`Future is old': immersive learning with generation Y engineering students

This paper explores the application of four elements deemed to be essential to immersive learning; immersion, engagement, risk/creativity and agency. The authors discuss the implementation of these four elements within two very different classroom environments, one secondary and one tertiary, to illustrate the importance of students' active participation in the planning, design and development processes of their own learning environments. By transforming both the conceptual and operational environments of both cohorts the authors illustrate the benefits of the development of immersive learning environments. Importantly, such environments must reflect the choices and preferences of the learner as they negotiate their way through the learning journey that best suits their needs. Rather than the imposition of a learning regime considered to be irrelevant, but more importantly 'boring' to the student cohort, the authors argue that immersive learning environments are successful because they are reliant on the students' enthusiastic creation of their own knowledge in collaboration with adults and student colleagues. This study can be applied in all spectrums of education (primary, secondary and tertiary), and in this case, specifically engineering education.

Haptically enabled interactivity and immersive virtual assembly

Virtual training systems are attracting paramount attention from the manufacturing industries due to their potential advantages over the conventional training practices such as general assembly. Within this virtual training realm for general assembly, a haptically enabled interactive and immersive virtual reality (HIVEx) system is presented. The idea is to imitate real assembly training scenarios by providing comprehensive user interaction as well as by enforcing physical constraints within the virtual environment through the use of haptics technology. The developed system employs a modular system approach providing flexibility of reconfiguration and scalability as well as better utilization of the current multi-core computer architecture. The user interacts with the system using haptics device and data glove while fully immersed into the virtual environment with depth perception. An evaluation module, incorporated into the system, automatically logs and evaluates the information through the simulation providing user performance and improvements over time. A ruggedized portable version of the system is also developed and presented with full system capabilities allowing easy relocation with different factory environments. A number of training scenarios has been developed with varying degree of complexity to exploit the potential of the presented system. The presented system can be employed for teaching and training of existing assembly processes as well as the design of new optimised assembly operations. Furthermore, the presented system can assist in optimizing existing practices by evaluating the effectiveness and the level of knowledge transfer involved in the process. Within the aforementioned conceptual. framework, a working prototype is developed.

Through the looking glass : immersive interfaces for participant engagement in blended e-learning environments

This chapter outlines current research profiling students and educators participating in and constructing immersive interfaces in blended e-learning settings. Multi User Virtual Environments (MUVEs) and real world settings augmented with virtual information can generate problem-solving communities where participants gain greater technical knowledge and skills through meaningful and frequent interaction. MUVEs can also generate technical innovation amongst students from diverse disciplinary backgrounds provided students are encouraged to help each other and learn together. After detailing some false assumptions about computer literacy that can stifle meaningful exploration with new technologies in contemporary education, this chapter documents an exemplar involving extensive collaboration between students from different educational backgrounds with diverse technical competencies. The success of this initiative hinges on the willingness of educators to provide a shared learning experience where technology is used to facilitate increased student communication and offers a site for invention, informed critique, industry participation, and a sense of community.

Vision, ambiguity and perceptual possibility : why pictures matter in the critique of stereo-immersive VR

The acquisition of three-dimensional immersive space through advanced digitial imaging technology, suggests a profound shift from the relatively impoverished representational stratgies of two-dimensional pictorial imagery.  This entails an epistemological shift from pictorial representation, to the presentation of actual three-dimensional space through stereoscopic (3D) imagery.  Moreover, it suggests that visuality rather than 'virtuality' is the core issue in understanding the nature of the epistemological shift associated with stereo-immersive VR.

A shift in visual epistemology from 'flat' pictorial representation to three-dimensional stereo-immersion suggests a gainful move toward a visuality imbued with spatial possibilities.  In quantitative terms, these visual-spatial gains may seem self-evident.  However, certain aspects peculiar to pictorial representation are missing from stereo-immersive imaging.  That is lost in stereo-immersive imaging, and how it can be measured?

This thesis proposes that the inherent ambiguity of two-dimensional representations of three-dimensional spatial structure in pictures, invokes a perceptual response in which pictorial spaces elicit 'perceptual possibility'.  The robust three-dimentional spatiality of stereo-immersvie VR foreclosures such possibility.  Through examining stereo-immersive VR in terms of its visuality, the thesis develops a new appraoch to understanding VR that solves some of the issues associated with the problematic concept of 'virtuality'.  In addition, the thesis finds that by placing stereo-immersive VR and pictures within the shared paradigm of 'the visual', an important dimension of pictures that has been overlooked in past analyses re-emerges : the thesis proposes the concept of 'artifactuality' to account for the way pictures are fundamentally, and in the first instance, aesthetic objects for visual perception.  It is in their manner of appearing as pictures, that they are perceived as pictures of something.  It is from this fundamental basis that their many levels of meaning and signification - their manifold 'realisms' - can arise.

