presence (VR different from other media), virtual pit, haptic devices and environment
4 min: what’s the point?…
VR is a paradox, no rules,
what should you do and what to avoid
Ketaki Shriram dissertation
addiction
Gerd Bruder observed the other German person confused between VR and real world.
Common Sense Media – when children can VR and for how long
Jackie Baily worked with children VR Sesame street Grover impossible, counterproductive, rare/expensive, dangerous are the 4 reasons to use it. Not ubiquitous!
12 min. empathy
Tobin Asher “Becoming Homeless” blame the situation or the character (min 17)
counterproductive:
June Lubchenko, 2013. NOAA. min 19. natural disasters, not trusting self-report, but actions.
Fio Micheli. counter productive to fly children to the coral in Italy, but VR makes it possible. learning efficacy. Motivation to learn. min 21.
min 26. MOOC – materials are for free. not replacing field trips, just making them more often.
min 27. spherical video to practice football with VR
min 29. Walmart – “academies” Mark Gill the nursing home simulation.
dangerous:
learning to drive.
freedom speech over all media but VR is specific, different. If you won’t do it in the real world, don’t do it in VR
questions
min 33. what is the iPhone for VR.
Fred Brooks
min 37. disentization. how many times to do something to have effect. Kathy Mayhew and Mark Gill research
min 38. AR and psychology – not much resources. virtual person breaks physics – walks through chairs. Greg Weltch Central Florida – AR breaks physics study.
min 42. if his lab gives grants for art content creation. Immersive Journalism, storytelling syllabus. Mark Gill for our class, Bill Gorcica . Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation, Mayday Foundation
Bailenson contrasts experiencing virtual reality with reading news accounts and watching documentaries.
Caldwell—who used Google Expeditions to deliver a virtual reality experience set in the Holocaust—says that when his students first put on the goggles, they viewed them as a novelty.
Ron Berger, the Chief Academic Officer of EL Education, points to another factor schools should consider. He thinks virtual reality can be a powerful way to introduce kids to situations that require empathy or adopting different perspectives.
keep safety in mindsaving virtual reality for “very special experiences,” keeping it “relatively short” and not getting students dizzy or disoriented. A report Bailenson co-authored for Common Sense Media highlights the research that has—and has not—explored the effects of virtual reality on children. It states that the “potentially negative outcomes of VR include impacts on children’s sensory systems and vision, aggression, and unhealthy amounts of escapism and distraction from the physical world.”
“Shifts in students’ learning style will prompt a shift to active construction of knowledge through mediated immersion.”-Chris Dede
The theory of constructivist-based learning, according to Dr. Seymour Papert, “is grounded in the idea that people learn by actively constructing new knowledge, rather than having information ‘poured’ into their heads.”
Moreover, constructionism asserts that people learn with particular effectiveness when they are engaged in constructing personally meaningful artifacts (such as computer programs, animations, 3D modeling, creating spatial environments in virtual reality or building robots).”
Technologies like virtual reality, especially for Gen Z students’, provides avenues that allow them to engage in a social, collaborative, and active learning environment.
Virtual reality, especially when combined with powerful storytelling, allows the student to participate in the story, develop empathy to experiences outside their current realm of understanding and allows them to be fully immersed in their own exploration and learning.
Preliminary Plan for Monday, Sept 10, 5:45 PM to 8 PM
Introduction – who are the students in this class. About myself: http://web.stcloudstate.edu/pmiltenoff/faculty Contact info, “embedded” librarian idea – I am available to help during the semester with research and papers
#FakeNews is a very timely and controversial issue. in 2-3 min choose your best source on this issue. 1. Mind the prevalence of resources in the 21st century 2. Mind the necessity to evaluate a) the veracity of your courses b) the quality of your sources (the fact that they are “true” does not mean that they are the best). Be prepared to name your source and defend its quality.
How do you determine your sources? How do you decide the reliability of your sources? Are you sure you can distinguish “good” from “bad?”
Compare this entry https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_fake_news_websites
to this entry: https://docs.google.com/document/d/10eA5-mCZLSS4MQY5QGb5ewC3VAL6pLkT53V_81ZyitM/preview to understand the scope
Do you know any fact checking sites? Can you identify spot sponsored content? Do you understand syndication? What do you understand under “media literacy,” “news literacy,” “information literacy.” https://blog.stcloudstate.edu/ims/2017/03/28/fake-news-resources/
Why do we need to explore the “fake news” phenomenon? Do you find it relevant to your professional development?
