Immersive Learning Environments at Scale: Constraints and Opportunities

Abstract

The expansion of online education into massive open online courses (MOOCs) and equipment have created a unique opportunity for delivering immersive learning experiences at scale. However, although the inclusivity of the MOOC ecosystem can be commended, many online courses lack key benefits associated with traditional classroom environments: immersive, engaging, and team-driven learning opportunities. Immersive learning environments (ILEs) address these educational gaps but has not been able to operate at the broad scale that MOOCs offer. Importantly, ILEs address opportunities missing from MOOC systems, they add unique learning opportunities that would also be missing in a traditional classroom. The inclusion of this virtual reality technology is pivotal topic for educational research. This theoretical paper will briefly define immersive learning environments and the potential benefits of incorporating immersive learning environments into scalable educational systems. We will also consider developers constraints on creating these online ecosystem and suggested strategies for overcoming them.

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“…The appropriate use of each of these technologies or techniques will depend on the content and course being taught. For example, Virtual Reality, although effective (Davis et al, 2018; Shubeck et al, 2016), can be expensive requiring extensive human resources to build (Siegle et al, 2020) and have the potential to reinforce bias (Zipp & Craig, 2019).…”

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“…In addition, it is recommended that the AR technology introduction be continually monitored to reflect the ability of the target population (Siegle et al, 2020). As stated, earlier AR technology is becoming more prevalent in higher education (Becker et al, 2017) and may not be completely novel to the current population (Zielke et al, 2018).…”

“…Other forms of AR distribution could be considered in the future. For example, Siegle, Roscoe, Schroeder, and Craig (2020) suggest that immersive technologies for educational purposes may be developed for mid-to-low ranges of devices that are increasingly more available and familiar. For example, the EVP system, or components of the system, could possibly be distributed over phone-based AR systems or other less expensive devices as they become available.…”

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“…The receptacle also utilized virtual technologies to create a cloud-based academic infrastructure over top of the infrastructure already in place at the universities. A concept leveraging social Cloud was proposed that same year (Siegle, R. F., Roscoe, R. D., Schroeder, N. L., & Craig, S. D. (2020, December).…”