Applied Education Futures and the Shape of Things to Come

Skills development across industry and professional sectors is identified as one of the essential drivers of recovery and growth to address the fragility and volatility of post-COVID economies. The window of opportunity for the applied degree sector, to rethink, reset, and ride the skilling and reform agenda to help accelerate economic recovery, business transformation, enhance digital skilling and competences to enable sustainable transformation is in play. This chapter highlights the emergent smart education approaches, intelligent technologies, and opportunities that may be considered critical and transformational in future-shaping a more sustainable, value-added, applied degree sector. © 2023, The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd.

Citizen Science for Deep Ocean Biodiversity: A Crowdsourcing Tool in Support of Conservation

Scientific knowledge plays an important role in providing ecosystem services. However, knowledege from the vast deep ocean is less understood and poses challenges to scientists defying the engagement of participatory science that has proven valuable in other disciplines where biodiversity observing and monitoring have had more tradition. Cabled ocean observatories and telepresence offer an opportunity for collecting data through citizen science and crowdsourcing in the next decades. Science and decision-making will be benefited with the early involvement of citizens and increasing the knowledge for conservation and restoration actions. The "Morphotype Atlas of the Abyssal Megafauna in the Revillagigedo Archipelago in the Eastern Tropical Pacific” is an educational initiative based on volunteer work for the identification of seafloor habitats and taxonomic diversity. It offers student training using as an example of a deep ocean national park in Mexico and uses materials obtained from the live video recording from remotely operated vehicle (ROV) cameras in a collaborative cruise with the Ocean Exploration Trust. The possibilities to explore the deep ocean biodiversity were unique to numerous students during the COVID-19 restriction. This volunteer work inspires amateurs, generates new knowledge, connects participants, and increases their literacy of the deep ocean, whose study is limited due to its remoteness and costly accessibility. Among the challenges to overcome for crowdsourcing is the complex identification of deep ocean organisms. "Immersive virtual reality, " a tool that facilitates understanding through a virtual spatial presence, is being explored in a collaborative effort with the National Commission for the Knowledge and Use of Biodiversity (CONABIO) to virtually represent the deep protected areas in Mexico. Comments on the opportunities and challenges that citizen science can bring in the next decade are presented. © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023.

Immersive Education: Designing for Learning

This book focuses on designing and being a designer of immersive education. It introduces readers to the human experiences within immersive learning environments and contributes research evidence on the effectiveness of immersive technologies in K-12 and post-secondary contexts. Through the chapters, illustrative contextual examples and vignettes demonstrate immersive learning in real-world educational practice. Readers will be equipped to design engaging and culturally relevant immersive experiences for learning in a post-COVID world. Immersive Education: Designing for Learning brings researchers, designers, and educators together to offer pedagogical strategies and design guidelines. The originality lies in integrating theoretical and practical knowledge to design meaningful immersive experiences, with attention to sustainability, community, and creativity. Valuable insights are provided to support students and teachers as immersive learning designers and storytellers. © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022.

Trends Analysis of Virtual Reality Research between 1987 and 2021

The COVID-19 pandemic has dramatically altered the way how we communicate with others. From ZOOM to Meta-verse, an increasing number of people are shifting to the virtual world for work and personal life. However, as a technology, virtual reality is still considered merely a device for immersive gaming for the young generation. Thus, despite itspotential, virtual reality is hardly discussed as acore technology enabling Metaverse, which provides a virtual world for everyone. Therefore, it is necessary to examine prior studies for an understanding full spectrum of virtual reality research. There are three primary aims of this study: 1. To trace the history of virtual reality research for providing a holisticview oftheresearch trajectory. 2. Todiscover prevalent topics during the last 34 years as well as highly cited papers and authors. 3. To find hub topics for identifying the direction of interdisciplinary research. © 2022, Tamkang University. All rights reserved.

INTER/her: An immersive journey inside the female body – Experience reflections

INTER/her is an immersive installation and virtual reality artwork highlighting (post)reproductive diseases that women over 30 frequently experience, including endometriosis, fibroids, polyps, ovarian and other cysts and growths, as well as the more serious cervical, ovarian, uterine and endometrial cancers. The artwork presents an , intimate immersive journey within the inner world of women's bodies, exposing the diseases they can suffer. INTER/her is intended as a personal exploration, conversation starter and community builder. This article discusses the development experience, exhibition and discoveries from INTER/her since its inception to the present. It explores the nature, staging and significance of the piece and what is implicated for future work in this area for art, design and research. It reveals the design process, visual and narrative elements made to represent, convey and understand the emotional and bodily/sensorial experience intended for visitors, as well as the visual metaphors representing the different organs and ailments. It covers the collaborative approach of the design team, using various technologies and the storytelling techniques used in the work during the lockdowns of the COVID-19 pandemic, from autumn 2020 to May 2021. © 2022 Intellect Ltd Article. English language.