So, how do we do academic research? Let’s play another Kahoot: https://play.kahoot.it/#/k/5e09bb66-4d87-44a5-af21-c8f3d7ce23de
If you to structure this Kahoot, what are the questions, you will ask? What are the main steps in achieving successful research for your paper?
Research using social media
what is social media (examples). why is called SM? why is so popular? what makes it so popular?
use SM tools for your research and education:
– Determining your topic. How to?
Digg http://digg.com/, Reddit https://www.reddit.com/ , Quora https://www.quora.com
Facebook, Twitter – hashtags (class assignment 2-3 min to search)
LinkedIn Groups
YouTube and Slideshare (class assignment 2-3 min to search)
Flickr, Instagram, Pinterest for visual aids (like YouTube they are media repositories)
In April, a PLAYlive Nation lounge in Tracy, Calif., hosted its first Fortnite tournament and sold out. Hundreds of players bought tickets to play against one another and win prizes.
Joost van Dreunen, the CEO of Superdata Research, a video game analytics firm, says most shooter games are serious and simulate violence. Fortnite, he says, is more like a friendly game of tag.
His company estimates the game has made about $223 million across all platforms in March alone. In lifetime sales, it had made about $614 million. The game is free to play, but Epic Games, the company that owns Fortnite, makes money through microtransactions. Players can spend real money to make cosmetic changes to their characters in the game. They can buy things like skins, which are like costumes, for their characters or emotes, which are celebratory dance moves their characters can do after winning or killing another player in the game.
Ninja, the gamer name taken by 26-year-old Tyler Blevins, is now a legend in the Fortnite world. He is a master at the game and rocketed into popularity after playing in an online battle with rap artists Drake and Travis Scott on March 14. That battle has been watched more than 9 million times.
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Educators Battle ‘Fortnite’ for Students’ Attention
Many educators want to ban the game from their classrooms, but some are taking the opposite approach, attempting to weave students’ interest in Fortnite into class discussions and assignments.
Nick Fisher, a science teacher at Fort Zumwalt North High School in O’Fallon, Mo., said his students like to take screenshots of gameplay and send them to friends over Snapchat. Teenagers want to broadcast their victories, and because the game is on their phones, it’s easy to post updates to social media, making Fortnite “the perfect concoction of addiction,” said Fisher.
North High blocks all social media and gaming sites on its WiFi, said Fisher, but students tell him how they circumvent the restriction: They use virtual private networks, or VPNs, to establish independent internet connections. (Dozens of YouTube videos provide step-by-step tutorials for students looking to get around school WiFi controls.)
“Kids can’t multitask,” she said. “Even having a digital device within sight can cognitively distract the student enough that they can’t focus on the academics.”
Schools and teachers should be guiding parents when it comes to appropriate limits around screen time, said Kolb. Most parents will appreciate research-based recommendations, such as turning off all screens a set amount of time before bed, she said.
Games like Fortnite can even have social benefits, said John Velez, an assistant professor of journalism and electronic media at Texas Tech University. Velez, who studies the positive effects of video games, has found that playing violent games cooperatively with helpful teammates promotes pro-social behavior.
Chris Aviles, the coordinator of innovation, technology, and 21st century skills for the Fair Haven Public Schools in New Jersey, wrote “A Teacher’s Guide to Surviving Fortnite,” an exploration of ways the game can be used for instructional purposes. The guide, posted to his blog Teched Up Teacher, suggests how to integrate the game into writing prompts, math lessons on probability, and physics.
Aviles doesn’t advocate playing the game at school. There isn’t any educational value in letting students engage in virtual combat during a lesson, he said. Instead, teachers can build a lesson around one aspect of the game, such as having students calculate the best angle of approach as they jump from the “Battle Bus,” the floating bus that drops players onto the map at the beginning of each match.
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Instagram, Snapchat, Fortnite: The distractions are endless. Here’s how to help kids cope.
In January, two of Apple’s shareholder groups asked the company to look at the addictive effects of iPhones on children. Google’s recent developer conference highlighted tools to help users better control smartphone usage.
A 2015 survey of more than 1,800 teachers and 400 principals in Alberta, B.C., found that nearly three-fourths of teachers frequently or very frequently observed students multitasking with technology, and 67 percent of teachers believed that the number of students negatively distracted by digital technologies in the classroom was growing.
