Learning by doing and learning through play: an exploration of interactivity in virtual environments for children
01 Jan 2004-Vol. 2, Iss: 1, pp 10-10
TL;DR: This article explores central thread in learning, play, as well as an essentialcharacteristic of virtual reality environments: interactivity, andritical review of examples of immersive virtual reality worldreated for children, with particular attention given to the role and nature of interactivity.
Abstract: The development of interactive, participatory, multisensoryenvironments that combine the physical with the virtual comes as anatural continuation to the computer game industrys constant racefor more exciting user experiences. Specialized theme parks andvarious other leisure and entertainment centers worldwide areembracing the interactive promise that games have made usersexpect. This is not a trend limited to the entertainment domain;non-formal learning environments for children are also followingthis path, backed up by a theoretical notion of play as a coreactivity in a childs development. In this article we explore acentral thread in learning, play, as well as an essentialcharacteristic of virtual reality environments: interactivity. Acritical review of examples of immersive virtual reality worldscreated for children, with particular attention given to the roleand nature of interactivity, is attempted. Interactivity isexamined in relation to learning, play, narrative, and tocharacteristics inherent in virtual reality, such as immersion,presence, and the creation of illusion.
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TL;DR: In this article, a critical examination of democratic theory and its implications for the civic education roles and contributions of teachers, adult educators, community development practitioners, and community organizers is presented.
Abstract: Course Description In this course, we will explore the question of the actual and potential connections between democracy and education. Our focus of attention will be placed on a critical examination of democratic theory and its implications for the civic education roles and contributions of teachers, adult educators, community development practitioners, and community organizers. We will survey and deal critically with a range of competing conceptions of democracy, variously described as classical, republican, liberal, radical, marxist, neomarxist, pragmatist, feminist, populist, pluralist, postmodern, and/or participatory. Using narrative inquiry as a means for illuminating and interpreting contemporary practice, we will analyze the implications of different conceptions of democracy for the practical work of civic education.
4,931 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors present six areas of tourism in which VR may prove particularly valuable: planning and management, marketing, entertainment, education, accessibility, and heritage preservation, and numerous suggestions for future research are presented.
937 citations
01 Jan 2015
TL;DR: A survey on the scientific literature on the advantages and potentials in the use of Immersive Virtual Reality in Education in the last two years shows how VR in general, and immersive VR in particular, has been used mostly for adult training in special situations or for university students.
Abstract: Since the first time the term "Virtual Reality" (VR) has been used back in the 60s, VR has evolved in different manners becoming more and more similar to the real world. Two different kinds of VR can be identified: non-immersive and immersive. The former is a computer-based environment that can simulate places in the real or imagined worlds; the latter takes the idea even further by giving the perception of being physically present in the non-physical world. While non-immersive VR can be based on a standard computer, immersive VR is still evolving as the needed devices are becoming more user friendly and economically accessible. In the past, there was a major difficulty about using equipment such as a helmet with goggles, while now new devices are being developed to make usability better for the user. VR, which is based on three basic principles: Immersion, Interaction, and User involvement with the environment and narrative, offers a very high potential in education by making learning more motivating and engaging. Up to now, the use of immersive-VR in educational games has been limited due to high prices of the devices and their limited usability. Now new tools like the commercial "Oculus Rift", make it possible to access immersive-VR in lots of educational situations. This paper reports a survey on the scientific literature on the advantages and potentials in the use of Immersive Virtual Reality in Education in the last two years (2013-14). It shows how VR in general, and immersive VR in particular, has been used mostly for adult training in special situations or for university students. It then focuses on the possible advantages and drawbacks of its use in education with reference to different classes of users like children and some kinds of cognitive disabilities (with particular reference to the Down syndrome). It concludes outlining strategies that could be carried out to verify these ideas.
641 citations
Cites background from "Learning by doing and learning thro..."
...VR, in general, is widely used in the fields of education and training due to its potentials is stimulating interactivity [7] and motivation [8][9]....
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TL;DR: According to this study, perceived usefulness and enjoyment had a comparable effect on the attitude toward using augmented reality environments, however, perceived enjoyment played a dominant role in determining the actual intention to use them.
Abstract: The ARIES system for creating and presenting 3D image-based augmented reality learning environments is presented. To evaluate the attitude of learners toward learning in ARIES augmented reality environments, a questionnaire was designed based on Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) enhanced with perceived enjoyment and interface style constructs. For empirical study, a scenario of a chemistry experimental lesson was developed. The study involved students of the second grade of lower secondary school. As follows from this study, perceived usefulness and enjoyment had a comparable effect on the attitude toward using augmented reality environments. However, perceived enjoyment played a dominant role in determining the actual intention to use them. The interface style based on physical markers had significant impact on perceived ease of use. Interface style and perceived ease of use had a weak influence on perceived enjoyment. In contrast, these two constructs had a significantly stronger influence on perceived usefulness.