Augmented, Virtual and Immersive Reality as Learning Support in TEC21 Educational Model

Virtual, augmented, and immersive reality opens a world of possibilities in education by allowing students to recreate authentic situations, such as operating machinery, assembling a product, or training tool handling, to mention a few. In the TEC21 educational model, the core is the challenge: A project with a real-world challenge assigned by the training partner results in students offering solution proposals.The trigger that accelerated the development of virtual, augmented, and immersive reality activities in distance learning was COVID-19 confinement. During this, these technologies recreated the laboratory and its facilities' learning through augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR) experiences.Using these technologies in the classroom allows students to achieve a great learning experience and develop skills for postgraduate studies and professional futures.Furthermore, now that we have returned to our physical facilities and laboratories, we can accelerate the learning obtained at the training partners' facilities, recreating processes and machinery through these immersive technologies and a hybrid experience for our students.The present research shows the activity learning design process and the statistical treatment of the data to provide continuous feedback during the activity;we examine the three transcendental variables in the educational process: The learning (academic rigor), the development of competencies, and the involvement or immersion of the students in the classroom. © 2023 IEEE.

Impact of VR Application in an Academic Context

Traditional learning has faced major changes due to the COVID-19 pandemic, highlighting the necessity for innovative education methods. Virtual reality (VR) technology has the potential to change teaching and learning paradigms by providing a gamified, immersive, and engaging education. The purpose of this study is to evaluate the impact of virtual reality in academic context by using a VR software instrument (called EduAssistant). The system's features such as virtual amphitheater, search by voice recognition, whiteboard, and a video conference system have fostered a sense of connection and community interaction. The study involved 117 students for VR experience, out of which 97 watched a pre-recorded video and 20 students used the VR headset, and an additional 20 students for traditional learning. The students who used the VR headset achieved a significantly higher mean quiz score of 8.31 compared to 7.55 for the traditional learning group with a two-tailed p-value of 0.0468. Over 80% of the total number of participants were satisfied (4 or 5 out of 5) with the experience and the confidence level when searching through voice recognition was over 90%. The study demonstrates that virtual reality is an excellent approach for changing conventional education. The research results, based on samples, simulations, and surveys, revealed a positive impact of VR and its gamification methods on the students' cognitive performance, engagement, and learning experience. Immersion provided by a virtual assistant tool helped to promote active and deep learning. Experiments based on EduAssistant features suggest that virtual reality is also an effective strategy for future research related to students with disabilities. © 2023 by the authors.

The Role of Immersive Technologies in Urological Simulation

The purpose of simulation is to refine the process of surgical training through valid, reliable, and feasible platforms. Immersive technology describes a spectrum of simulation platforms which balance the physical world on one end and the virtual world on the other. The value of immersive technology in urological simulation has been evidenced by a prolific literature base. This has demonstrated its pedagogic value and cost-efficiency with increasing investments in science and technology in order to advance the models and modalities available to deliver simulation. Urology is a unique specialty, at the forefront of innovative surgical techniques, with a trend towards progressively minimally invasive surgery, featuring a range of laparoscopic, robotic and endoscopic procedures, each associated with a unique learning curve. As a result, it is important to cater the simulation model to the type of urological procedure practiced and the needs of the learner. This chapter also discusses how the implementation of these technologies both in surgical training and in the operating theatre has been accelerated by several historic pressures on surgical training, such as the introduction of the European Working Time Directive and more recently, the COVID-19 pandemic, which exposed deficiencies in existing systems and reiterated the value of virtual platforms. These technologies are beneficial in the formative years of surgical training, aiding the development of technical and non-technical skills as well as in the real-life operative setting, clinical application, enhancing patient treatment and aiding doctor-patient collaboration. Finally, research and innovation consider the potential of immersive technologies to advance surgical practice and techniques by providing an intermediary between laboratory based research and the real world, bypassing some of the ethical concerns associated with conducting research in the context of surgery. © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022.

