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Virtual and Mixed Reality has gained momentum in the recent years. COVID-19 pandemic has also accentuated this phenomenon as strict constraints in mobility and outdoors activities were in place. In the past, Virtual Reality (VR), and Mixed Reality (MR) technology more broadly, has been investigated on how it affects people's User Experience (UX) and performance on daily tasks or specialised contexts. Limited research has looked on how VR/MR can be used to support conducting remote research activities. This talk will provide a short introduction on some results and insights generated through research on Multimodality and Synaesthetic-approaches in VR that we have conducted during COVID-19. We utilised a multisensory remote Virtual Environment (VE) approach to bridge the gap between the Virtual and Physical realms and between remoteness and co-location. The talk will present some lessons-learned and implications on conducting and learning from different (and novel) research practices.
The Covid 19 pandemic and associated work-from-home culture reignites the importance of immersive media. Major industries used various terms like Metaverse (Facebook), Mesh (Microsoft), Nth Floor (Accenture) and so on to invest and commercialize immersive media related products. Traditionally, immersive media is described through a continuum between reality and virtual reality along with intermediate systems known as Augmented and Mixed Reality systems. In the middle of the commercialization efforts and advertisements from software giants, end users are often confused about the best solution for their needs. There are not many studies on analysing end users’ feedback across the continuum of immersive media. This talk will present a comparative study on XR Technologies with respect to ocular, EEG and hand movement parameters of users. This presentation will introduce a comparison of cognitive load for a virtual flight simulator and between VR and MR interface for a welding task and an Advance Driver Assistance System.
Augmented Reality in Higher Education: a Case Study in Medical Education  PRESENTER: Danai Korre ABSTRACT. During lockdown, we piloted a variety of augmented reality (AR) experiences in collaboration with subject matter experts from different fields aiming at creating remote teaching and training experiences. In this paper, we present a case study on how AR can be used as a teaching aid for medical education with pertinent focus on remote and social distanced learning. We describe the process of creating an AR experience that can enhance the knowledge and understanding of anatomy for medical students. The Anatomy Experience is an AR enhanced learning experience developed in collaboration with the Medical School of the University of Edinburgh aiming to assist medical students understand the complex geometry of different parts of the human body. After conducting a focus group study with medical students, trainees, and trainers, we received very positive feedback on the Anatomy Experience and its effects on understanding anatomy, enriching the learning process, and using it as a tool for anatomy teaching. |
Timur Martinez-Mukimov (Westminster International University in Tashkent, Uzbekistan)
Markos Mentzelopoulos (University of Westminster, UK)
Daphne Economou (University of Westminster, United States)
Anasol Peña-Rios (BT Research Labs, British Telecom Plc, UK)
Andreas Dengel (Goethe-University of Frankfurt, Germany)
Although the adoption of the Metaverse is evolving at a slower speed than anticipated, it is still happening worldwide. In many cases, when creating an environment for the Metaverse, the aim is to simulate reality, a certain condition or an activity taking place in the physical world. However, when a simulation is not required, creating a virtual world involves the composition and development of a multisensory, synthetic environmental representation, which does not necessarily resemble physical spaces and within which these activities may appropriately unfold. This direction of research and education will be discussed with the help of relevant theoretical frameworks and several case studies. Furthermore, the art of creating virtual form, spaces and narratives for the Metaverse can ideally be taught within the Metaverse and towards this end, relevant implementations will be presented and discussed.
It's understood that Team Building relates to the cohesion of groups that already identify as a team while community building help groups of relative strangers to find a shared identity and reason to be together. Remio, a Social VR platform designed explicitly for team building, is expanding it's features and services to include community building going forward. Let's talk about how lessons from team building can be applied to this endeavor, and the core elements being introduced to make these communities possible.
Lets delve into the Metaverse concept and explore it through a Latin American lens. Join me as we embark on a journey to discover how Latin American culture, creativity, and innovation are influencing and shaping the metaverse landscape.
Latin America is a region with many developing countries in which the adoption of immersive learning has been restricted by different factors such as connectivity, affordability of technology, lack of training and lack of content. Despite these constraints, some researchers and companies have been developing immersive learning projects that consider the limitations in the region and the possibilities of the technology. This special track is proposed by the Colombia and Ecuador iLRN chapters in an effort to disseminate and give visibility to the projects created in the region. The purpose of this special track is twofold: 1) To showcase the work done by academics, practitioners, companies and other stakeholders in the region in this prominent conference in the field of immersive learning. 2) To foster the collaboration between Latin America and the rest of the world in the field of immersive learning and strengthen of existing collaborations. This special track is relevant for the conference because it allows to collect evidence about the current state of research in immersive learning across Latin America and identify opportunities for collaboration and opportunities for further research in the field. Contributions for this special track should have been developed in Latin America or tested/evaluated in Latin American countries. Research conducted in collaboration between Latin American countries and other regions in the world is acceptable.
