Design and Application of Interactive and Immersive Instructional Systems.
Course materials at: http://depts.washington.edu/edtech/587.htm
The purpose of this course is to introduce you to interactive computer-based technologies, particularly virtual and augmented reality, that are beginning to find their place in education and training. This is not a “hands-on” course, although we will take time to experience virtual environments. The main emphasis is on conceptual (and some technical) issues that surround the design, development, application and assessment of these environments. In particular, the following issues recur throughout the course:
Cognitive issues: The demonstrated and likely effectiveness, or lack of it, with which interactive and immersive environments help students construct understanding of concepts and principles.
Human factors issues: How to design effective environments within the constraints imposed by current interface technologies; and how to improve the interfaces to make learning easier to achieve.
Affective issues: The value of heightening the engagement, or “presence”, a learner experiences in an interactive environment, and strategies for improving engagement.
Technical issues: While not a major emphasis in the course, some of you may have the chance to work on the construction of environments and will experience the difficulties and rewards of working with hardware and software that are always under development.
With this emphasis, by the end of the course you will have acquired an understanding of current theories of how people learn in interactive and immersive environments and, with that knowledge as a starting point, you will have begun to understand the design principles for effective learning environments and how they fit with more traditional principles of instructional design and pedagogy.
There is no text for this course. All assigned readings are on-line documents or handouts. The URLs of the documents you are to read each week are given in the schedule below. I will provide any handouts the week before we discuss them.
January 3. Introduction to course. Learning environments, “Umwelt”, models, simulation, Augmented Reality (AR), Virtual Reality (VR).
January 10. Demonstration and discussion of learning environments. Students visit a virtual environment and analyze the experience from phenomenological, cognitive and technical points of view. Class meets in HIT Lab. (Fluke Hall).
Billinghurst, M., & Kato, H. (2002). Collaborative Augmented Reality. (Handout)
Billinghurst, M., Kato, H., & Poupyrev, I. (2001). The Magic Book: Moving seamlessly between reality and virtuality. IEEE Computer Graphics and Applications, May/June. (Handout)
Winn, W.D. (2005). What we have learned about VR and learning and what we still need to study. Keynote address, Proceedings, Laval Virtual 05, Laval, France.
January 17. Conceptual framework for learning in immersive and interactive environments. “First-hand” and “Mediated” learning experiences. Knowledge construction in immersive and desktop environments.
Dede et al. (1998) http://www.virtual.gmu.edu/pdf/Jacobson.pdf (If you didn’t read this in EDC&I 510)
Kommers & Zhiming. Virtual reality for education. http://projects.edte.utwente.nl/proo/kommers.htm
Moshell, Hughes & Loftin (2002). Virtual reality as a tool for academic learning. In K. Stanney (Ed.), Handbook of Virtual Environments. Erlbaum.
Winn, W.D., & Windschitl, M. (2001). Learning in artificial environments. Cybernetics and Human Knowing. Cybernetics and Human Knowing, 8, (4), 5-23. (Handout)
January 24. Presence in interactive and immersive learning environments. The added value of presence. How to enhance presence through interface design and the logic of an environment’s behavior.
Hoffman, H.G. (2004). Virtual reality therapy. Scientific American, August. (Handout).
Difede, J. & Hoffman, H.G. (2002). Virtual reality exposure therapy for World Trade Center post-traumatic stress disorder: A case report. http://www.hitl.washington.edu/people/hunter/wtcbrenda.pdf
Witmer, B.G., & Singer, M.J. (1998). Measuring presence in virtual environments: a presence questionnaire”, Presence: Teleoperators and Virtual Environments, 7, 225-240. http://mitpress.mit.edu/journals/PRES/ps00734.pdf
Waterworth, J., & Waterworth, E. (2003). The meaning of presence. http://www.informatik.umu.se/%7Ejwworth/PRESENCE-meaning.htm
January 31. Learning by visiting virtual environments. Evidence for the relative value of immersion and interaction.
Reports on the Science Space Project http://www.virtual.gmu.edu/
Hay, K., Marlino, M. & Holschuh, D. (2000). The virtual exploratorium: Foundational research and theory on the integration of 5-D modeling and visualization in undergraduate geoscience education. In B. Fishman & S. O’Connor-Divelbliss (Eds.), Proceedings: Fourth International Conference of the Learning Sciences. Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum. http://www.umich.edu/~icls/
Hedley, N., Billinghurst, M., Postner, L., May, R. and Kato, H. (2001). Explorations in the use of Augmented Reality for Geographic Visualization. Presence, 11(2), 119-133. http://www.hitl.washington.edu/cgi-bin/mit.cgi?refno=364
Rose, H. (1997) Design and construction of a virtual environment for Japanese language instruction. http://www.hitl.washington.edu/publications/r-96-6/
Johnson, A. et al. (1998). The NICE project: Learning together in a virtual world. http://www.evl.uic.edu/aej/vrais98/vrais98.2.html
Winn, W.D., Windschitl, M., Fruland, R., & Lee, Y. (2002). When does immersion in a virtual environment help students construct understanding? In P. Bell & R. Stevens (Eds.), Proceedings of the International Conference of the Learning Societies, ICLS 2002. Mawah, NJ: Erlbaum. (Handout)
Winn, W.D., Stahr, F., Sarason, C., Fruland, R., Oppenheimer, P., & Lee, Y-L (2006). Learning oceanography from a computer simulation compared with direct experience at sea. Journal of Research in Science Teaching.
