Closing webinar series: The Reality of Virtual Reality in Learning and Instruction

This webinar series focussed on the design, research, and implementation of virtual, augmented, and mixed reality (VR/AR/MR) in learning and instruction across diverse educational disciplines, settings and levels. Four international experts in new media-based, technology-enhanced learning, along with our own research team at Roskilde University’s Centre for Virtual Learning Technologies, provided research-informed insights into what potentials these rapidly evolving technologies offer for learning and instruction, how to design interactive VR learning and instructional environments (e.g. in science education), what are the different challenges and issues in designing and implementing instructional VR/AR/MR interventions, and some of the other most pertinent questions that are still largely unanswered.

On the first day (14 September 2021), the webinar series opened with a warm and insightful welcome by our own Pro-rector at RUC, Peter Kjær, who walked the attendees through the journey of the Centre for Virtual Learning Technology, from how it came to be founded, to the conclusion of its project on the Impact of Virtual Reality on Science Education.

Peter’s welcome address was followed by the first webinar of the series by Thomas Cochrane (Associate Professor, Technology-en

hanced Learning in Higher Education, the University of Melbourne, Australia) who talked about “Designing Authentic Learning through Enhanced Immersive Reality – bridging the virtual and physical learning environments”. 
Candace Walkington (Associate Professor, Mathematics Education and Learning Sciences, Southern Methodist University, Dallas, Texas, USA) delivered the second webinar of the series, with her talk focussed on “Using mixed reality environments to support mathematical reasoning through embodiment and collaboration”. The final event of the day was an exciting talk from one of the most renowned researchers in the field of embodied and immersive learning, Mina C. Johnson (Research Professor, Department of Psychology, Arizona State University, Tempe, Arizona, USA, President, Embodied Games, LLC), on “Optimal XR Educational Content: Lessons Learned and Some Design Guidelines”. The day ended with a synthesis and follow up discussions, weaving the three talks together.

Day Two (15 September 2021) of the webinar series began with a multi-disciplinary and multi-speaker presentation by the hosts, the Research Team (Biljana Mojsoska, Morten Erik Møller, Per Meyer Jepsen, Praveen Ramasamy, and Prajakt Pande) at RUC’s Centre for Virtual Learning Technologies. The team systematically shared the research of the project as discussed in Chapters 2 and 3 of this report. Michelle Lui (Designer and researcher, Postdoc, Institute of Communication, Culture, Information and Technology, University of Toronto, Mississauga, Canada) delivered the final webinar of the event, which concluded with follow-up discussions, and a brief synthesis of the contents of the talks across the two days.