| 11:00 | Practitioner Paper – Implementation of an XR Center in a Higher Education Institution in Brazil: A Case Study PRESENTER: Cinthia Bittencourt Spricigo ABSTRACT. This practitioner paper describes an institutional initiative on extended reality (XR) education, which took place at a higher education institution in southern Brazil. The XR Center project involved the creation of specialized learning environments, the formation of a development team, and the selection and development of XR educational proposals from faculty members. The ongoing project's results and features are presented, and several challenges are discussed. |
| 11:20 | "Mujer Aumentada" (Augmented Woman): Promoting Participation in Augmented Reality through Learning and Innovation ABSTRACT. "Mujer Aumentada" is an initiative that seeks to encourage the creation of augmented reality experiences, through the use of frameworks, to promote learning, creativity, and innovation. The initiative has emerged as a response to the decrease in attention span and intellectual quotient of society, which has been shown to be related to the excessive use of new digital media. The goal of "Mujer Aumentada" is to promote the inclusion of more women in leadership roles in the technology field, considering that less than 20% of women hold leadership roles in these areas currently. |
| 11:00 | Role of adaptation phase in educational results of Virtual Reality communication training for managers PRESENTER: Dmitriy Vinitskiy ABSTRACT. Adaptation to new devices and interfaces is actively studied by user experience and human-computer interaction specialists but is typically neglected by organizers and researchers of corporate training with virtual reality. The study tests how the adaptation phase to technology affects the educational outcome and cognitive load. For the study, 102 people (35.3 ± 11.2 years old), including students and working managers, were trained to give feedback to a colleague. They were divided into three groups: general adaptation, specialized adaptation for communication training, and no adaptation. EEG was used to measure cognitive load score. As a result, it was found that both groups with pre-adaptation showed higher educational outcomes and experienced less cognitive load during the main training. No difference was found between the types of adaptation. |
| 11:20 | Immersive Educational Recycling Assistant (ERA): Learning Waste Sorting in Augmented Reality PRESENTER: Qiming Sun ABSTRACT. For a sustainable living, it is everyone's responsibility to do our best at recycling. However, waste classification can be complex. The existing resources may not have sufficient information or dynamic feedback to resolve our everyday garbage disposal. In this work, we design an interactive mobile Augmented Reality (AR) application, Educational Recycling Assistant (ERA), to educate people in doing sound day-to-day waste management. ERA utilizes dynamic object detection and provides in-situ guidance for proper garbage disposal. A user study was designed and conducted to investigate the effects and the user experiences. We found that the users achieved significantly higher garbage binning accuracy with the ERA app. The participants also improved their recycling and garbage disposal knowledge after using the app, particularly in complex items. |
The talk explores the virtually endless potential of immersive learning. New technologies like virtual reality and the metaverse have removed physical obstacles from schooling. We'll look at how immersive learning is changing the way people learn and opening up new options for both teachers and students.
The education system is rapidly changing as the globe and technology continue to change. There will probably be some kind of hybrid learning in the metaverse for the upcoming generation of pupils. A co-founder of VEDX in 2020 has stepped up to help schools create VR labs at their institutions in order to meet this challenge. The business focuses on the global adoption of virtual reality, providing students with immersive and engaging learning opportunities. VEDX is dedicated to granting access to cutting-edge technology that will improve the future of education because of its strong confidence in the transformative potential of VR technology.
The climate crisis poses an existential threat to the world and by extension to our ability to pass on heritage. It threatens the parts that make up cultural landscapes, including bio diversity, archaeological sites, historic buildings, historic artefacts and the ways of life that give rise to intangible heritage. Consequently, heritage organisations including museums, world heritage sites, geo parks and heritage agencies are increasingly concerned with monitoring, adapting to and mitigating against climate change. A new project DACCHE brings together partners in Iceland, Faroe Islands, Sweden, Norway, Ireland and Scotland to investigate how digital technologies can help address the impacts of climate change on heritage and wider society. Through DACCHE we will be exploring how citizen science can help monitor effects of climate change, how digitisation can provide some resilience and how virtual reality simulations of climate futures can motivate behavioural change to mitigate against climate change.
This presentation will focus on the use of virtual, mixed and augmented reality (XR) technologies in the field of higher education. XR is a medium that is likely to revolutionize the way students learn and interact with educational content. During the presentation, Rob will discuss the various ways in which XR technologies, predominantly virtual reality (VR), are being utilized at Georgian College, such as for immersive simulations, virtual field trips, and interactive course materials. Rob will share how Georgian has taken a thoughtful and fiscally responsible approach to the exploration and integration or immersive VR and will share many of the challenges along the way. He will present case studies and examples of successful implementation and some of the barriers and failures.