Evaluation Report of Prospero’s Island: an Immersive Approach to Literacy at Key Stage 3.

Prospero's Island is an immersive theatre project created by Punchdrunk Enrichment and sponsored by Learning Partner, London Borough of Hackney (Hackney Learning Trust). The project sought to inspire and motivate students’ engagement with the English curriculum, and to develop an immersive approach to teaching literacy that would improve students’ learning. Prospero’s Island took place in a secondary academy in Hackney, London over two school terms (autumn 2014-spring 2015). The project was embedded in existing schemes of work, and included the following elements: • An immersive theatre installation for Year 7-8 students (aged 11-13 years); this took the form of an interactive game based on The Tempest; over a two-week period groups of students participated in this experience for a morning or afternoon (autumn term); • A Teaching and Learning Day (TALD) and eight twilight CPD sessions on immersive learning techniques for school staff and teachers across London (autumn term); • A return to the installation for one lesson, led by English teachers (autumn term); • Follow-on work by teachers to develop immersive learning in English lessons (spring term); • An independent evaluation of the project (autumn and spring terms)

Boundary interactions: Resolving interdisciplinary collaboration challenges using digitized embodied performances

Little is known about the collaborative learning processes of interdisciplinary teams designing technology-enabled immersive learning systems. In this conceptual paper, we reflect on the role of digitally captured embodied performances as boundary objects within our heterogeneous two-team collective of learning scientists and computer scientists as we design an embodied, animated virtual tutor embedded in a physically immersive mathematics learning system. Beyond just a communicative resource, we demonstrate how these digitized, embodied performances constitute a powerful mode for both inter- and intra-team learning and innovation. Our work illustrates the utility of mobilizing the material conditions of learning

From cognitive capability to social reform? Shifting perceptions of learning in immersive virtual worlds

Learning in immersive virtual worlds (simulations and virtual worlds such as Second Life) could become a central learning approach in many curricula, but the socio‐political impact of virtual world learning on higher education remains under‐researched. Much of the recent research into learning in immersive virtual worlds centres around games and gaming and is largely underpinned by cognitive learning theories that focus on linearity, problem‐solving and the importance of attaining the ‘right answer’ or game plan. Most research to date has been undertaken into students’ experiences of virtual learning environments, discussion forums and perspectives about what and how online learning has been implemented. This article reviews the literature relating to learning in immersive virtual worlds, and suggests that there needs to be a reconsideration of what ‘learning’ means in such spaces

Immersive learning research

Editorial. Material for the special issue "Immersive Learning Research" of the Journal of Universal Computer Science.Welcome to the Journal of Universal Computer Science (J.UCS) special issue organized by the Immersive Learning Research Network (iLRN) following the 2017 iLRN conference. This issue includes eight papers on the focused topic "Immersive Learning Research", including extended versions of papers presented at iLRN 2017 and articles from the public call for papers.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Flexible virtual environments: Gamifying immersive learning

© Springer International Publishing AG 2017. The availability of Virtual Reality (VR) and Virtual Environment (VE) equipment - with the launch of domestic technologies such as the Oculus Rift, Microsoft Hololens and Sony Playstation VR) - offer new ways to enable interactive immersive experiences [16]. The opportunities these create in learning and training applications are immense: but create new challenges . Meanwhile, current virtual learning environments are typically web or app based technologies, sometimes perceived as having little value added from a user perspective beyond improved User Interfaces to access some content [6]. The challenge is how the human computer interaction features of such VE platforms may be used in education in a way that adds value, especially for computer mediated instruction. This paper will outline some of the issues, and opportunities, as well as some of the open questions about how such technologies can be used effectively in a higher education context, along with a proposed framework for embedding a learning engine within a virtual reality or environment system. Three-dimensional technologies: from work-walls, through CAVES to the latest headsets offer new ways to immerse users in computer generated environments. Immersive learning [1] is increasingly common in training applications, and is beginning to make inroads into formal education. The recent rise in such off-the-shelf technologies means that Augmented Learning becomes a realistic mainstream tool [13]. Much of this use is built in game environments using game engines, where these serious games provide learning effects as an intended consequence of playing

Finely integrated media for language learning

FLUENT, an immersive foreign‐language learning environment, was developed without recourse to hypermedia techniques. Nevertheless, if one accepts the premisses, proposed in this paper, on which the idea of hypermedia has been constructed, FLUENT shows a strong relationship with it. The paper discusses this relationship after attempting to distil the essence of educational hypermedia, and after presenting a taxonomy of media for language learning

A critical reflection on how immersive learning can be used to facilitate high quality teaching and learning in educational settings

This practitioner-led research focuses on the extent to which immersive learning can be used to facilitate quality teaching, whilst supporting children’s engagement with the characteristics of effective learning: play and exploring; active learning; and creating and thinking critically. Data was collected in a fully immersive infant school through systematic observation, and triangulation was used to ensure trustworthiness through the use of questionnaires. Findings of the present study suggest immersive learning supports teacher’s ability to combine 21st century skills and traditional teaching roles, whilst children were observed engaging in all areas of effective learning

