The terms ‘extended reality’ or ‘cross reality’ refer to “technologies and applications that involve combinations of mixed reality (MR), augmented reality (AR), virtual reality (VR), and virtual worlds (VWs)” (Ziker, Truman, & Dodds, 2021, p. 56). Immersive learning definitions draw from Milgram and Kishino’s key taxonomy (1994) emphasizing the continuum of experiences that range from where a computer adds to a learner’s reality with overlays of information, or a computer experientially transports a learner to a different place and time by manipulating sight and sound.
VR Design Model
three different design models (see Figure 3): the ADDIE Design Model (Branson, 1978), Design Thinking (Brown & Wyatt, 2010) from user experience (UX), and the 3D Learning Experience Design Model (Kapp & O’Driscoll, 2009).
Serrat (2008) defines storytelling as “the vivid description of ideas, beliefs, personal experiences, and life-lessons through stories or narratives that evoke powerful emotions and insights” (p.1).
The foundational theory for most XR experiences is experiential learning theory. In cases where users create within XR, constructivist learning theory also applies.
XR experiences can include a story arc (See Appendix D), a tutorial of user affordances, intentional user actions, and place the user into first or third person experiences (Spillers, 2020).
Is it worth investing in education with the use of virtual reality?
Yes, we would like to encourage you to find and learn more applications thanks to which you can increase your knowledge. Even if you do not have special equipment in the form of a powerful PC and the entire VR set, maybe your phone supports virtual reality. You can check it using such an application for android phones – link at mazerspace.com.
To sum up – VR can be interesting and useful at the same time. It all depends on how you use the potential of virtual reality.
Research conducted by scientists from the University of Maryland shows that the use of VR goggles allows you to absorb as much as 90 percent. information, and learning by means of a computer – only 78 percent. (https://cmns.umd.edu/news-events/features/4155)
According to analysts from MarketsandMarkets, the value of the global virtual reality market in 2018 amounted to USD 7.9 billion. It is expected to rise to $ 55.7 by 2024. with an average annual growth rate of 33.5 percent.
“The goal of ALOE is to develop new artificial intelligence theories and techniques to make online education for adults at least as effective as in-person education in STEM fields,” says Co-PI Ashok Goel, Professor of Computer Science and Human-Centered Computing and the Chief Scientist with the Center for 21stCentury Universities at Georgia Tech
Research and development at ALOE aims to blend online educational resources and courses to make education more widely available, as well as use virtual assistants to make it more affordable and achievable. According to Goel, ALOE will make fundamental advances in personalization at scale, machine teaching, mutual theory of mind and responsible AI.
The ALOE Institute represents a powerful consortium of several universities (Arizona State, Drexel, Georgia Tech, Georgia State, Harvard, UNC-Greensboro); technical colleges in TCSG; major industrial partners (Boeing, IBM and Wiley); and non-profit organizations (GRA and IMS).
According to the author of the report, one of the participants in the AI education market will be IBM, AWS, Microsoft, Google, Nuance, Century Tech, Blackboard, Pearson, Cognii, Volley.com, Blippar, Knewton, Jenzabar, Content Technologies, PLEIQ, Luilishuo, Pixatel System, Cerevrum Inc., CheckiO, and Quantum Adaptive Learning.
Europe is expected to hold a significant market share with supportive government initiatives.
startup JigSpace, which was among the first apps to support ARKit and LiDAR for iPhone augmented reality apps
“Creating and sharing knowledge in 3D should be simple, useful, and delightful. We’re on a mission to unlock the utility of augmented reality at massive scale and bring interactive 3D experiences into everyday life,” said Zac Duff, co-founder and CEO at JigSpace
Compared to the camera effects from Snapchat and Facebook, mobile AR apps built on ARKit from Apple and ARCore from Google haven’t had quite the impact we expected them to when Apple originally announced ARKit.
A dozen years ago, Richard Rothstein wrote an excellent paper called “Holding Accountability to Account,” showing how incentives can perversely affect and undermine the goal that are sought (it is free on the internet).
In 1990k Andrea A. Gabor wrote a book about W. Edwards Deming called The Man Who Discovered Quality, in which she explained Deming’s contempt for merit pay and bonuses, which cause employees to think about themselves and not about the organization and its larger purposes.
“When reward is tied to measured performance, metric fixation invites just this sort of gaming. But metric fixation also leads to a variety of more subtle unintended negative consequences. These include goal displacement, which comes in many varieties: when performance is judged by a few measures, and the stakes are high (keeping one’s job, getting a pay rise or raising the stock price at the time that stock options are vested), people focus on satisfying those measures – often at the expense of other, more important organizational goals that are not measured. The best-known example is ‘teaching to the test’, a widespread phenomenon that has distorted primary and secondary education in the United States since the adoption of the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001.”
AI is being used to monitor students and their work. The most prominent uses of AI in higher education are attached to applications designed to protect or preserve academic integrity through the use of plagiarism-detection software (60%) and proctoring applications (42%) (see figure 1).
The chatbots are coming! A sizable percentage (36%) of respondents reported that chatbots and digital assistants are in use at least somewhat on their campuses, with another 17% reporting that their institutions are in the planning, piloting, and initial stages of use (see figure 2). The use of chatbots in higher education by admissions, student affairs, career services, and other student success and support units is not entirely new, but the pandemic has likely contributed to an increase in their use as they help students get efficient, relevant, and correct answers to their questions without long waits.Footnote10 Chatbots may also liberate staff from repeatedly responding to the same questions and reduce errors by deploying updates immediately and universally.
AI is being used for student success tools such as identifying students who are at-risk academically (22%) and sending early academic warnings (16%); another 14% reported that their institutions are in the stage of planning, piloting, and initial usage of AI for these tasks.
Nearly three-quarters of respondents said that ineffective data management and integration (72%) and insufficient technical expertise (71%) present at least a moderate challenge to AI implementation. Financial concerns (67%) and immature data governance (66%) also pose challenges. Insufficient leadership support (56%) is a foundational challenge that is related to each of the previous listed challenges in this group.
Current use of AI
Chatbots for informational and technical support, HR benefits questions, parking questions, service desk questions, and student tutoring
Research applications, conducting systematic reviews and meta-analyses, and data science research (my italics)
Library services (my italics)
Recruitment of prospective students
Providing individual instructional material pathways, assessment feedback, and adaptive learning software
Proctoring and plagiarism detection
Student engagement support and nudging, monitoring well-being, and predicting likelihood of disengaging the institution