Hey there! Time to reflect on the end of my week and share all the exciting things that went down.
So, my research group has been fully immersed in exploring the incredible potential of VR for learning. We kicked things off by delving into articles of our choice that discussed using VR for educational purposes. I stumbled upon this fascinating article called “Signaling in Virtual Reality Influences Learning Outcome and Cognitive Load.” The researchers conducted a thorough analysis of cognitive processes and made some intriguing discoveries.
According to the study, annotations in VR environments have a positive impact on learning outcomes, specifically in recall tasks. It turns out that annotations assist learners in selecting and integrating information at a surface level. Moreover, the study highlighted that learners invested more mental effort when using annotations, which suggests that additional factors contribute to this increase beyond cognitive load. They even mentioned that future studies should explore the role of learner motivation. It’s exciting to see how incorporating annotations in our VR environment can enhance both learning outcomes and mental effort, especially for tasks requiring recall. We can consider including textual annotations or prompts that guide learners in understanding the specific rules and values associated with academic research writing. By providing explicit cues and explanations within the VR environment, we can help learners better comprehend and remember the genre-specific aspects of research writing.
Now, let’s talk about the luncheon lecture with Dr. Fleming. It was a fascinating experience learning about his passion for engineering. The way he spoke about the subject was infectious, and it sparked my curiosity even more. It’s these types of interactions that make being part of a research group so rewarding—getting exposed to diverse perspectives and expanding our knowledge in unexpected ways.
On a lighter note, this week we decided to have some fun and watch the movie Coco as an extracurricular activity. Now, I’ve seen that movie like four times already, but let me tell you, it still manages to tug at my heartstrings every single time. It’s a beautiful reminder of the importance of family, dreams, and remembering our loved ones.
And also on Saturday, we took a trip to the library, and boy, did I stumble upon a treasure trove of cool Marvel comics. I couldn’t find these gems at my local library back home, so it was a pleasant surprise. I managed to grab one of them and spent some quality time getting lost in the pages.
That wraps up the end of my week, it was really fun!
When I tried VR for the first time during our VRAC tour, I was at first amazed but soon began to realize the potential to teach others through an immersive learning environment. I think incorporating prompts or annotations sounds like a great idea, and I can’t wait to see how your research project turns out in the coming weeks.