This thesis therefore addresses two intersecting problems within the paradigm of the visual: it proposes 1) that analyses of 'the virtual' be grounded in the 'artifactuality' of pictorial perception, and 2) that the spatiality of stereo-immersive VR be reinvigorated by purposefully 'under-contraining' its key percept - the robust, 'solid' stereoscopic structuring of visual space.  This approach opens up the discourse of stereo-immersive VR to new visual paradigms.  The thesis proposes that these be modelled not on the impossibility of 'the virtual', but on the possibilities of visual ambiguity drawn from the analysis of pictorial perception.

Using immersive and interactive approaches to interpreting traumatic experiences for tourists: potentials and limitations

This chapter uses three cases studies - the Melbourne Watch House Experience, the Titanic international travelling exhibition and the interpretation centre underneath the Memorial for the Murdered Jews of Europe in Berlin to discuss the ethics and politics involved in using strategies of interpretation that foster identification with victims.

Through the looking glass : teaching and learning in blended immersive multiuser virtual and real world environments

This paper reports on the participation of higher education students and educators in blended immersive multi user virtual (MUVE) environments and real life teaching and learning experiences. Selected next generation technologies engage students and educators within the virtual socially networked elearning landscape of Deakin Arts Education Centre , and support the interaction of communities of learners in multiple modes, ranging from text and images accessed within the Deakin Studies Online learning management system to the "through the looking glass" virtual world in which the user’s creative imagination transports them to the “other side“ of their computer screens.

These constructed environments enable multiple simultaneous participants to access graphically built 3D environments, interact with digital artifacts and various functional tools, and represent themselves through avatars, to communicate with other participants and participate in collaborative art learning.

Immersive interfaces for art education teaching and learning in mixed reality virtual and real world environments

Selected ubiquitous technologies encourage collaborative participation between higher education students and educators within a virtual socially networked e-learning landscape. Multiple modes of teaching and learning, ranging from real world experiences, to text and digital images accessed within the Deakin Studies Online learning management system and a constructed virtual world in which the user’s creative imagination transports them to the “other side” of their computer screens is discussed in this paper. These constructed environments support interaction between communities of learners and enable multiple simultaneous participants to access graphically built 3D environments, interact with digital artifacts and various functional tools and represent themselves through avatars, to communicate with other participants and engage in collaborative art learning. A narrative interpretative research approach was used to profile the 21st century higher education student learner, to investigate the lived experience and multiple art learning perspectives documented in student visual journal entries and art educator observations to ascertain if an e-technology rich augmented learning environment resulted in the establishment of more effective e-learning communities of practice.

The best of all worlds : immersive interfaces for art education in virtual and real world teaching and learning environments

A collaborative constructivist model of e-learning enabled second year undergraduate students and art educators to establish a community of learners within an augmented immersive learning environment. Artistic practice and work based learning was enhanced through the creation of digital artifacts to support shared knowledge building using authentic learning tasks and social networking.

Immersive interfaces for art education teaching and learning in virtual and real world learning environments

Immersive interfaces for art education teaching and learning in virtual and real world learning environments

Selected ubiquitous technologies encourage collaborative participation between higher education students and educators within a virtual socially networked e-learning landscape. Multiple modes of teaching and learning, ranging from real world experiences, to text and digital images accessed within the Deakin Studies Online learning management system and a constructed virtual world in which the user's creative imagination transports them to the “other side” of their computer screens is discussed in this paper. These constructed environments support interaction between communities of learners and enable multiple simultaneous participants to access graphically built 3D environments, interact with digital artifacts and various functional tools and represent themselves through avatars, to communicate with other participants and engage in collaborative art learning. A narrative interpretative research approach was used to profile the 21st century higher education student learner, to investigate the lived experience and multiple art learning perspectives documented in student visual journal entries and art educator observations to ascertain if an e-technology rich augmented learning environment resulted in the establishment of more effective e-learning communities of practice.

The best of all worlds: Immersive interfaces for art education in virtual and real world teaching and learning environments

A narrative interpretative research methodology was used to investigate collaboration between higher education students and an art educator with the aim of establishing a community of learners. Located, Cloud based and graphically built 3D virtual, socially networked, e-learning environments were used to encourage synchronous and asynchronous student participation in authentic learning and collaborative art practice. Discussion focuses on art educator observations, student visual journal entries, their virtual exhibition of artworks on Deakin Art Education Island in Second Life and student evaluations of the unit Navigating the Visual World. It was concluded that immersion in an e-technology rich blended learning environment resulted in the establishment of an effective e-learning community of art.