Virtual reality and education program for educators: Work-in-progress report on the year-long project

In an attempt to engage educators into the virtual environments research community, as well as to understand educational issues relating to virtual reality (VR) in classrooms, we designed a program for educators. The program, which started in summer 1996 with a two-week session, extends for a year through fall and spring mini-sessions and a follow-up summer session in 1997. We have 12 participating educators representing six states of the United States in the program. Nine of these educators are teachers, and the grade levels they cover range from elementary to community college. These teachers (four women, five men) were selected from a nationwide pool of applicants. In addition to the nine teachers, there are three researchers (all men) who work with a large group of teachers at the museum and university levels. The purpose of the summer 1996 session was to introduce virtual reality to participating educators and provide them with an opportunity to explore virtual reality `hands-on' in a variety of subject areas; for example, QuickTime VR, VRML (Virtual Reality Modeling Language), ImmersaDeskTM, Infinity WallTM, and CAVETM (Cave Automatic Virtual Environment). The participants attended presentations on a variety of VR strands, including representational, application, pedagogical and technical aspects. The program facilitated the participants to interact and form collaborations with each other and with NCSA staff and scientists on projects applicable to their classrooms. Throughout the year, we have been working with the educators as they continue to design, develop, refine and test their VR projects and ideas. The program provides teacher perspectives. For example, VR in classrooms suggests developing an assessment framework for learning in VR (such as performance-based), as well as learning of new skills (such as navigating in 3D). In this work-in-progress summary report, we provide an overview of the program concept and related efforts.