of the thesis there is an introduction explaining the aim of the thesis and methods used in translation. The introduction is followed by four different translations: translation of a text about tourism where Sofia, the capital of Bulgaria, is described, translation of an article about literature from a monthly magazine, translation of a text describing how much money Croatia earns from foreign productions and translation of an article about breweries in Prague. Each of these is also preceded by a brief introduction and followed by commentary and analysis. The commentary and analysis sections deal with the problems and issues that I encountered while translating these articles. Finally, the thesis also contains a conclusion, in which a personal reflection of my work is given, and appendices, where all the source texts can be found

Translation from Croatian into English: Tourism, Finance and a Little Bit of History (Translation and Analysis)

This B.A. thesis focuses on the translation of articles of different genres from Croatian into English. At the beginning of the thesis there is an introduction explaining the aim of the thesis and methods used in translation. The introduction is followed by four different translations: translation of a text about tourism where Sofia, the capital of Bulgaria, is described, translation of an article about literature from a monthly magazine, translation of a text describing how much money Croatia earns from foreign productions and translation of an article about breweries in Prague. Each of these is also preceded by a brief introduction and followed by commentary and analysis. The commentary and analysis sections deal with the problems and issues that I encountered while translating these articles. Finally, the thesis also contains a conclusion, in which a personal reflection of my work is given, and appendices, where all the source texts can be found