The ETX Center is one of the leaders in advancing the technology and learning design of what we refer to as immersive, interactive virtual field trips. I have previously published a curriculum & instruction study describing the design ideas behind these products and demonstrating their educational effectiveness. Future work will explore the value of specific design approaches within virtual field experiences (VFEs) as well as their capacity to develop learners' understanding of the process of science or transdisciplinary connections that go beyond science.

Terminology

As a short note on terminology, for many years we called these iVFTs, but, although I continue to believe that the immersive qualities of these browser-based experiences is important, it is clearly the case that headset-based virtual reality brings a far greater feeling of immersion than a web browser can. In particular, a fellow researcher, Dr. Alex Klippel made this point while offering his own definition and usage of "iVFT". The phrase "field trip" is also potentially more limiting than necessary, so for all of these reasons I now prefer the more general virtual field experience (VFE).

Research to Date

The two empirical studies of the value of VFEs for learning that I have published (the paper above and a more recent one). Both employed a pretest/posttest design and both showed statistically significant and typically large learning gains for students who complete the VFEs. These studies were conducted in both high school and undergraduate settings. I was also a co-author with Dr. Tom Ruberto and others on a comparative study of learning in VFEs, which showed them to be associated with larger learning gains than an in-person field trip.

Finally, I am the education research lead for an NSF-funded project to build an VFE-based learning experience teaching polar science, called Polar Explorer. The learning design of Polar Explorer will draw on everything we at the ETX Center have learned about how to use this technology to convey a sense of place and to promote active and inquiry-based learning.

New Technology

Earlier in our work with VFEs, our work went well beyond what a non-expert could reasonably do. In other words, although instructors may have good ideas for their own VFEs, there was no clear way for them to create something that was similarly immersive and that included a structured lesson. Thanks to efforts across several ETX-related projects, I am excited to say it is increasingly possible for an instructor or researcher to build sophisticated VFEs that provide immersion through 360° imagery (and even 360° video).

Complete details about the software used can be found below.

Collaborators

For the published papers, authorship is clearly stated, but that doesn't always or completely describe credit and influence for work that spans research, lesson development (learning design), and technology. For that reason, I'd like to briefly give credit to some of the many people behind the VFE work I've been involved in.

• Although I have not worked with her closely myself, Prof. Carol Oliver was key in bringing together the core of people who would continue to work on VFEs at ASU to this day.
• Central to this group has been Geoffrey Bruce. Geoffrey's expertise in educational technology, use of immersive media, and continued innovation and creativity in learning design strategies within VFEs is key to the success and productivity that this group has had.
• Dr. Wendy Taylor, a paleontologist and science educator, has served as both the science content expert for VFEs and as a contributing learning designer.
• Dr. Tom Ruberto, a fellow discipline-based education researcher, has carried out research on the effectiveness of VFEs, explored how those without prior training might create their own VFEs, and helped advocate for greater classroom use of these materials.
• Prof. Steve Semken has, like Wendy, served as a subject expert. His work on sense of place has also been very important to our conception of what VFEs can or should seek to accomplish.
• Prof. Ariel Anbar has also been influential in many ways, not the least of which being founding the ETX Center, which has allowed myself and many others to have the institutional and funding support necessary to build these experiences.

Software

Our approach to VFEs relies on presenting interactive 360° imagery to the student/learner. The challenge is that a web browser can't natively display or support interactivity with images in that format. Garden Gnome's Pano2VR software has long been our solution for that. So much so, in fact, that we now have a working relationship with the company to provide a simple and more user-friendly version of the software to enable our Tour It product.

Previously much of the lessons themselves and the adaptive learning capabilities that sit on top of the 360° media were build using Smart Sparrow. Because that company is now defunct, we now use the Torus platform. This open-source tool is developed by the Open Learning Initiative at Carnegie Mellon University, which has been an excellent partner for ETX.