Research

Video has long been used in teacher education, particularly since the early work on micro-teaching (Allen & Eve, 1968) at Stanford University in the 1960s. It has only been within the last 10 years that a new kind of video has been gained increased interest in teacher education: 360° video (Roche...

This study aimed to explore the impact of Virtual Reality, Augmented Reality, and Mixed Reality in higher education. It highlighted the advantages and disadvantages of virtual technologies and suggested how they can be implemented effectively to enhance higher...

Even before the pandemic, XR technologies were proving their value to education. In the changed circumstances that colleges and universities face toda

The goals of the study were (a) to compare the instructional effectiveness of immersive virtual reality (VR) versus a desktop slideshow as media for teaching scientific knowledge, and (b) to examine the efficacy of adding a generative learning strategy to a VR lesson. In Experiment 1, college students viewed a biology lesson about how the human body works either in immersive VR or via a self-directed PowerPoint slideshow on a desktop computer. Based on interest theory, it was predicted that students who learned in immersive VR would report more positive ratings of interest and motivation and would score higher on a posttest covering material in the lesson. In contrast, based on the cognitive theory of multimedia learning, it was predicted that students who learned with a well-designed slideshow would score higher on a posttest, although they might not report higher levels of interest and motivation. The results showed that students who viewed the slideshow performed significantly better on the posttest than the VR group, but reported lower motivation, interest, and engagement ratings. In Experiment 2, students either viewed a segmented VR lesson and produced a written summary after each segment or viewed the original, continuous VR lesson as in Experiment 1. Students who summarized the lesson after each segment performed significantly better on the posttest and the groups did not differ on reported interest, engagement, and motivation. These results support the cognitive theory of multimedia learning and demonstrate the value of generative learning strategies in immersive VR environments. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2020 APA, all rights reserved)

Imagine an immersive environment where students can step into a real-life laboratory and have access to millions of dollars’ worth of equipment at

How necessary failures will help VR designers invent new storyforms

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The Maryland Blended Reality Center is dedicated to advancing visual computing for healthcare and innovative training for professionals in high-impact areas leveraging the Virtual, Augmented & Mixed Reality space.

Stanford researchers took a virtual reality experience into a variety of educational settings, including high school classrooms.

Stanford researchers found that people who underwent a virtual reality experience, called “Becoming Homeless,” were more empathetic toward the homeless.

Bailenson, J.N., Patel, K., Nielsen, A., Bajcsy, R., Jung, S., & Kurillo, G. (2008). The Effect of interactivity on learning physical actions in virtual reality. Media Psychology, 11, 354–376. Abstract Virtual reality (VR) offers new possibilities for learning, specifically for training individuals to perform physical movements such as physical therapy and exercise. The current article examines two aspects of VR that uniquely contribute to media interactivity: the ability to capture and review physical behavior and the ability to see one's avatar rendered in real time from third person points of view. In two studies, we utilized a state-of-the-art, image-based tele-immersive system, capable of tracking and rendering many degrees of freedom of human motion in real time. In Experiment 1, participants learned better in VR than in a video learning condition according to self-report measures, and the cause of the advantage was seeing one's avatar stereoscopically in the third person. In Experiment 2, we added a virtual mirror in the learning environment to further leverage the ability to see oneself from novel angles in real time. Participants learned better in VR than in video according to objective performance measures. Implications for learning via interactive digital media are discussed.