431 citations
TL;DR: Results revealed that flow experiences occur more among boys than girls during gameplay when compared with the narratology of computer games, and challenge and complexity elements of games had more effect on the flow experiences of the children than clear feedback.
Abstract: This study examines children's flow experiences in an interactive social game environment. A total of 33 children aged from 7 to 9 years participated in the study for 6 weeks. Data were collected through observations and interviews. In order to measure the flow experiences of the children, items of a flow scale were administered to the children through interviews. Results revealed that flow experiences occur more among boys than girls during gameplay. While ludology had more effect on the flow experiences of boys when compared with the narratology of computer games, narratology had more effect among girls. Challenge and complexity elements of games had more effect on the flow experiences of the children than clear feedback.
232 citations
Cites background from "Learning by doing and learning thro..."
...Sweetser and Wyeth (2005) stated that players should be given appropriate and clear feedback at appropriate times during gameplay....
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References
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Book•
01 Jan 1916
TL;DR: Dewey's "Common Sense" as mentioned in this paper explores the nature of knowledge and learning as well as formal education's place, purpose, and process within a democratic society, and it continues to influence contemporary educational thought.
Abstract: First published in 1916, this classic continues to influence contemporary educational thought. Considered one of the great American philosophers, Dewey grapples with the nature of knowledge and learning as well as formal education's place, purpose, and process within a democratic society.
15,527 citations
Book•
01 Jan 1980
TL;DR: The gears of my childhood as discussed by the authors were a source of inspiration for many of the ideas we use in our own work, such as the notion of assimilation of knowledge into a new model.
Abstract: The Gears of My Childhood
Before I was two years old I had developed an intense involvement with automobiles. The names of car parts made up a very substantial portion of my vocabulary: I was particularly proud of knowing about the parts of the transmission system, the gearbox, and most especially the differential. It was, of course, many years later before I understood how gears work; but once I did, playing with gears became a favorite pastime. I loved rotating circular objects against one another in gearlike motions and, naturally, my first "erector set" project was a crude gear system.
I became adept at turning wheels in my head and at making chains of cause and effect: "This one turns this way so that must turn that way so . . . " I found particular pleasure in such systems as the differential gear, which does not follow a simple linear chain of causality since the motion in the transmission shaft can be distributed in many different ways to the two wheels depending on what resistance they encounter. I remember quite vividly my excitement at discovering that a system could be lawful and completely comprehensible without being rigidly deterministic.
I believe that working with differentials did more for my mathematical development than anything I was taught in elementary school. Gears, serving as models, carried many otherwise abstract ideas into my head. I clearly remember two examples from school math. I saw multiplication tables as gears, and my first brush with equations in two variables (e.g., 3x + 4y = 10) immediately evoked the differential. By the time I had made a mental gear model of the relation between x and y, figuring how many teeth each gear needed, the equation had become a comfortable friend.
Many years later when I read Piaget this incident served me as a model for his notion of assimilation, except I was immediately struck by the fact that his discussion does not do full justice to his own idea. He talks almost entirely about cognitive aspects of assimilation. But there is also an affective component. Assimilating equations to gears certainly is a powerful way to bring old knowledge to bear on a new object. But it does more as well. I am sure that such assimilations helped to endow mathematics, for me, with a positive affective tone that can be traced back to my infantile experiences with cars. I believe Piaget really agrees. As I came to know him personally I understood that his neglect of the affective comes more from a modest sense that little is known about it than from an arrogant sense of its irrelevance. But let me return to my childhood.
One day I was surprised to discover that some adults---even most adults---did not understand or even care about the magic of the gears. I no longer think much about gears, but I have never turned away from the questions that started with that discovery: How could what was so simple for me be incomprehensible to other people? My proud father suggested "being clever" as an explanation. But I was painfully aware that some people who could not understand the differential could easily do things I found much more difficult. Slowly I began to formulate what I still consider the fundamental fact about learning: Anything is easy if you can assimilate it to your collection of models. If you can't, anything can be painfully difficult. Here too I was developing a way of thinking that would be resonant with Piaget's. The understanding of learning must be genetic. It must refer to the genesis of knowledge. What an individual can learn, and how he learns it, depends on what models he has available. This raises, recursively, the question of how he learned these models. Thus the "laws of learning" must be about how intellectual structures grow out of one another and about how, in the process, they acquire both logical and emotional form.
