Strawberry Generation to Gen Alpha: Virtual Reality and Augmented Reality in Education

-




The uses of digital technologies are obvious and the impacts of technology over “generation z” are tremendous. But beyond its surface of recreational capabilities, there are some beneficial ways that can be used in an instructional environment. One of them is to use virtual reality that we first introduced in class with Google cardboard. It is the pioneer that sets an immersive experience to go beyond the entertainment, and it gets weary in time.  Virtual Reality is the simulation of a real or imagined environment that appears as three dimensional (3D) space. Immersion of VR into the classrooms started with affordable devices such as Samsung Gear VR and Google Cardboard and Windows 10 VR (Lawrie,2017). The headsets attached to any smartphone device and free VR apps such as Titans of Space VR or Google Arts and Culture can give a new tune to learning just by hitting the icons in the apps and can help learners to virtualize the themes like space; walking on the moon by involving, imagining, and interacting. Despite all these possibilities, however, the use of VR as an educational tool rests in the hands of schools’ budget and teachers’ perceptions. Self-regulated learners can also take advantage of alternating the way of their learning by experiencing VR to have more in-depth understanding and drill hands-on activities.



In addition, teachers can take students to travel in time to witness some events in history or even the anatomy of human architecture. To put simply, it is a big investment for education but I believe that implementing VR in education and make it accessible in a wider school context makes a big wow in the instructional environment (Pantelidis,2009). Above all, students experience the themes at their own pace by constructing their knowledge and modeling the real world by interacting with the things uncovered or not internalized before.

From constructivist paradigm, VR facilitates learners to interact with the world and develop critical thinking and problem-solving skills. How about integrating virtual and real objects in the same space? Here we call this system Augmented Reality that means combining or “supplementing” real-world objects with virtual objects or superimposed information (as cited in Acosta&at al., 2014). Unlike VR applications, AR allows us to combine virtual and real world seamlessly by using all senses and it does not replace reality.
It elevates students ‘learning because they practice information through 3D dimensional model representations. There are some constraints of using both VR and AR such as leading learners to have cognitive overload or vision problems and so forth, however, these two gems have flamboyant effects on one’s self discovery and critical thinking skills development.

I would like to share some apps if you are interested in AR and discover more about its use in education. There are a bunch of app lists but I picked some on for kids ‘self-learning.
1.    Anatomy 4D: to practice 3D models of the human body (scanned through the camera of any smart device)
2.    AugThat: an app that helps learners to practice topics from Geography, Maths, and Science in 3 dimensions. (**especially for students with special needs)
3.    Arloon Plants: to learn about species of flora around the world and parts of plants
4.    Starwalk: to learn and practice about stars and constellations in the sky. (by pointing the camera towards the sky)
5.    Aurasma: to build your own AR experiences on the web version.

References
Bacca-Acosta, Jorge & Baldiris, Silvia & Fabregat, Ramón & Graf, Sabine & Kinshuk, Dr. (2014). Augmented Reality Trends in Education: A Systematic Review of Research and Applications. Educational Technology and Society. 17. 133-149.
Lawrie,G. (2017) How our school is using Virtual Reality to prepare pupils for a future dominated by technology. Retrieved from https://muckrack.com/graeme-lawrie/articles
Pantelidis, Veronica. (2009). Reasons to Use Virtual Reality in Education and Training Courses and a Model to Determine When to Use Virtual Reality. Themes in Science and Technology Education. 2.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

A GLIMPSE OF READINGS IN EDUCATIONAL TECHNOLOGY

-
Image
      This paper reports on the topics covered in EDT6103 Readings in Educational Technology including the historical development of educational technology and its theoretical, psychological and philosophical foundations; instructional design models; past and present topics and trends in educational technology research; recent and future trends in the area of educational technology. As a requirement of this course, the final report includes discussion of the following topics below and it also reflects our perceptions over the reading tasks throughout the course based on the outcomes of learning objectives and criteria on the final rubric. The sections in this final report are presented the following topics listed below. 1-       Definition and the history of the field of educational technology (ET) and your own definition 2-       Educational paradigms and their effects on ET 3- ...
Read more

Self-Regulated Learning: C'mon You Can Do It!

-
Motivation and Self-Regulated Learning play a critical role in one’s learning as a behavior that is instigated and sustained. Hence, a learner’s engagement and persistence in goal directed learning tasks are the factors affecting motivation and self-regulation. Significant attention is needed to be paid to personal goal setting and ways to develop self-perceptions of control in learning and strategies (Driscoll, 2005). To this point, self-regulation is defined as a process where learners activate and sustain cognitions, behaviors and affects that are systematically oriented in setting goals (Zimmerman et. al., 1989). The self-regulation process can be analyzed in three stages; forethought phase that involves the self-regulatory processes that happen before a person acts, performance phase, in which occurs during the behavior and it involves self-control and self-reflection phase that occur after behavior. Specifically, as an EFL teacher, I strongly believe that effective goals are ...
Read more

Radical Behaviorism and Learned Helplessness

-
According to the basic parameters of language learning theories based on this week’s article titled “Radical Behaviorism” by Driscoll (2005), the paradigm of “black box” referring to understanding behavior and learning, from the lenses of B. F. Skinner in 1950s, vividly depicts that nothing can be known about what goes on inside. As Skinner distinguished respondent; involuntary reaction to a stimulus and operant behavior that inherently emitted by an organism, behavior reoccurs if it has been rewarded or reinforced depending on usefulness and effect on the behavior. It is crucial to re-emphasize the contingencies of reinforcement for instance; giving a class dojo point to a student who does an extra work and do book reports motivates other students to read and do extra work to get more dojo point in order to change the avatar of their dojo monsters so that this behavior enhances the probability of functions however it might also serves as counterintuitive when a student gets minus do...
Read more