iLRN2021 7th International Conference of the Immersive Learning Research Network

Presentations
 
Fostering Religion Learning Through Immersive Experiences: A Pilot Study
Verena Wetzel, Andreas Dengel
University of Würzburg, Germany
Watch the presentation video

The corona pandemic is forcing all educational institutions to use numerous digitalized forms of teaching due to strict contact restrictions. Since students grow up in an environment already shaped by technology, the assumption arises that such virtual teaching methods, especially those integrating immersive technology, could enhance the learning process of the learners. Especially in the subject Religion, abstract, often intangible and topics without immediate relation to the students’ everyday lives are addressed, resulting in students lack’ of motivation and interest. As several theories and studies have already shown that digitized forms of learning have a supporting effect on factors relevant for students’ learning, an immersive learning environment for learning the topic “Professions in Jerusalem” of the subject Religion was developed, which is a market place in Bethlehem in the time of Jesus. As a time-traveling journalist, the player has the task of interviewing the various profession groups in order to write a newspaper article as the final product. To support the assumption that this immersive experience can foster learning in Religion classrooms, a small sample of ten students was used to evaluate the experience. The results of a pre-/post-test comparison give first indicators that factors influencing learning processes in the Religion classroom can be increased through immersive teaching settings. To address some of the occurred issues during the study, the promotion and expansion of digitization seems to be of great priority in order to realize immersive teaching settings without major problems in the future.
 
 
Learning Organology in Virtual Reality: A Pilot Study for Music Education
Marie Haferkamp, Andreas Dengel
University of Würzburg, Germany
​Watch the presentation video​​​

A method for teaching institutionally that started to rise in the past few years is immersive learning. This article considers the learning success of children on the subject of organology. The question involved is, if a virtual reality environment on the tale “Peter and the Wolf” has a positive effect on the knowledge retention of primary school students relating to various instruments’ sound, appearance, hearing impression and groups. In a first pilot study for evaluating this educational virtual environment, eight children filled out a questionnaire before playing the virtual reality environment and after the learning experience. The findings indicate that the environment on the topic of “Peter and the Wolf” could have a positive effect on knowledge retention for fundamental aspects of organology. These first findings for using virtual environments in Music Education encourage the further investigation of using immersive media for teaching and learning in the subject Music.
 
 
Catching Up With The Future: Language Learning With Extended Reality (XR) & Game-Based Learning (GBL)
Stephanie Woessner
Landesmedienzentrum Baden-Württemberg, Germany
​Watch the presentation video​​​

Education in the 21st century requires rethinking and transforming learning, which in turn requires well-trained educators who do no longer see their primary purpose in transferring factual knowledge to children but whose mission it is to make the world a better place by allowing students to be active learners so they will be able to help shape the future as world citizens. This involves 21st century skills as well as the ability to, for instance, communicate in intercultural settings. Before they can help students develop these skills, however, educators need to master, live and breathe them themselves.
Particularly innovative approaches integrating Extended Reality and game-based learning can help us rethink education. My presentation will focus on different projects my students have worked on since 2012. The projects are all rooted in a mindset that aspires to make intercultural foreign language learning an experience.
The projects will be
- a virtual exchange simulation from 2012-2016 that was an inspiration for further projects when Extended Reality became accessible
- a project where students recreated a novel in a foreign language in VR
- a project focusing on binational creative collaboration and cooperation in VR
- a project idea allowing students to learn about historic events in an approach that combines storytelling, rap music and AR, MR and VR
- an immersive escape game for language learning
- ideas how to use Minetest for learning languages
These projects can all be adapted to different purposes and groups of learners. They can all be implemented by using tools that are easily accessible for all teachers