Of Bodies and Minds: Immersive Physical Sensor Technologies and STEM Learning

Session Type: Symposium

Abstract

Immersion is comprehensive, active, multi-sensory, and real (or at least realistic) in a meaningful way (Dede, 2009). Whether learners are navigating a virtual world or encountering embedded data in an augmented-reality physical space, immersive learning is tied to movement and place. We examine bodies and minds in immersive STEM learning by spotlighting projects that employ physical sensor technologies in fairly different, yet complementary, ways. Two of the papers involve learners interacting in motion-capture spaces, where the immersive environment is rich but bounded, and two of the papers involve learners wearing physical sensors and engaging in wide-ranging spaces outside the classroom. In all cases, as Barab and Dede argue, “Knowing is a contextual and participatory act,” (2007, p.1).

Sub Unit

• SIG-Applied Research in Immersive Environments for Learning

Chair

• Cynthia Carter Ching, University of California - Davis

Papers

• How to Create Sticky, Embodied Content: Designing and Assessing With Immersive Visual Technologies - Mina Catherine Johnson-Glenberg, Arizona State University

• Engage, Explore, Enact: Teachers’ Designs for Immersive Media - Vanessa Svihla, University of New Mexico

• Using Physical Activity Data Technologies to Capture Pockets of Immersive Experience at School - Victor R. Lee, Utah State University

• “People Who Walk to School Have a Big Advantage”: Physical Sensor Immersion in Life-Wide and Life-Deep Contexts - Cynthia Carter Ching, University of California - Davis

Discussant

• Douglas Clark, Vanderbilt University