The best approach is to use empathy, compassion and collaboration to help the young people in your life find ways to manage their digital workflow.
Encourage visualization for inspiration and motivation. The first step is getting students to buy in and to want to make behavioral changes.
Focus on compartmentalization. A 2009 study from Stanford researchers found that people who juggled several streams of electronic information were not able to pay attention, remember key information or switch tasks as effectively as those who completed one task at a time.
Using the Pomodoro technique of spending 25 minutes focused on one task followed by a five-minute break can be an easy way to have students begin to shift from a multitasking to a monotasking mind-set.
Make focus fun. There are now numerous ways to use technology to help us be more productive with technology, and it doesn’t have to be arduous. Students in my office use apps such as Forest or Flipd to motivate them to stay off their phones during class or when doing homework. Forest has a simple interface that will build a digital tree for users who stay off their phones. Flipd allows users to hide certain apps, allot time off their phone based on their schedule and, for a premium, track their progress over time.
Provide structured support as needed. A middle school student with whom I worked recently was relieved when his mother used the Mac OS app SelfControl to block YouTube and ESPN while he was doing his homework (Cold Turkey is a similar PC-based app).
Allow opportunities for regrouping. Even the best plans can go awry (for adults and kids alike). It’s important to focus on progress rather than perfection. Create time daily or weekly for students to think about what went well in terms of managing distractions and improving productivity, and what they would like to do better. Ask open-ended questions without judgment or expectation
In 1995, psychologist and science journalist Daniel Goleman published a book introducing most of the world to the nascent concept of emotional intelligence. The idea–that an ability to understand and manage emotions greatly increases our chances of success–quickly took off, and it went on to greatly influence the way people think about emotions and human behavior.
What are my emotional strengths? What are my weaknesses?
How does my current mood affect my thoughts and decision making?
What’s going on under the surface that influences what others say or do?
2. You pause.
pausing helps you refrain from making a permanent decision based on a temporary emotion.
3. You strive to control your thoughts.
By striving to control your thoughts, you resist becoming a slave to your emotions, allowing yourself to live in a way that’s in harmony with your goals and values.
4. You benefit from criticism.
When you receive negative feedback, you keep your emotions in check and ask yourself: How can this make me better?
5. You show authenticity.
You know not everyone will appreciate your sharing your thoughts and feelings. But the ones who matter will.
6. You demonstrate empathy.
The ability to show empathy, which includes understanding others’ thoughts and feelings, helps you connect with others. Instead of judging or labeling others, you work hard to see things through their eyes.
Empathy doesn’t necessarily mean agreeing with another person’s point of view. Rather, it’s about striving to understand–which allows you to build deeper, more connected relationships.
Negative feedback has great potential to hurt the feelings of others. Realizing this, you reframe criticism as constructive feedback, so the recipient sees it as helpful instead of harmful.
9. You apologize.
Emotional intelligence helps you realize that apologizing doesn’t always mean you’re wrong. It does mean valuing your relationship more than your ego.
10. You forgive and forget.
When you forgive and forget, you prevent others from holding your emotions hostage–allowing you to move forward.
11. You keep your commitments.
12. You help others.
Actions like these build trust and inspire others to follow your lead when it counts.
13. You protect yourself from emotional sabotage.
You realize that emotional intelligence also has a dark side–such as when individuals attempt to manipulate others’ emotions to promote a personal agenda or for some other selfish cause.
And that’s why you continue to sharpen your own emotional intelligence–to protect yourself when they do.
AR and VR are mediums for the transmission of information, and many people will judge these mediums by the content that is produced within them. For educators seeking to gain buy-in from administrators and other colleagues it is critical for them to justify the reasons their content requires new reality media.
Given the newness of these mediums, it is no surprise that few curricular resources exist to support courses around VR and AR. Professional development sessions on new reality tools are almost non-existent, which means educators seeking to use virtual or augmented reality simply need to dive into the subjects.
3. Go Beyond Storytelling
Studies using VR demonstrate the ‘Proteus Effect’—taking on the psychology of inhabiting a different body and unconsciously changing our behavior to conform to it (learning empathy through VR)
4. Master the Machines
“The equipment matters. If there is a latency between the computer and the VR set that can cause a lot of problems,”
With VR equipment ranging from about $15 to $600 educators will have to check the budget or start writing grant proposals to gain access to the higher quality machines.