February 7. Humanizing and socializing learning environments. Avatars, agents and making learning environments places where people can interact with one another.
Gratch & Marsella (2001). Tears and fears: Modeling emotions and emotional behaviors in synthetic environments. And other papers at http://www.isi.edu/~marsella/webpapers3.html
Hill et al. (2003). Virtual humans in the Mission Rehearsal Exercise System. http://www.isi.edu/~marsella/KI-Journal-2003-Hill.pdf
Mukherjee, A. et al. (2004). Implementing a general purpose framework using multi-agents for construction management education. (Handout).
February 14. Learning by building virtual environments. “Constructivism” and “Constructionism”.
Barab, S.A., Hay, K.E., Squire, K., Barnett, M., Schmidt, R., Karrigan, K., Yamagata-Lynch, L., & Johnson, C. (2000). The virtual solar system: Learning through a technology-rich, inquiry-based, participatory learning environment. Journal of Science Education and Technology, 9, (1), 7-25.
An online version is at: http://inkido.indiana.edu/research/onlinemanu/papers/jrst-design.pdf
Sasha Barab. http://inkido.indiana.edu/research/onlinemanu/papers/cogin.pdf
Edelson, D. C., Salierno, C., Matese, G., Pitts, V., & Sherin, B. (2002, April). Learning-for-Use in Earth science: Kids as climate modelers. Paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the National Association for Research in Science Teaching, New Orleans, LA. http://www.geode.northwestern.edu/research.htm
Winn, W.D., Hoffman, H., Hollander, A., Osberg, K., Rose, H., & Char, P. (1999). Student-built virtual environments. Presence: Teleoperators and virtual environments. 8(3), 283-292. (Handout) http://mitpress.mit.edu/catalog/item/default.asp?sid=0B7BBC9C-C908-4B12-ADD1-141794A2D63&ttype=6&tid=909
February 21. Applications of AR, VR and simulation in training and other areas.
Loftin & Kenney (1994). Virtual environments in training: NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope mission. http://www.vmasc.odu.edu/vetl/html/Hubble/hubble.html http://www.vmasc.odu.edu/vetl/html/Hubble/SVE_HAA.pdf
McCloy & Stone (2001). Science, medicine and the future: Virtual reality in surgery. http://bmj.bmjjournals.com/cgi/content/full/323/7318/912
Mellet-d’Huart et al. (2004). An application to train in the field of metal machining as a result of research-industry collaboration. (Handout)
Ota et al. (0000) Virtual reality in surgical education. http://www.vmasc.odu.edu/vetl/html/surgery/vrse.html
Stansfield, S. Shawver, D. Miner, N. Rogers, D. An application of shared virtual reality to situational training http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/xpl/abs_free.jsp?arNumber=512491
Shawver et al. (2000). Design and implementation of a virtual reality system and its application to training medical first responders. Presence 9, 524-556.
February 28. Computer-based environments and the Arts.
Ballet et al. (2002). Virtual storytelling. Using virtual reality technologies for storytelling.
Responsive critters. http://mrl.nyu.edu/projects/improv/index.html
Clarke & Mitchell (2001). Film and the development of interactive narrative. http://www.virtualstorytelling.com/ICVS2001/
Laurel, B. Place Holder project http://www.tauzero.com/Brenda_Laurel/Placeholder/Placeholder.html
March 7. Presentations of students’ work. Course summary.
ASSIGNMENTS.
Complete assigned readings before the class in which they will be discussed.
2. Write an analysis and critique of a Virtual Environment or Interactive Multimedia Environment that is intended to help someone learn something. Your report should include:
A brief description of the environment.
A statement of goals and objectives provided for the environment, or, if these are not available, your best guess as to what these might be.
A description of the intended students, either provided by the producer or estimated by yourself.
Your assessment of the likelihood that the environment will succeed in attaining its objectives, based on:
Ease of navigation.
Clarity of and accessibility of information.
Effectiveness of interactions and feedback.
Effectiveness of learning/teaching strategies.
Extent of guidance provided to learners about how to use the environment in order to learn effectively.
(30% of grade. Due by class on February 9.)
3. Write a report based on ONE of the following activities.
The development of a conceptual or prescriptive framework for the application of interactive and/or immersive environments in your area of interest. You should include a review of relevant literature, and should state hypotheses or draw conclusions about the likelihood of the environment being effective.
The design of an interactive and/or immersive environment to teach something. The report should include a statement of objectives, a description of students, the design itself—script, storyboard, outline—a description of how you would assess the effectiveness of your environment, and a justification for designing it the way you did. You may make “mock-ups” as web pages or powerpoint slides.
c. An “internship” on a current HIT Lab. project. If you choose this option, you will be assisting HIT Lab. staff in one of a number of ways, including: preparing a “white paper” on some aspect of learning from VR; constructing instruments to assess learning from VR; gathering and analyzing; writing a report on a project; designing an virtual environment; writing curriculum materials for use by students before, during and after visiting a virtual environment; etc.
(70% of grade, due last day of class.)
4. Give a brief report of your activities to the class during the last session.