From Control to Drift: The Dynamics of Corporate Information Infrastructures

Virtual Reality (VR) has been rapidly recognized and implemented in construction engineering education and training (CEET) in recent years due to its benefits of providing an engaging and immersive environment. The objective of this review is to critically collect and analyze the VR applications in CEET, aiming at all VR-related journal papers published from 1997 to 2017. The review follows a three-stage analysis on VR technologies, applications and future directions through a systematic analysis. It is found that the VR technologies adopted for CEET evolve over time, from desktop-based VR, immersive VR, 3D game-based VR, to Building Information Modelling (BIM)-enabled VR. A sibling technology, Augmented Reality (AR), for CEET adoptions has also emerged in recent years. These technologies have been applied in architecture and design visualization, construction health and safety training, equipment and operational task training, as well as structural analysis. Future research directions, including the integration of VR with emerging education paradigms and visualization technologies, have also been provided. The findings are useful for both researchers and educators to usefully integrate VR in their education and training programs to improve the training performance.

A critical review of the use of virtual reality in construction engineering education and training

Computer simulations have been shown to be effective instruments for teaching students about difficult concepts, particularly in the STEM disciplines. Emerging interface technologies are expanding the modalities with which learners can interact with these simulations, but the effects of these new interactions on conceptual understanding and student engagement have not been examined in great depth. We present here a study where middle school students learned about gravity and planetary motion in an immersive, whole-body interactive simulation, and we compared their learning and attitudes about science with students who used a desktop version of the same simulation. Results of the study indicate that enacting concepts and experiencing critical ideas in physics through whole-body activity leads to significant learning gains, higher levels of engagement, and more positive attitudes towards science. Mixed reality technologies allow for embodied interaction with science content.Whole-body interaction enhances learning of physics concepts.Compared to traditional simulations, embodied interaction leads to higher engagement.Whole-body interaction with simulations increases positive attitudes toward science.

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Enhancing learning and engagement through embodied interaction within a mixed reality simulation

Acquiring argumentative reading and writing practices reflects a key component of recent curricular reforms in schools and universities throughout the United States and the world as well as a major challenge to teachers of reading and writing in K–12 and college writing classrooms. In this review, we consider the contributions of two research perspectives, cognitive and social, that researchers have employed in the study of the teaching and learning of argumentative reading and writing. We address two basic questions: How do these perspectives with their own disciplinary frameworks and logics of inquiry interactively inform how researchers study argumentative reading and writing, and consequently, how have these orientations informed pedagogical knowledge that may support teachers’ understanding of what argumentation is and how it may be taken up in the educational contexts? We analyze relevant conceptual and empirical studies by considering assumptions underlying the cognitive and social disciplinary perspectives, especially in terms of the warrants that those perspectives assume. We also interrogate how these perspectives’ logics of inquiry reveal assumptions about the transfer of learning as supported by instruction and other practices, such as classroom discussion, computer-supported collaborations, and other forms of instructional support. Using empirical studies of the teaching and learning of argumentative reading and writing conducted in grades K–12 and college writing classrooms, we delineate the assumptions that drive the two perspectives and their instructional consequences, arguing that researchers and teachers need an understanding of their assumptions about knowledge and transfer to establish a clear and coherent relationship between theory and practice. We offer a vision for research that integrates the cognitive and social perspectives to argue that the work of literacy research is to reveal cognitive processes and instructional practices that teachers can promote and students can employ for learning how to do argumentative reading and writing.

Teaching and Learning Argumentative Reading and Writing: A Review of Research

Paul A. Kirschner, Simon J. Buckingham Shum and Chad S. Carr (Eds) Published by Springer-Verlag, 2003, xxvi + 216 pages. ISBN 1–85233–664–1

Review of Visualizing argumentation: software tools for collaborative and educational sense-making by Paul A. Kirschner, Simon J. Buckingham Shum and Chad S. Carr Springer-Verlag, 2003

This research investigates the social learning affordances of a room-sized, immersive, and interactive augmented reality simulation environment designed to support children's understanding of basic physics concepts in a science center. Conversations between 97 parent–child pairs were analyzed in relation to categories of talk through which children's activities are structured, and their physical and perceptual experiences are related to scientific content knowledge. We provide a detailed account of how parents guide children's scientific reasoning in this novel learning environment, such as by structuring the exploration, and emphasizing perceptual observations as evidence and data. We argue that this particular type of interactive environment affords activities that support learning of complex ideas in science, empowering parents to provide support to the children's perceptual focus and physical engagement. Our findings contrast with studies on high-interactive immersive environments that have typically shown that children tend to isolate themselves from their social surroundings. Mixed-reality environments, in contrast, appear to support significant social interaction, while still offering children playful and engaging experiences.

Designing for Learning Conversations: How Parents Support Children's Science Learning Within an Immersive Simulation

This paper explores the potential of Semantic Web technologies to support teaching and learning in a variety of higher education settings in which some form of case-based learning is the pedagogy of choice. It draws on the empirical work of a major three year research and development project in the United Kingdom: “Ensemble: Semantic Technologies for the Enhancement of Case-Based Learning” which has been oriented toward developing a better understanding of the nature of case-based learning in different settings, but also exploring the potential for Semantic Web technologies to support, enhance, and transform existing practice. The experience of working in diverse educational settings has highlighted Semantic Web technologies that may be particularly valuable, as well as some of the enablers and barriers to wider adoption, and areas for further research and development.

Case-Based Learning, Pedagogical Innovation, and Semantic Web Technologies

'Ensemble' is an interdisciplinary research and development project exploring the potential role of emerging Semantic Web technologies in case-based learning across learning environments in higher education. Empirical findings have challenged the claim that cases 'bring reality into the classroom' and that this, in turn, might provide the basis for an understanding of the role of Semantic Web technologies in case-based learning environments. We describe how the work of authors including Baudrillard and Deleuze has provided an alternative framework for understanding the relationships between cases and the realities with which they are purportedly associated. We discuss how the idea of the 'simulacrum' has influenced our understanding of learning environments, has informed design and development practices, and has led to a shift in our understandings of the potential affordances of Semantic Web technologies in educational settings.

Cases, simulacra, and Semantic Web technologies

We describe the design and rationale for a project in which a room-sized mixed reality simulation was created to develop middle school students' knowledge and intuitions about how objects move in space. The simulation environment, called MEteor, uses laser-based motion tracking and both floorand wall-projected imagery to encourage students to use their bodies to enact the trajectory of an asteroid as it travels in the vicinity of planets and their gravitational forces. By embedding students within an immersive simulation and offering novel perspectives on scientific phenomena, the intent is to engage learners in physics education at both an embodied and affective level. We describe a study showing improved attitudes towards science and feelings of engagement and learning for participants who used the whole-body MEteor simulation compared to a desktop computer version of the same simulation. We also discuss general implications for the design of technology-enhanced physics education environments.

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Michael Tscholl

Papers

Enhancing learning and engagement through embodied interaction within a mixed reality simulation

Designing for Learning Conversations: How Parents Support Children's Science Learning Within an Immersive Simulation

Case-Based Learning, Pedagogical Innovation, and Semantic Web Technologies

Cases, simulacra, and Semantic Web technologies

MEteor: Developing Physics Concepts through Body-based Interaction with a Mixed Reality Simulation