ABSTRACT. Immersive learning using fully immersive virtual reality (VR) is typically utilized to present 3D objects that cannot be represented easily on a computer screen. In the last few decades, the use of e-books to visualize documents has become prevalent. However, transferring an original document designed to be printed requires extraction of the document's logical structure. The document must be broken down into fragments of text and images with the extraction of its logical structure. The fragments are then recomposed together to be presented as an e-book. In this paper, we propose a novel paradigm where documents can be presented in their original form without the need to be physically restructured, thanks to VR. With a VR headset, the proposed document visualizer allows users to access, display, and annotate documents. Such a system is particularly relevant for students and scholars in the humanities who investigate ancient documents where the distinct elements composing the document are intertwined. Furthermore, VR technology enhances the accessibility and equity of learning by offering various input modalities.

ABSTRACT. Six Power Steps is a VR game that was designed in 2021 to manage pandemic-induced anxiety that affects students’ mental health. As the pandemic forced many Higher Education institutions globally to shut down and deliver classes via video conferencing tools, students encountered several challenges including anxiety which hampered the learning process. Funded by the COVID19 Emergency Research Program at Prince Sultan University, Six-Power Steps merged affordances of virtual reality and Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP) intervention techniques to empower students and enhance their academic skills by reducing anxiety.

ABSTRACT. The accessibility of digital systems determines the participation of a large number of people in everyday life. Therefore, it is important to teach this topic to future developers of the said systems. As accessibility can be hard to grasp due to one’s inability to experience the problematic barriers people with disabilities face, Virtual Reality (VR) comes into play. VR technology offers the opportunity to simulate situations encountered by persons with disabilities and enables the possibility of new experiences. To further analyze the suitability of a VR application to teach accessibility, we developed Access to Escape, an Immersive Game-Based Learning Experience for Accessibility Education in Virtual Reality. A first evaluation with 11 participants could show that the VR Escape Room helped to develop a different perspective through the simulated limitation of their senses and sensitize them to the issue of accessibility. The participants reported that they have discovered new connections concerning accessibility. Furthermore, the use of VR was perceived as very enjoyable, especially due to the increase of motivation and the simplification of the topic. Besides that, the results of the User Experience Questionnaire (UEQ) could show that the participants perceived the VR Escape Room as attractive, stimulating and novel. The evaluation demonstrates that a Game-Based Learning Experience in a virtual environment might lead to cognitive as well as affective learning outcomes. The use of the VR Escape Room in education has the potential to improve learning, especially to raise awareness of accessibility.

ABSTRACT. This study explored how to program for generalization using a fully immersive virtual reality (VR) intervention for teaching transportation skills to autistic adults related to using a university shuttle. Using multi-methods, this research sought to identify similarities and differences in behavior between the VR environment and the real-world, participants’ perceptions of telepresence in the VR environment, and how participants characterized similarities and differences between the VR environment and the real-world. Male adult participants (N = 6) completed training and then engaged in two VR-based training sessions of increasing complexity, after which they enacted what was learned in the real-world. Fidelity of implementation was high across VR and real-world sessions and no significant differences were found in behaviors between the VR and real-world sessions, providing evidence for skills generalization from the contrived VR setting to the naturalistic real-world setting. Participants reported high perceptions of telepresence (e.g., being there) and social presence (e.g., being there with others), and qualitative evidence suggests they made connections between the virtual world and real-world. Implications and directions for future research are discussed.

ABSTRACT. ADHD is a neurodevelopmental condition that affects a person's capacity to control their attention, and levels of hyperactivity and impulsivity. Hence, Numerous aspects of life, such as jobs, relationships, and daily activities, might be affected by these difficulties which may result in low self-esteem, and emotional and social challenges. Beautiful Mind is a VR game prototype that was designed for individuals with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD). The VR game was developed to provide an engaging, stimulating, and rewarding immersive experience for adults with ADHD. It was also helpful to involve individuals with ADHD in the early stages of design to get their input and feedback.

ABSTRACT. This evaluation study examines the implementation of a desktop virtual reality field trip (dVFT) for public outreach. After experiencing the dVFT, 139 participants completed a survey to examine their immersion, presence, engagement, perceived learning about the local environment, VR design features, and affective learning. The majority of participants reported favorable outcomes regarding all the variables above. No significant differences were found between male and female learners for each of the six constructs. No significant differences were found between adults’ and youths’ perceptions of immersion, presence, and attitudes. Adults ages 19 and older had statistically significant higher mean engagement levels, mean perceptions of learning about the local environment, and VR design features than youth. Our findings support that learning about one’s local environment with a dVFT can have a positive impact on engagement and learning, particularly in public outreach settings.

ABSTRACT. It is vital that individuals of all ages know what preparations to make prior to a flooding event and what actions to take during an actual flood event. To address this, we have designed and developed a fully functional prototype of a digital game-based learning experience in desktop VR called Flood Adventures to be used in non-formal and informal learning environments. We describe and illustrate the game final prototype as well as the gameful elements designed to promote increased motivation, engagement, and learning during gameplay. This paper presents the results of a usability study conducted with fifteen adults. The responses obtained in the sixteen-item survey were positive. The findings suggest that participants gained knowledge of flooding through gameplay. Feedback collected with four open-ended questions is discussed and players’ recommendations will improve the last iteration of the game.