5. Understand Your Student’s Needs
described as a “quantum shift” in the way we interact, learn and experience.
A whopping 60 percent of parents are worried about the VR’s health effects, according to a new study from Common Sense Media, while others hope the emerging technology will have profound educational benefits because of its highly-engaging nature.
Jim Steyer, founder of Common Sense Media https://www.commonsense.org/education/
Stanford researchers partnered with Common Sense Media, which has done extensive research on children’s media use, to examine the impact of VR on children. Their report includes a national survey of 12,148 adults, 3,613 of whom were parents.
the study notes that 21 percent of households with children already have a VR device and 13 percent are planning to get one, Common Sense found that many parents are scared of exposing their children to such intense experiences.
Bailenson, founder of Stanford’s Virtual Human Interaction Lab, acknowledged the long term effects of VR on developing brains remain unknown. But short term impacts can include dizziness, headache and eye strain. https://vhil.stanford.edu/projects/
While 62 percent of parents surveyed believe that VR can provide educational experiences, only 22 percent reported their child actually used VR for learning. The vast majority play games.
VR also has the potential to encourage empathy among small children, experts say, because it builds bonds with virtual characters and settings, though parents surveyed by Common Sense remain skeptical.
The brain is actually three brains: the ancient reptilian brain, the limbic brain, and the cortical brain. This article will focus on the limbic brain, because it may be most important to successfully using interactive video or web-based video. The limbic brain monitors the external world and the internal body, taking in information through the senses as well as body temperature and blood pressure, among others. It is the limbic brain that generates and interprets facial expressions and handles emotions, while the cortical brain handles symbolic activities such as language as well as action and strategizing. The two interact when an emotion is sent from the limbic to the cortical brain and generates a conscious thought; in response to a feeling of fear (limbic), you ask, “what should I do?” (cortical).
The importance of direct eye contact and deciphering body language is also important for sending and picking up clues about social context.
The loss of social cues is important because it may affect the quality of the content of the presentation (by not allowing timely feedback or questions) but also because students may feel less engaged and become frustrated with the interaction, and subsequently lower their assessment of the class and the instructor (Reeves & Nass, 1996). Fortunately, faculty can provide such social cues verbally, once they are aware of the importance of helping students use these new media.
Attachment theory also supports the importance of physical and emotional connections.
As many a struggling teacher knows, students are often impervious to learning new concepts. They may replay the new information for a test, but after time passes, they revert to the earlier (and likely wrong) information. This is referred to as the “power of mental models.” As explained in Marchese (2000), when we view a tree, it is not as if we see the tree in our head, as in photography.
The coping strategies of the two hemispheres are fundamentally different. The left hemisphere’s job is to create a belief system or model and to fold new experiences into that belief system. If confronted with some new information that doesn’t fit the model, it relies on Freudian defense mechanisms to deny, repress or confabulate – anything to preserve the status quo. The right hemisphere’s strategy is to play “Devil’s Advocate,” to question the status quo and look for global inconsistencies. When the anomalous information reaches a certain threshold, the right hemisphere decides that it is time to force a complete revision of the entire model and start from scratch (Ramachandran & Blakeslee, 1998, p. 136).
While much hemispheric-based research has been repudiated as an oversimplification (Gackenbach, 1999), the above description of how new information eventually overwhelms an old world view may be the result of multiple brain functions – some of which work to preserve our models and others to alter – that help us both maintain and change as needed.
Self-talk is the “the root of empathy, understanding, cooperation, and rules that allow us to be successful social beings. Any sense of moral behavior requires thought before action” (Ratey, 2001, p. 255).
Healy (1999) argues that based on what we know about brain development in children, new computer media may be responsible for developing brains that are largely different from the brains of adults. This is because “many brain connections have become specialized for . . . media” (p. 133); in this view, a brain formed by language and reading is different from a brain formed by hypermedia. Different media lead to different synaptic connections being laid down and reinforced, creating different brains in youngsters raised on fast-paced, visually-stimulating computer applications and video games. “Newer technologies emphasize rapid processing of visual symbols . . . and deemphasize traditional verbal learning . . . and the linear, analytic thought process . . . [making it] more difficult to deal with abstract verbal reasoning” (Healy, 1999, p. 142).