Development of Open Educational eXtended Reality (OEXR) resources was driven by a need to provide anatomy models for faculty and students for whom access to formaldehyde-preserved specimens was challenging or impossible due to medical conditions, pregnancy, and other factors that limited access to the lab and the lessons. The OEXR virtual assets…

Student engagement, cultural identity and voice in school have been shown to have measurable influence on student learning. Measures of student perceptions of their teachers' cultural engagement, teaching practices and their own voice in schooling are included in this paper. Data from 822 students of teachers who participated in a simulated…

The primary aim of this manuscript is to describe the process of developing a reliable and valid instrument for measuring all users, including students with disabilities, sense of presence in a virtual environment. Presence can be described as feeling a part of another place other than where you are. A seven-step process is discussed and was…

The key to education reform lies in exploring alternative forms of assessment. Alternative performance assessments provide a more valid measure than multiple-choice tests of students' conceptual understanding and higher-level skills such as problem solving and inquiry. Advances in game-based and virtual environment technologies are creating new…

simSchool is a game-based, virtual, and interactive tool that allows pre-service teachers to acquire new skills while constructing knowledge through experimentation with learning situations. Pre-service teachers develop know-how--or heuristic knowledge--through repeated practice in the "Personality Plus Higher-Order Thinking" module to…

In this paper, we explore role-playing and experiential learning approaches applied in an immersive virtual environment for a professional counseling distance course. Training professional counselors requires practice and therefore possesses a challenge for the distant education. Although both counseling professionals' codes of ethics provide…

Smartphones provide a powerful platform for augmented reality (AR). Using a smartphone's camera together with the built in GPS, compass, gyroscope, and touch screen enables the real world environment to be overlaid with contextual digital information. The creation of mobile AR environments is relatively simple, with the development of mobile AR…

Educating the public about wildlife and conservation has long been a core component of many zoos' mission statements (Patrick, Matthews, Ayers, & Tunnicliffe, 2007). However, research has demonstrated that most patrons visit zoos to be entertained and to socialize rather than to be educated. Thus, greater emphasis is now placed on encouraging…

This study compared learning performance during and following AR and non-AR topographic map instruction and practice Two-way ANOVA testing indicated no significant differences on a posttest assessment between map type and spatial ability. Prior learning activity results revealed a significant performance difference between AR and non-AR treatment…

This paper is focused on virtual campuses, i.e. virtual worlds representing real educational institutions that are based on the metaphor of a university and provide users with different learning tools. More specifically, the idea of integrating a virtual campus into the context of a virtual city is suggested. Such a virtual city, where students…

In an age of technological advancement, video games have been found to be effective teaching aids in middle school science classrooms. A National Science Foundation (NSF) project at Ohio University, known as STEAM, (Science and Technology Enrichment for Appalachian Middle Schoolers), has examined Second Life as a curriculum aid through the design,…

The popularity of simulators to augment training programs for operators of heavy machinery has been growing across several industries including mining, rail and more recently construction. High-fidelity, interactive simulation is typically achieved through complete immersion in brief, stressful and complex VR scenarios. The use of simulation…

This article argues for the use of self-study as a research methodology for learning technology scholars to advance knowledge and improve practice in the use of emerging technologies in the classroom. It reports on a self-study conducted on the use of the Second Life multi-user virtual environment (MUVE) in a graduate level seminar entitled…

This paper proposes extensive applications of virtual collaborative space in order to enhance the efficiency and capability of Digital Campus. The usability of Digital Campus has been experimented in different learning environments and evaluated by questionnaire as that the presence technology and a sense of solidarity influence the participants'…

Creating authentic digital learning experiences associated with classic field trip locations is a growing educational practice. One form of this developing field of educational programming is an electronic field trip, which involves student activities, teacher curriculum, and a live broadcast from the target location. This study provides the first…