This book is an exercise in an applied genetic epistemology expanded beyond Piaget's cognitive emphasis to include a concern with the affective. It develops a new perspective for education research focused on creating the conditions under which intellectual models will take root. For the last two decades this is what I have been trying to do. And in doing so I find myself frequently reminded of several aspects of my encounter with the differential gear. First, I remember that no one told me to learn about differential gears. Second, I remember that there was feeling, love, as well as understanding in my relationship with gears. Third, I remember that my first encounter with them was in my second year. If any "scientific" educational psychologist had tried to "measure" the effects of this encounter, he would probably have failed. It had profound consequences but, I conjecture, only very many years later. A "pre- and post-" test at age two would have missed them.
Piaget's work gave me a new framework for looking at the gears of my childhood. The gear can be used to illustrate many powerful "advanced" mathematical ideas, such as groups or relative motion. But it does more than this. As well as connecting with the formal knowledge of mathematics, it also connects with the "body knowledge," the sensorimotor schemata of a child. You can be the gear, you can understand how it turns by projecting yourself into its place and turning with it. It is this double relationship---both abstract and sensory---that gives the gear the power to carry powerful mathematics into the mind. In a terminology I shall develop in later chapters, the gear acts here as a transitional object.
A modern-day Montessori might propose, if convinced by my story, to create a gear set for children. Thus every child might have the experience I had. But to hope for this would be to miss the essence of the story. I fell in love with the gears. This is something that cannot be reduced to purely "cognitive" terms. Something very personal happened, and one cannot assume that it would be repeated for other children in exactly the same form.
My thesis could be summarized as: What the gears cannot do the computer might. The computer is the Proteus of machines. Its essence is its universality, its power to simulate. Because it can take on a thousand forms and can serve a thousand functions, it can appeal to a thousand tastes. This book is the result of my own attempts over the past decade to turn computers into instruments flexible enough so that many children can each create for themselves something like what the gears were for me.
6,780 citations
TL;DR: In this article, a critical examination of democratic theory and its implications for the civic education roles and contributions of teachers, adult educators, community development practitioners, and community organizers is presented.
Abstract: Course Description In this course, we will explore the question of the actual and potential connections between democracy and education. Our focus of attention will be placed on a critical examination of democratic theory and its implications for the civic education roles and contributions of teachers, adult educators, community development practitioners, and community organizers. We will survey and deal critically with a range of competing conceptions of democracy, variously described as classical, republican, liberal, radical, marxist, neomarxist, pragmatist, feminist, populist, pluralist, postmodern, and/or participatory. Using narrative inquiry as a means for illuminating and interpreting contemporary practice, we will analyze the implications of different conceptions of democracy for the practical work of civic education.
4,931 citations
Book•
01 Jun 1995
TL;DR: This paper attempts to cast a new, variable-based definition of virtual reality that can be used to classify virtual reality in relation to other media, based on concepts of "presence" and "telepresence".
Abstract: Virtual reality (VR) is typically defined in terms of technological hardware. This paper attempts to cast a new, variable-based definition of virtual reality that can be used to classify virtual reality in relation to other media. The defintion of virtual reality is based on concepts of “presence” and “telepresence,” which refer to the sense of being in an environment, generated by natural or mediated means, respectively. Two technological dimensions that contribute to telepresence, vividness and interactivity, are discussed. A variety of media are classified according to these dimensions. Suggestions are made for the application of the new definition of virtual reality within the field of communication research.
3,725 citations
Book•
02 Dec 1995TL;DR: In this paper, Nardi proposed activity theory as a potential framework for human-computer interaction research and applied activity theory to video analysis in HCI, and showed that it can be used to make sense of video data.
Abstract: Part 1 Activity theory basics: introduction activity theory and human-computer interaction, Bonnie A. Nardi activity theory as a potential framework for human-computer interaction research, Kari Kuutti computer-mediated activity - functional organs in social and developmental contexts, Victor Kaptelinin studying context - a comparison of activity theory, situated action models and distributed cognition, Bonnie A. Nardi activity theory - implications for human-computer interaction, Victor Kaptelinin. Part 2 Activity theory in practical design: introduction designing educational technology - computer-mediated change, R.K.E. Bellamy applying activity theory to video analysis - how to make sense of video data in HCI, Susanne Bodker tamed by a rose - computers as tools in human activity, Ellen Christiansen joint attention and co-construction of tasks - new ways to foster user-designed collaboration, Arne Raeithel and Boris M. Velichkovsky some reflections on the application of activity theory, Bonnie A. Nardi. Part 3 Activity theory - theoretical development: introduction activity theory and the view from somewhere - team perspectives on the intellectual work of programming, Dorothy Holland and James R. Reeves developing activity theory - the zone of proximal development and beyond, Vladimir P. Zinchenko mundane tool or object of affection? the rise and fall of the postal buddy, Yrjo Engestrom and Virginia Escalante epilogue, Bonnie A. Nardi.
2,201 citations