Study on the acceptance of virtual reality as a complement to the study of human anatomy

Introduction Information and communication technologies have demonstrated their utility adapted to Health Sciences, particularly from an educational perspective. Virtual reality (VR) has become a tool that catalyzes the acquisition of clinical skills before contact with the patient, increasing safety, dexterity in procedures, and reducing the possibility of errors or complications. However, these tools could also offer new approaches for teaching basic subjects for undergraduates (Anatomy, Histology, etc.) and the use of tablets, and especially smartphones, could act as a complementary educational incentive. Methods Two hundred seventy-four students from different levels of the degree in Medicine, were invited to use a VR app on their phones with stereoscopic goggles. The users immerse themselves in the bioscopic anatomy, navigating through different anatomical structures. Results The questionnaire scores were, in general, above 4, reaffirming a positive opinion, except regarding the use of the tool for student exams. Conclusion Universities could increase formative delivery at a reduced cost, while ensuring training quality. The proposed concept of VR also helps to provide a useful learning environment in the COVID-19 scenario. Our results show that the introduction of immersive technology associated with VR and smartphones for medical students can be a welcome complementary or alternative educational tool. Resumen Introducción Las tecnologías de la información y la comunicación han demostrado su utilidad adaptada a las Ciencias de la Salud, particularmente desde una perspectiva educativa. La realidad virtual (RV) se ha convertido en una herramienta que cataliza la adquisición de habilidades clínicas antes del contacto con el paciente, aumentando la seguridad, la destreza en los procedimientos y reduciendo la posibilidad de errores o complicaciones. Sin embargo, estas herramientas también podrían ofrecer nuevos enfoques para la enseñanza de materias básicas para estudiantes universitarios (Anatomía, Histología, etc.) y el uso de tabletas, y especialmente teléfonos inteligentes, podría actuar como un incentivo educativo complementario. Métodos Doscientos setenta y cuatro estudiantes de diferentes niveles de la licenciatura en Medicina fueron invitados a usar una aplicación de realidad virtual en sus teléfonos con gafas estereoscópicas. Los usuarios se sumergen en la anatomía bioscópica, navegando a través de diferentes estructuras anatómicas. Resultados Las puntuaciones del cuestionario fueron, en general, superiores a 4, reafirmando una opinión positiva, excepto en lo que respecta al uso de la herramienta para los exámenes de los estudiantes. Conclusión Las universidades podrían aumentar la entrega formativa a un costo reducido, al tiempo que garantizan la calidad de la capacitación. El concepto propuesto de RV también ayuda a proporcionar un entorno de aprendizaje útil en el escenario COVID-19 Nuestros resultados muestran que la introducción de tecnología inmersiva asociada con la realidad virtual y los teléfonos inteligentes para estudiantes de medicina puede ser una herramienta educativa complementaria o alternativa bienvenida.

Exploration of Immersive Virtual Reality in Teaching Veterinary Orthopedics.

The COVID-19 pandemic has catalyzed the use of novel teaching modalities to enhance the provision of remote veterinary education. In this study, we describe the use of immersive virtual reality (iVR) as a teaching aid for veterinary medicine students during their orthopedics clinical rotation. Student sentiments were assessed using voluntary electronic surveys taken by veterinary students before and after the rotation. The most noteworthy benefits students reported were improved engagement with the course content, information retention, radiographic interpretation, and clinical reasoning skills. Obstacles encountered during the initial stages of the program included financial and temporal investment in equipment and content development, technical troubleshooting, and motion sickness. Though it is unlikely that iVR will ever fully replace hands-on learning experiences, it presents an educational opportunity to supplement traditional learning methods, motivate students, and fill information gaps. As iVR technology continues to evolve and improve, potential applications in the veterinary curriculum grow, making the modality's use progressively more advantageous. Although this study describes its application in an orthopedic setting, the versatility of the iVR modality lends the potential for it to be implemented in a number of clinical and didactic settings.

The application of augmented reality in plastic surgery training and education: A narrative review.

Continuing problems with fewer training opportunities and a greater awareness of patient safety have led to a constant search for an alternative technique to bridge the existing theory-practice gap in plastic surgery training and education. The current COVID-19 epidemic has aggravated the situation, making it urgent to implement breakthrough technological initiatives currently underway to improve surgical education. The cutting edge of technological development, augmented reality (AR), has already been applied in numerous facets of plastic surgery training, and it is capable of realizing the aims of education and training in this field. In this article, we will take a look at some of the most important ways that AR is now being used in plastic surgery education and training, as well as offer an exciting glimpse into the potential future of this field thanks to technological advancements.

