Abstract
Higher education institutions are increasingly utilizing immersive technology to support interdisciplinary research, teaching, and student development. For instance, Arizona State and Pennsylvania State have established virtual reality (VR) spaces on their campuses to support interdisciplinary research, the integration of VR into teaching, and VR development spaces for students. These spaces provide opportunities for students, faculty, and researchers to explore subjects in new, immersive ways and to experiment with cutting-edge technologies. For example, immersive virtual reality (I-VR) in particular creates a computer-generated, multi-sensory, 3D environment that can be accessed through devices such as head-mounted displays (HMDs), headphones, and controllers and/or haptic gloves (Freina and Ott 2015; Murcia-López and Steed 2016), and has been employed in educational contexts including astronomy, biology, business, engineering, and history. These immersive experiences enable students to interact with the content in a way that simulates real-life scenarios, manipulating objects and exploring environments that would be impossible or impractical to do in real life (Bailenson, 2018; Slater and Wilbur, 1997). The present study features vignettes that illustrate how faculty at a North American university are utilizing immersive technology in their teaching and research endeavors. These vignettes form a critical component of our larger initiative to expand immersive spaces for faculty across the university. The study highlights faculty perspectives, challenges, and requirements when integrating immersive technology such as VR and augmented reality (AR) into their courses. By exploring how higher education instructors are currently utilizing or are seeking to use VR/AR, the study provides a comprehensive understanding of how this technology can be incorporated into higher education.
Author Information
Brooke Marton McGowin, Virginia Tech, United States
Paper Information
Conference: ECE2023
Stream: Higher education
This paper is part of the ECE2023 Conference Proceedings (View)
Full Paper
View / Download the full paper in a new tab/window
To cite this article:
McGowin B. (2023) Exploring Immersive Reality: Case Studies From a North American University ISSN: 2188-1162 The European Conference on Education 2023: Official Conference Proceedings https://doi.org/10.22492/issn.2188-1162.2023.29
To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.22492/issn.2188-1162.2023.29
Comments
Powered by WP LinkPress