Mixed reality (MR) highlights the best of the constructivist learning environment where students can be situated in immersive spaces of their own design. This lively primer will highlight the impact of mixed reality as a means of reclaiming the classroom and breaking through the limits of brick and mortar spaces.
Educators are called to reimagine learning environments, particularly within the online space, in ways that promote access, establish student autonomy over the learning space, and break down the silos and walls that separate students from the real world. Mixed reality (MR), particularly the relationship between learners and virtual worlds, highlights the best of the constructivist learning environment where students can be situated in immersive spaces of their own design. This hybridization of reality within education is powerful in its interdisciplinarity, with more and more examples of this mixture of Career and Technical Education (CTE) and the Liberal Arts education commingling in today’s learning spaces. Educators have the propensity to carve out paths for students as surveyors of a newer landscape, building experiences that are wholly inclusive of various realities. Students carry their unique identities into these mixed realities, opening a space for discussions of equity, social justice, othering and belongingness. Mixed reality, beyond the technology itself, requires learners to negotiate their relationship with the world around them, a critical competency necessary for success beyond the classroom. Educators have an opportunity through the marriage of technology and everyday learning to create a synergy that prepares students for success, both in and out of their lived in worlds.
This informal discovery session will plum myriad opportunities for interdisciplinary applications of mixed reality within online learning. The presenters will offer updated definitions of mixed reality with regards to the spaces that are created by combining the best components of virtual and augmented reality. They will share current tools and effective practices underscoring the opportunity to break out of the brick and mortar classroom, to include experiential online design practices such as online labs, field trips, and historical tours of spaces no longer present. They will continue with a look at a hyflex model for mixed reality, where students can determine their role in experiencing and/or designing the spaces that are utilized as the learning environment. Learners are established as drivers, heroes and creators of virtual worlds, utilizing multiple literacies to construct both knowledge and the actual classroom environment.
Participants will be asked to reflect on what it would mean to reclaim reality for students to remix, taking innovative approaches to designing learning spaces. They will reflect on challenges and opportunities within mixed reality, and examine practical approaches that support learning outcomes and curricular alignment. The presenters will paint a broad picture of the impact of mixed reality of virtual, augmented, and hologram reality technology in transforming teaching, learning, and training in higher education.