The Van Gogh Experience Transgressions of Concept, Design, and Writing

This experimental writing both embodies and interrogates how creative work that is re-mixed and re-presented also creates multivalent "experiences.” A menagerie of quotations performs both a narrative-of-thinking and open-ended discursive potential. The work asks: Can this manuscript both analyze and perform a subversion, problematizing notions of authenticity, authorship, ownership, production, distribution, reception, and meaning? Can immersion in fragmented, derivative writing produce an affective experience in line with a contemporary post-pandemic and technologically- and social-media-immersive "structure of feeling”? The excerpts include discussions of Vincent Van Gogh's work recently presented as popular "immersive experiences”;discourse on the commodification, reproduction, and authenticity of art;views on artistic presentation in a pandemic- and technology-infused era;and quotations concerning (and drawn from work in) deconstruction, authorship, and avant-garde fiction, further extending interpretative potential. Where does it start, where does it take you, and where do you feel it?. © 2023 by the Regents of the University of California. All rights reserved.

Impact of VR Application in an Academic Context

Traditional learning has faced major changes due to the COVID-19 pandemic, highlighting the necessity for innovative education methods. Virtual reality (VR) technology has the potential to change teaching and learning paradigms by providing a gamified, immersive, and engaging education. The purpose of this study is to evaluate the impact of virtual reality in academic context by using a VR software instrument (called EduAssistant). The system's features such as virtual amphitheater, search by voice recognition, whiteboard, and a video conference system have fostered a sense of connection and community interaction. The study involved 117 students for VR experience, out of which 97 watched a pre-recorded video and 20 students used the VR headset, and an additional 20 students for traditional learning. The students who used the VR headset achieved a significantly higher mean quiz score of 8.31 compared to 7.55 for the traditional learning group with a two-tailed p-value of 0.0468. Over 80% of the total number of participants were satisfied (4 or 5 out of 5) with the experience and the confidence level when searching through voice recognition was over 90%. The study demonstrates that virtual reality is an excellent approach for changing conventional education. The research results, based on samples, simulations, and surveys, revealed a positive impact of VR and its gamification methods on the students' cognitive performance, engagement, and learning experience. Immersion provided by a virtual assistant tool helped to promote active and deep learning. Experiments based on EduAssistant features suggest that virtual reality is also an effective strategy for future research related to students with disabilities.

Interaction with Immersive Cultural Heritage Environments: Using XR Technologies to represent multiple perspectives on Serralves Museum

Museums have increasingly been using digital approaches to explore new ways to provide new experiences with Cultural Heritage (CH). The need for these solutions exploded with the COVID-19 pandemic forcing museums and cultural organizations to move towards a digital transformation to engage their audiences. Although, with a lack of guidelines on how to create eXtended Reality (XR) experiences with multiple perspectives for CH environments. This project aims to provide Museums with novel approaches to include interactive and immersive activities targeted at the cultural assets of their exhibitions and educational activities. Firstly, we will map and critically access current participatory practices in museums;then, we will develop a new methodology for creating and implementing experiences using XR technology in a range of workshops. The concept of multiple perspectives on cultural heritage will be explored through the application of co-creation practices, towards engaging different communities with cultural heritage contents from Serralves Museum. © 2022 ACM.

Enhancing Immersive User Experience Quality of StudoBot Telepresence Robots with Reinforcement Learning

The pandemic situation (Covid 19) brought new challenges in the education sector while simultaneously presenting unique opportunities for technology enabled services. The use of Mobile Robotic Telepresence systems in educational sector is promising as it provides means to significantly enhance the involvement and benefits to stakeholders involved in such interactions. An immersive user interaction with such a system depends on many aspects which are both static and dynamic. We approach the dynamic aspect of such interactions recognizing that the video and audio aspects of such a system will require fine tuning and adaptation. Closely related is the aspect of maintaining the necessary quality of network connection. Considering each of these aspects a reinforcement learning mechanism is incorporated to improve the overall user experience with such a system. A working system is built and experiments performed to demonstrate the effectiveness of the approach. Reward generation matrix, a crucial piece of data gathering from the environment, takes about 45 minutes, offline training time is less than a second, while the robot is able to cover the workspace in slightly less than a minute. The system is not limited to educational sector alone and provides a foundational framework to extend the concepts and principles to adjacent markets. © 2023 IEEE.

