OpenSim-Supported Virtual Learning Environment

Abstract

The pedagogical and design considerations for the use of a virtual reality (VR) learning environment are important for prospective and current teachers. However, empirical research investigating how preservice teachers interact with transformative content representation, facilitation, and learning activities in a VR educational simulation is still limited. The purpose of this study is to examine prospective teachers' user experiences in a VR-based learning environment, thus exploring VR-based instructional strategies and providing potential heuristics that assist teachers to integrate VR learning environments into their future teaching practices. Five preservice teachers participated in the study. An OpenSim-supported virtual simulation of a sushi restaurant was designed to enable preservice math teachers to experience 3D simulation-based math teaching and learning. All of the data in this study were collected via video archives, interview, and infield observation. The study results indicated the importance of transformative content representation in a VR educational simulation. The results also informed on the salient heuristics of VR-based learning facilitation and learning activity design.

Education Student Perceptions of Virtual Reality as a Learning Tool

“…The ability to create various environments has made 3D virtual worlds useful for experiencing dangerous or logistically impractical science labs, simulations, and medical experiments, which online students would have great difficulty seeing and experiencing in person (Koglbauer, 2015;Urso & Fisher, 2015). Virtual worlds have also been used to provide virtual tours of real geographic landforms to students of various ages (Argles et al, 2015;Kim & Ke, 2016). The ability to design complex environments makes virtual spaces ideal for providing experiential, constructivist learning experiences (Kluge & Riley, 2008).…”

“…They also appreciated the verbal and nonverbal flexibility of communication available. An exploratory study of preservice teachers experienced in a virtual simulation platform found that the participants appreciated the collaborative nature of the experience while also noting that an emphasis on explanatory communication before the experience and feedback during the simulation is necessary to enhance the virtual simulation experience (Kim & Ke, 2016). Thus, similar to Zeichner and Zilka’s (2016) findings, frequent communication was found to be essential to ensuring positive perceptions.…”

Design and Evaluation of Virtual Compression Testing Machine Based on Multilayer Perceptron for Vocational-Education Virtual Laboratory

“…The use of computers in VLab has a positive impact in the form of games [5], simulators [6], [7], [8], and virtual machines (VM) [2], [9]. Many researchers suggested that teachers [10] and preservice teachers [11], [12], [13] design learning by involving VLab for education [14] starting from educational materials, learning activities, and contents to formulate evaluations [12].…”

Las tecnologías digitales emergentes entran en la Universidad: RA y RV

“…Otro grupo de investigaciones han obtenido como resultado el que su utilización favorece el desarrollo de la inteligencia espacial, la orientación espacial, las habilidades espaciales de la persona y la comprensión visual de los objetos y contextos. Estos resultados se han presentado tanto cuando los alumnos interaccionan con objetos de RA (Alvarez et al, 2017;Carbonnel y Bermejo, 2017; Del Cerro Velázquez y Morales-Méndez, 2017; Lee, Chen y Chang, 2016) como con los de RV (Guo, 2016;Hwang y Hu, 2013;Kim y Ke, 2016).…”