ABSTRACT. Augmented realty is increasingly used as a learning tool in educational settings. There are a wide variety of different AR implementations ranging from simple 3D model viewers to more interactive and dynamic content such as videos and animations. We developed two different types of AR experiences around ocean education: (1) a "tap-to-place" highly-immersive narrated experience that uses the principles of gamification, simulation, role-playing to engage students in scientific concepts around basking sharks and (2) a species learning modules that use realistic and animated 3D representations of marine and freshwater species to teach students about their physiology, morphology and ecology. We conducted a controlled experimental study comparing the impact of each experience on motivation and student engagement. We tested each module in a large, first-year environmental sciences class under remote learning conditions (~200 students). We measured how motivation, engagement, engrossment, and cognitive load differed between the two groups within the context of their attitudes towards science (as assessed by the Modified Attitudes Towards Science instrument). The results of the study and its consequences will be discussed.

ABSTRACT. Virtual reality (VR) technologies are increasingly used in workforce devel-opment and training, and studies show they can be effective tools to in-crease learning of procedural skills, content knowledge, and affective out-comes like confidence. Most studies of VR in education and training, how-ever, have focused on the hardware by comparing learning with VR to other devices in controlled lab experiments. This “black box” approach does not attend to variation beyond the device, such as how learners use an applica-tion and the influence of their identity and context on their learning with VR. This study addressed the need for more research on learning with VR in authentic workforce development contexts to better understand how di-verse participants use these programs and to what extent their individual characteristics impact their experience. Using data from 1,154 users of a VR-enabled job interview training for individuals affected by the criminal justice system, we assessed variation in how participants used the program and their reported changes in confidence, and estimated associations with device, usage, and learners’ characteristics. We find learners’ experience and context is a stronger predictor of increased confidence level than device or usage activities, particularly whether participants are currently or formerly incarcerated. Further, we demonstrate how cluster analysis on log-file data can distinguish learners’ use patterns, a promising method for personalizing feedback and training.

ABSTRACT. Fully immersive virtual reality has been recently used for the creation of virtual museums, art galleries, and other applications related to cultural heritage. While the content of these applications has typically an educational value, it remains difficult to engage users into art and the humanities by only presenting the artworks and their descriptions through an immersive experience. We propose in this paper to better engage users into the analysis of paintings through a serious game based on the principle of wimmelbooks and hidden picture book, e.g. ``Where is Waldo''. This serious game provides to the user different art galleries in which the player is asked to search for a piece of painting inside a collection of paintings, engaging the players in the visual analysis of paintings. The piece of paintings are selected manually and we also assess the extent to which machine learning may help in defining regions of interest such as faces as potential targets. The evaluation of the approach is a practical example of how serious games can be used for better engaging users into art history in immersive learning.

ABSTRACT. Immersive learning designers and developers constantly need help balancing pedagogical requirements, and user experience needs against available technical resources. A good framework, guidelines, and pipelines help ensure those requirements are met, facilitating the design and development process towards a more agile and faster process where pitfalls can be identified earlier. The proposed workshop and panel will: (a) Initiate a discussion addressing the areas that require immediate consideration for the provision of a knowledge base to support the design and development of immersive learning applications to meet the pedagogical needs while facilitating a more agile and faster approach; (b) propose methodologies, technical considerations and best practices to achieve this goal, and (c) facilitate teams building to work in this direction, extending iLRN available resources and collaboration opportunities.

ABSTRACT. Digital twins (DT) technology has advanced and is gaining momentum of applicability in different contexts. The metaverse enables immersive experiences that integrate the real world with the digital. Given the importance of DT in the metaverse, this article seeks to review the literature (between 2018-2022) on the articulation of DT, metaverse, and learning, and propose a conceptual framework towards Education 5.0. The review indicates few works in this regard and specifically in Latin American countries the research and application in educational contexts is insufficient. There is an interest in defining frameworks and articulating with other extended reality technologies. The possibilities offered by DT and the metaverse are wide, and that is why it is necessary to reduce the gap in this regard, with more research, projects, dissemination, and agreements. This study contributes to the investigation and projection of the DT, metaverse in learning scenarios, as well as to continue delving into frameworks or models under the Industry/Society 5.0 approach.

ABSTRACT. Immersive augmented reality, in practical terms, is a real-time, immersive processing experience which bind together elements of real life with the images presented. The study is a Systematic Literature Review, which aimed to analyze throughout literature the main methods and projects for the development of virtual learning environments, especially STEM disciplines, with immersive scenarios in the field of distance higher education. The analyzed scientific productions underwent revision on the search strings, which presented a high growth in the application of Virtual Reality, Augmented Reality, Mixed Reality and Extended Reality in education. The studies revealed that the use of Immersive Augmented Reality in education is able to increase students' motivation and interest in studies, mainly due to the teaching and learning environment becoming more dynamic. Additionally, it enables students in the immersive environment to interact and achieve effective learning.

ABSTRACT. Virtual Reality environments have been used to build empathy in different contexts. However, research on empathy-driven VR experiences for building empathy with migrants is still in its infancy. In this paper, we present the results of a comparative study between two VR environments that show stories about migrants in Colombia (South America). In total, 47 university students participated in this study and a self-reported instrument was used to collect information about emotional empathy, cognitive empathy, enjoyment and perceived ease of use. The results suggest that VR improves emotional empathy but not cognitive empathy. In particular, students of psychology show higher levels of emotional empathy than students of engineering. Moreover, enjoyment and ease of use are higher in immersive VR environments to build empathy when compared to less immersive VR environments.

ABSTRACT. Immersive learning research and practice cannot hold their promises without setting inclusivity as a high priority. This workshop aims to raise awareness of inclusivity and accessibility in education; identify opportunities and challenges for inclusivity when creating and deploying immersive learning experiences; share good practice; and induce reflection on one’s own practice and research agenda. A 90-minute hybrid interactive event is proposed during which participants will work in small groups on several activities, and then discuss how these activities enabled them to reflect on their own practice. Participants will then be asked to discuss their reflections with the whole group, and facilitators will summarize with a call to action, which will be either a collaborative project or a white paper to capture the findings of the workshop.