Virtual reality has existed in the realm of education for over half a century. However, its widespread adoption is still yet to occur. This is a result of a myriad of limitations to both the technologies themselves, and the costs and logistics required to deploy them. In order to gain a better understanding of what these issues are, and what it is that educators hope to gain by using these technologies in the first place, we have performed both a systematic review of the use of virtual reality in education, as well as two distinct thematic analyses. The first analysis investigated the applications and reported motivations provided by educators in academic literature for developing virtual reality educational systems, while the second investigated the reported problems associated with doing so. These analyses indicate that the majority of researchers use virtual reality to increase the intrinsic motivation of students, and refer to a narrow range of factors such as constructivist pedagogy, collaboration, and gamification in the design of their experiences. Similarly, a small number of educational areas account for the vast majority of educational virtual reality implementations identified in our analyses. Next, we introduced and compared a multitude of recent virtual reality technologies, discussing their potential to overcome several of the problems identified in our analyses, including cost, user experience and interactivity. However, these technologies are not without their own issues, thus we conclude this paper by providing several novel techniques to potentially address them, as well as potential directions for future researchers wishing to apply these emerging technologies to education.

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A systematic review of Virtual Reality in education

The purpose of this work is to propose a general instructional design model to teach students in faculty of education, especially in department of educational technology how to design and develop online virtual labs in a common way. We have made analyses of previous instructional design models and related studies in regard to the virtual labs to specify diverse features of the proposed model. It was found that the online virtual labs have no conventional instructional design model, especially for designing and developing stages and also no common shape and components. Based on these results, we have reached to a new suggestion model which guides the students in refinement of the future learning environment using recent technology. In this paper, we also present a list of criteria for designing and developing the online virtual labs.as a modern principles for directing designing process of online virtual labs environments to become instructional products. We have made a derivation of these criteria from previous studies related to the virtual labs, e-Learning technologies and some miscellaneous technological resources in educational technology. These criteria would provide the students with educational and technological guidelines to produce the online virtual labs with high quality and efficiency.

An instructional design model and criteria for designing and developing online virtual labs

The high demand for Information and Communication Technology (ICT) network experts requires the educational development of professionals to be capable of addressing problems from a theoretical and technical point of view. Accordingly, the integration of practical labs into traditional teaching techniques enables ICT High Education students to enhance the quality of their learning environment through the application of theoretical knowledge onto real-life professional scenarios. Three different laboratory models are currently identified: a fully virtualized environment, a combination of physical hardware and software and a fully physical hardware infrastructure implementation. Those solutions are integrated into the didactic environment in order to provide students direct hands-on experience onto theoretical networking concepts. This report aims to evaluate current virtual laboratory models, contrast them in terms of functionalities and capabilities and consequently present the development of a virtual lab solution, characterized by three virtual routers and two end devices, within the Cisco Virtual Internet Routing Lab (Virl) environment. The proposed model has been also evaluated against the same network configuration deployed onto GNS3 simulation software and real network infrastructure. Results demonstrate realistic data confirming the efficiency and reliability of the Virl Simulation environment for the delivery of IT networking subjects in High Education addressing some of the limitations of current GNS3 and Packet Tracer simulation software.

Network simulations and future technologies in teaching networking courses: Development of a laboratory model with Cisco Virtual Internet Routing Lab (Virl)

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Effective Teaching with Technology in Higher Education: Foundations for Success. A.W. Bates and Gary Poole. (2003). Jossey-Bass, San Francisco, 306 pages.

This paper aims to examine the issues related to the Traditional Cisco Laboratory system in particular and evaluate the issues regarding current solutions. This paper reports on an efficient and economical Laboratory system which can be accessed wirelessly by students eliminating the cabling issues and time wastage. The newly proposed Cisco Networking Laboratory is characterized by incorporating Virtual Network Computing (VNC) and Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP) as access protocol and Raspberry Pis as access nodes which are connected to the Cisco Devices. These Raspberry Pi computers act as the interface between the students and Cisco Devices and as well as they serve as a terminal or end computer in the Lab work. The implementation also demonstrates that the newly designed Wireless Cisco Networking Laboratory is perceived positively by IT students of the Study Group, Sydney. The evaluation of the proposed model will be further discussed for further use.

Development of the Wireless Cisco Networking Laboratory pod

With the development of the modern telecommunication systems and networks many new options for providing education services have emerged. A general worldwide trend is the development of distance learning sites and virtual laboratories, which are providing state-of-the-art education in all possible areas and are coexisting with the available on-site and in-person courses and subjects. In the Internet-oriented 21st century many university students have turned to and prefer these electronic and virtual educational resources, not only as additional learning options, but also as primary means for obtaining the latest educational materials by the leading university lecturers worldwide. This process has presented one of the major challenges for the available virtual learning environments - how to make it possible for the students to access, use and work with real equipment. In this paper we present our vision for a virtual laboratory which will provide the possibility for the students to access remotely and in real time the available laboratory set of telecommunication devices. In the Introduction section of the paper we analyze the advantages and disadvantages of the available virtual learning environments. In the next Section we introduce the general conceptual model of the planned laboratory and later we present the actual structure and the organizational requirements for its implementation. The paper continues with a Section, which presents the created virtual laboratory and its capabilities, and is finalized by the Conclusions and References sections.

Ivaylo Ivanov

Papers

Designing the next generation of virtual learning environments — Virtual laboratory with remote access to real telecommunication devices