The virtual playground: an educational virtual reality environment for evaluating interactivity and conceptual learning

The research presented in this paper aims at investigating user interaction in immersive virtual learning environments (VLEs), focusing on the role and the effect of interactivity on conceptual learning. The goal has been to examine if the learning of young users improves through interacting in (i.e. exploring, reacting to, and acting upon) an immersive virtual environment (VE) compared to non interactive or non-immersive environments. Empirical work was carried out with more than 55 primary school students between the ages of 8 and 12, in different between-group experiments: an exploratory study, a pilot study, and a large-scale experiment. The latter was conducted in a virtual environment designed to simulate a playground. In this ‘Virtual Playground’, each participant was asked to complete a set of tasks designed to address arithmetical ‘fractions’ problems. Three different conditions, two experimental virtual reality (VR) conditions and a non-VR condition, that varied the levels of activity and interactivity, were designed to evaluate how children accomplish the various tasks. Pre-tests, post-tests, interviews, video, audio, and log files were collected for each participant, and analyzed both quantitatively and qualitatively. This paper presents a selection of case studies extracted from the qualitative analysis, which illustrate the variety of approaches taken by children in the VEs in response to visual cues and system feedback. Results suggest that the fully interactive VE aided children in problem solving but did not provide as strong evidence of conceptual change as expected; rather, it was the passive VR environment, where activity was guided by a virtual robot, that seemed to support student reflection and recall, leading to indications of conceptual change

Identifying immersive environments’ most relevant research topics: an instrument to query researchers and practitioners

This paper provides an instrument for ascertaining researchers’ perspectives on the relative relevance of technological challenges facing immersive environments in view of their adoption in learning contexts, along three dimensions: access, content production, and deployment. It described its theoretical grounding and expert-review process, from a set of previously-identified challenges and expert feedback cycles. The paper details the motivation, setup, and methods employed, as well as the issues detected in the cycles and how they were addressed while developing the instrument. As a research instrument, it aims to be employed across diverse communities of research and practice, helping direct research efforts and hence contribute to wider use of immersive environments in learning, and possibly contribute towards the development of news and more adequate systems.The work presented herein has been partially funded under the European H2020 program H2020-ICT-2015, BEACONING project, grant agreement nr. 687676.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

iLRN 2018 Main Conference Preface

iLRN 2018. Conferência realizada em Missoula, MT, USA, de 24-29 de junho de 2018.ILRN 2018 was the fourth annual international conference of the Immersive Learning Network. It followed on from the inaugural conference held in Prague in July 2015, the second conference held in Santa Barbara in June 2016, and the third conference held in Coimbra, Portugal, in 2017. In response to the increasingly accessible and powerful range of VR and AR technology, the vision of the iLRN is to develop a comprehensive research and outreach agenda that encompasses the breadth and scope of learning potentialities, affordances, and challenges of immersive learning environments. To achieve this, the iLRN invites and hosts scientists, practitioners, organizations, and innovators across many disciplines to explore, describe, and apply the optimal use of immersive worlds and environments for educational purposes. The annual conference aims to explain and demonstrate how these immersive learning environments best work. In 2018, 21 formal papers were received for the main conference and after a rigorous reviewing process six were selected for this Springer publication (28% acceptance rate). The authors of these papers come from institutions located in Brazil, Germany, the UK, and the USA (Florida, Texas, California). The main conference papers cover a range of interesting topics in some depth, providing useful information for other educators and researchers. Alvarez-Molina et al. report on how video games can help players develop their musical skills and illustrate this by creating and evaluating a music-video game that aims to improve the key skill of pitch recognition. Bakri et al. investigate the subjective perception of the fidelity of 3D cultural heritage artifacts on the Web and how this affects the user experience. De León reports on the promising results of utilizing problem-based learning for bridging theory and practice in teacher preparation programs through the use of immersive, ill-structured problems in a multi-user virtual environment that simulates a real school. Feenan draws upon 10 years of studies into the use of digital game-based learning as the basis of an analysis that recommends a five-pronged approach to the successful use of games to support social resiliency skills for students in a fast-changing world. Johnson and Sullivan describe a pilot study that identifies three key strategies for making students feel more comfortable and productive in an experimental game design class. Queiroz et al. present a literature review of learning outcomes from using fully HMD-based IVE in primary/K-12 education, highlighting relevant studies, identifying gaps, and providing insights for use in further research. This informative and fascinating collection of papers reflects the emerging and valuable possibilities of immersive learning research. We know you will find many points of interest and use in the well-presented reports in this collection. Finally, we strongly encourage you to join ILRN and contribute your own insights and research to the community.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio