The Use of Mixed-Reality Technologies to Foster Cross-Curricular Learning Opportunities

• In Event: Enhancing Educational Equity Through Digital Learning

Abstract

Worldwide there is a growing recognition of the importance of attracting students into science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) subjects at schools (Ng, 2019). To reinforce the importance of technology subjects, NZ has redeveloped the Digital Technologies (DT) learning area to ensure that all students, from the first year of school, develop a fundamental understanding around Computer Science. The focus has been to move students away from just using digital technologies, to rather teach students how to develop their own digital artefacts. The move was prompted to expose students to this subject early in their learning in the hope students would be more likely to pursue Technology subjects later in their schooling.
This change has wide implications, for schools, however, this approach also has the potential to address fundamental equity issues. While access to technology remains essential, the revaluating and holistic integration of digital skills means that we can start to better address the barriers to inclusion. Ensuring the engagement of all students, where we build their cultural and social capital to be creators of digital technology, means that we can focus on addressing second- and third-level digital divides (Schreeder et al., 2017). By supporting learning that is integrated we can also support wider engagement. The integration of STEM subjects has been shown to support wider engagement, especially among students who are traditionally less likely to engage (Jackson et al., 2021).
However, despite these goals many schools are still grappling with how to implement the curriculum changes (Educational Review Office, 2019). While the curriculum content remains a challenge, the application of integration, of DT into other subjects, is even more so. This presentation explores a research project undertaken in 2021-2022, developed to explore how we can better facilitate learning across the curriculum. This teacher-driven investigation explored how two high schools in NZ started their own journey to better integrate DT across the curriculum. The study specifically explored how innovative technology, specifically mixed reality (MR), may be a catalyst for better curriculum integration. MR is used as an umbrella term that covers technology that supports digital experiences where on users are fully immersed within a completely virtual world (virtual reality) or embedded in a real environment digital content is overlayed (augmented reality) or somewhere in between.
The study adopted a participatory design and research methodology (Gillis & Jackson, 2002) to explore how teachers implemented MR across different subjects, focusing on learning where students were the creators, not consumers of these MR experiences. The outcome of this project showed that, with support, MR can provide new opportunities to integrate digital outcomes creativity across disciplines. By exploring how these teachers used and integrated this technology into their classrooms, we propose a framework that other schools can adopt. This framework helps to identify how other schools can support approaches where learning is authentically integrated and addresses fundamental skills to support digital inclusion for a diverse group of students.

Author

• Kathryn MacCallum, University of Canterbury
  Presenting Author