Metaverse in Education: a systematic review

The Addressing the new educational needs and requirements still remains a challenge. Moreover, due to the COVID-19 pandemic and the technological advancements, learning environments are being transformed. Metaverse is a computer-generated lifelike 3D virtual extension of the physical world as it immerses users, allows them to interact with others and with digital objects, and eliminates the constraints of distance and time differences. It is characterized by persistence, interactivity, and embodiment. The use of the metaverse in educational and training processes to create new learning environments that allow learners to function in a parallel, safe and personalized reality is gaining ground. The aim of this study is to analyze the existing research into the metaverse in the educational field. Hence, a systematic literature review has been carried out using the Web of Science (WoS) and Scopus databases. To provide more complete and constructive results, no year, educational level, or subject restrictions were set. As metaverse is a new topic and taking the inclusion and exclusion criteria into account, a total of 17 articles has been analyzed. Based on the findings, metaverse has the potential to enrich and transform education and lead to increased learning outcomes and enhanced students' engagement and motivation. Despite this fact, the use of metaverse in education is in its infancy, thus, more research and experiments should be carried out in all educational levels and populations to assess its impact and improve its effectiveness. Finally, the need for designing valid instruments to evaluate the educational experiences generated within the metaverse was evident. © 2023 Universidad de Murcia. All rights reserved.

"A terrible beauty is born”: using Yeats to respond to Last Words, November 2021

In 2021, I attended the first National Communication Association conference since 2019 (before the COVID-19 pandemic began), and I participated in Kirt Shineman's experimental collaborative performance, Last Words. In response to Shineman's curation of historic texts in an experimental form, this response reflects on my immersive audience member <-> performer experience, and concludes by using William Butler Yeats' "Easter 1916” (and other Yeats texts) to craft a poetic reply to the content, form, and 1916/2021 time periods of Last Words. © 2023 National Communication Association.

Virtual Reality and Augmented Reality Applied to E-Commerce: A Literature Review

The massification of technologies, the implementation of 5G and the Internet of Things (IoT), allow implementing systems that contain virtual or augmented reality or implementation of both. In this sense, the covid 19 pandemic in the last years, has also affected people's behavior and leaned to shop without leaving their homes. VR, RA, and/or MR techniques are currently widely used for medicine, education, and entertainment, among others. In this study, we combine both elements to analyze the literature on e-commerce and the use of VR, AR, and/or RM. Searching and analyzing recent scientific articles were defined, and virtual reality is the most used, followed by the mixture of RV and RA, the above to improve the shopping experience, providing the customer with a more authentic and immersive environment. In future works, we will expect to expand this study, including how to evaluate the shopping experience and relate it to the customer experience. © 2022, The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG.

Facial Affect Recognition in Depression Using Human Avatars

This research assesses facial emotion recognition in depressed patients using a novel dynamic virtual face (DVF) collection. The participant sample comprised 54 stable depressed patients against 54 healthy controls. The experiment entailed a non-immersive virtual reality task of recognizing emotions with DVFs representing the six basic emotions. Depressed patients exhibited a deficit in facial affect recognition in comparison to healthy controls. The average recognition score for healthy controls was 88.19%, while the score was 75.17% for the depression group. Gender and educational level showed no influence on the recognition rates in depressed patients. As for age, the worst results were found in older patients as compared to other cohorts. The average recognition rate for the younger group was 84.18%, 78.63% for the middle-aged group, and 61.97% for the older group, with average reaction times of 4.00 s, 4.07 s, and 6.04 s, respectively.

VR REAL RUN: An immersive Oculus Quest 2-Based Virtual Reality Exergaming

There are many different types of exergaming, but one of the most engaging one is the one with virtual reality. This type of gaming allows you to immerse yourself in a completely different world, and it can be a lot of fun. Due to Covid-19 pandemic many people resort to their usual exercise activities and opt to do it at home yet only to find a monotonous and boring fitness routine. VR Real Run is aimed to give a solution on how to have fun and to get fit at the same time. By using the latest and front runner in the VR headsets products, the Oculus Quest 2, we developed an exergame that require user to run in place and jump to play. It also features high score to motivate users in perform better in the next session. A black box test has been well performed and a usability test was came out with a 79 SUS score which translate the application as 'good' therefore its usability is acceptable. © 2022 IEEE.