Using Augmented and virtual Reality in the Early Childhood Curriculum

Augmented Reality (AR) and Virtual Reality (VR) technologies have much to offer the early childhood classroom. AR apps enable virtual objects and artefacts to be layered over the physical environment, whilst VR fully immerses the user in a virtual world. In this document, we explore some of the research undertaken by researchers in the DigiitEY Cost Action, and examine the ways in which AR and VR might be used in early years classrooms. Marsh and Yamada-Rice (in press), drawing on their studies of children’s use of AR and VR apps (Marsh et al., 2015; Yamada-Rice et al., 2017), outlined five key principles which should underpin the use of AR and VR in the classroom. These are discussed throughout this document

Children’s interactive storytelling in Virtual Reality

This article reports on one stage of a project that considered twenty 8–12-years-olds use of Virtual Reality (VR) for entertainment. The entire project considered this in relation to interaction and engagement, health and safety and how VR play fitted into children’s everyday home lives. The specific focus of this article is solely on children’s interaction and engagement with a range of VR content on both a low-end and high-end head mounted display (HMD). The data were analysed using novel multimodal methods that included stop-motion animation and graphic narratives to develop multimodal means for analysis within the context of VR. The data highlighted core design elements in VR content that promoted or inhibited children’s storytelling in virtual worlds. These are visual style, movement and sound which are described in relation to three core points of the user’s journey through the virtual story; (1) entering the virtual environment, (2) being in the virtual story world, and (3) affecting the story through interactive objects. The findings offer research-based design implications for the improvement of virtual content for children, specifically in relation to creating content that promotes creativity and storytelling, thereby extending the benefits that have previously been highlighted in the field of interactive storytelling with other digital media

Digital Directions: AVR stortyelling

The aim of the workshop was to bring together a range of storytellers, practitioners and experts in the field of immersive experience design. Eleanor Dare and Alexandra Antonopoulou presented their work on AR and VR artist's books, The Phi Books. They discussed the way in which they use AR and VR as a heuristic for story-making and for collaboration, extending their earlier work with algorithmic writing methods

Location-based Virtual Reality experiences for children: Japan-UK knowledge exchange network final project report

This is the final project report for an AHRC/ESRC funded Uk-Japan network looking at location-based VR experiences for children. Location-based VR are site specific experiences that aim to bring together materials beyond those in the virtual space to carefully curate an experience for an audience who are likely to use the content only once or a few times. As a result, location-based VR experiences are emerging predominately in two areas; gaming arcades and museums/art galleries. The overall intention of this knowledge exchange (KE) project was to bring together a network of academics and digital gaming industry partners in Japan and the UK to join up knowledge, begin researching the current state of VR experiences and technologies, and to understand the best methodologies for including children in the design of VR experiences for them. This was undertaken so that this knowledge can be applied to areas in which VR is evolving for children, such as entertainment, education and health care

Evading Big Brother: Using visual methods to understand children’s perception of sensors and interest in subverting digital surveillance

In relation to this Special Issue’s focus on ugly information, this article examines children’s perception of the often invisible interactions they have with sensor-enabled digital devices and, when prompted, their interest in subverting or blocking these sensors to evade surveillance. The authors report on a study of 12 children, aged 8–12 years, that investigated their knowledge of the sensing abilities of commonly used digital devices (smart phones, smart watches, smart speakers and games consoles), and their attitudes towards having active agency over sensors. In line with this journal’s readership, visual methods used for data collection and analysis are described. Specifically, within semi-structured focus groups, drawing was used to understand what children thought was inside digital devices and the extent of their awareness of digital sensors. Child participants were invited to model speculative tools for deceiving digital sensors in order to explore their interest in having agency over digital surveillance. Data in the form of drawings, photographs of models and video recordings were analysed using experimental visual methods that included 3D rendering and comics, as well as visual content and thematic analysis. These drew out four key themes: (1) the role of inference in sensor awareness; (2) misunderstanding of device components and sensing capabilities; (3) attitudes to surveillance; and (4) children’s interest in subverting rather than blocking sensors. We discuss how technology companies’ desire to create ‘magical experiences’ may contribute to incorrect inferences about information gathering systems, how this reduces children’s agency over the information they share and how it puts them at greater risk from digital surveillance. The article makes an original contribution to knowledge in this area by calling for a two-pronged approach from technology companies and educators to address these issues by making sensor presence more visible, educating children about the full extent of sensor capability and bringing critical discussion of them into curricula

<i>Queer Psycho</i> and the <i>He Circus</i>: Applying Queering, Magic, and More-than-Human Theories to Immersive Visual Story Worlds as an Antidote to Late Capitalism

Abstract Two immersive visual story worlds (IVS), Queer Psycho and HE Circus, are at the center of this article, one made by each of us. Individually we found our works necessitated the development of new frameworks for IVS construction, namely (1) Brechtian a-effect and queering, and (2) magic and more-than-human theories. These new framings were needed to realize our desire to use IVS to create spaces of active resistance from psychological harm imposed by political and ableist structures designed with rigid ways of seeing the world through straight/neoliberal lenses. When both story worlds and their frameworks are viewed side-by-side, they lay bare the prejudices and normative framings of IVS software and industries. Thus, the outline of these new framings with this article makes an original contribution to the field by calling into question those who are designing IVS software and typical frameworks by asking who and what they are benefiting, and proposing alternatives to illustrate how neither should be considered fixed. Finally, the topic of each IVS, that of Hitchcock's Psycho and neoliberal structures of contemporary higher education, offer critiques of systems which serve to highlight our arguments.</jats:p

Using Information Experience Design and Multimodality to make sense of experiences in physical and virtual curated spaces

This paper will show how our use of multimodal theory in relation to the discipline of Information Experience Design (IED) that we teach and direct at the Royal College of Art contributes to the development of the multimodal paradigm

Location-based Virtual Reality Experiences for Children:Japan-UK knowledge exchange network: Tokyo Workshop

This is the programme, abstracts and speaker bios for the Location-based Virtual Reality Experiences for Children:Japan-UK knowledge exchange network: Tokyo Workshop

Designing connected play: Perspectives from combining industry and academic know-how. In: Chaudron S., Di Gioia R., Gemo M., Holloway D., Marsh J., Mascheroni G., Peter J., Yamada-Rice D. Kaleidoscope on the Internet of Toys - Safety, security, privacy and societal insights, EUR 28397 EN, doi:10.2788/05383

Academics, designers and producers tend to consider the evolving Internet of Toys (IoToys) from within their individual disciplines. On the one hand, academics bring a long history of researching and theorizing play and communication practices to the task of considering young children’s use of connected toys. On the other hand, designers and producers of connected toys have detailed understanding of the possibilities and affordances of technology, as well as the technical mechanics involved in toy production. In other words, they know what it is possible to make, and what it is not possible to make. Industry also has an eye on trends in digital toy production and content, and how these are likely to evolve. This is because the digital play industry track data on technology usage and media consumption, and so on. These are things that academics are often a step behind in understanding because of a tendency to consider children’s use of an end product. However, my work across academia and the commercial toy and digital content industry has taught me that the amount of expertise companies have of child development and theories around play and communication practices is extremely varied and start-up companies in particular have little resource to conduct in-house research. This means that some connected toys are not as well made for young users as they could be. However, these crossovers have also taught me that sometimes academics call for changes to designs that are not easily possible or commercially viable. Therefore, regular collaboration between academia and industry would aid production of the best possible connected toys and content for young children