Guidance | Immersive Teaching & Learning

Introduction

With the monumental expansion, of immersive media and their multitude of applications across a variety of industries, the potential of this technology within education and training hasn’t gone unnoticed. A variety of studies, from academia to industry, have increasingly begun exploring and critically evaluating the technological and pedagogical capabilities of Virtual Reality (VR), Augmented Reality…

Brighton’s Immersive Hub & Community

Among the UK’s 47 creative and digital clusters identified by NESTA (2016), Brighton, also known as ‘Silicon Beach’, one of England’s creative hotspots, has developed its own cluster of creative and digital businesses. The creative city is where the arts fuse with technology and where ‘fused’ and ‘superfused’ businesses – those that combine creative art…

Virtual Reality (VR)

Virtual Reality (VR) can be described as “a mosaic of technologies that support the creation of synthetic, highly interactive three dimensional (3D) spatial environments that represent real or non-real situations” (Mikropoulos and Natsis, 2010: 769-770). In other words, VR is the use of computer technology to create a virtual, simulated environment. Unlike traditional user interfaces,…

360° VR & Mobile VR

360° Virtual Reality (VR) is different from synthetic VR (virtual environments which are digitally designed), as it generally involves the viewing and/or interaction with an image or a video of a real-world environment taken at a 360° angle. The 360° image/video can then be experienced through most devices (e.g. desktop, mobile, tablet, Head-Mounted Display (HMD)). The…

Immersive Displays: Concave & Spherical

Immersive displays are often related to a form of ‘Virtual Reality (VR) without headsets’ and/or without any additional devices like mobile and tablet. Generally used for entertainment purposes or artistic installations, within education, immersive screens have gained popularity as effective simulators. Upon the small/medium/large concave or spherical screens anything can be projected (from synthetic content…

Augmented Reality (AR )

Augmented Reality (AR) can be defined as “a newer technological system [compared to Virtual Reality (VR)] in which virtual objects are added to the real world in real-time during the user’s experience” (Cipresso et al., 2018: 4). What this means is that contrarily to VR, which entirely replaces the real world with one that is 3D…

Mixed Reality (MR)

Just like Augmented Reality (AR), Mixed Reality (MR) is a technology that allows “the incorporation of virtual computer graphics objects into a real three-dimensional scene” (Pan et al., 2006: 20). What differentiates MR from AR, is the device used to access the experience: Head-Mounted Display (HMD). Perfect examples of such HMD needed to experience MR…

Accessible Tools & Platforms: ThingLink

ThingLink is an online editing tool that enables lecturers to create interactive images, videos, and 360° media that can be tagged with other information too. The tags can be placed anywhere on the 360° video/image and be created in the form of ‘hotspots’ that, once activated, will display the added information. This can be done…

Accessible Tools & Platforms: Nearpod

Nearpod is an Interactive Lessons editing and sharing platform. An easy to use tool to engage students with interactive activities, connect them through collaborative discussions, and gain instant insight into their learning through formative assessments. Content can be either teacher-led or student-led. Lecturers can incorporate a range of information slides including text, images, videos, sounds,…

Useful Readings & Links

Ai-Lim Lee, E., Wong, K. and Fung, C., (2010). ‘How does desktop virtual reality enhance learning outcomes? A structural equation modeling approach’ in Computers & Education, [online] 55(4), pp.1424-1442. Available at: <https://www-sciencedirect-com.ezproxy.brighton.ac.uk> [Accessed 20 June 2019]. Bailenson, N., J., et al., (2008). ‘The Use of Immersive Virtual Reality in the Learning Sciences: Digital Transformations of…