We\u2019ve heard the terms before. I\u2019m referring to the times when you\u2019re in the groove, the zone, the flow, whatever you want to call it. It\u2019s the time when your focus is fixated on one task and the rest of the world doesn\u2019t seem to exist and time just seems to fly by without your awareness (Csikszentmihalyi, 1975).<\/p>\n
This is, as Csikszentmihalyi (1975) coined, the flow state where your senses are focused on one specific task. Flow happens when we are immersed, we feel this happen when we engage in a book and then realize we\u2019ve gone 10 hours without food, drink, or a bathroom break. Or when you\u2019ve started writing a project and realized you\u2019re in trouble because you\u2019ve missed every message and phone call while writing. These are extreme examples of immersion but I might guess that those of you reading this may have experienced something along these lines at least once. The great thing about immersion and flow state is that it can be used to foster learning (Georgiou & Kyza, 2017). Here\u2019s the question, how do you consistently immerse learners to the point of flow and engagement for learning? Being a tech geek myself, I immediately look to the most immersive tech I can think of, virtual reality (VR).<\/p>\n
VR uses visual and auditoria learning modality that provides a 360 degree perspective of a scene in 3D (Zec, 2013). I can tell you from experience that the experience feels real. The ups and downs in a digital rollercoaster or the tightening in your chest as a virtual shark swims past feel all too real during the scene. Because of the heightened immersion using VR, many educational scholars thought as I do, how do we harness this immersive experience to teach? The keyword being experience, as in experiential learning theory (ELT).<\/p>\n
ELT is based on constructivist learning theory where new learnings are based on previous experiences which paint our perspective and how we view each new event (Kolb & Kolb, 2005). Using ELT and VR we might be able to truly engage learners and use immersion and flow to do it. However\u2026 one thing we will need to look out for is what impacts immersion and flow in VR? Herrington, Reeves, & Oliver (2007) try to determine that it\u2019s \u201ccognitive realism\u201d (p. 84) that influences immersion, but it seems like it could be more task based (p. 96).<\/p>\n
One thing is for sure, we don\u2019t want to pull another Second Life education, where students sit at desks and experience the same classroom setting, just with avatars as opposed to in real life (IRL).<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Csikszentmihalyi, M. (1975). Beyond Boredom and Anxiety.<\/em> Personnel Psychology<\/em> (Vol. 29). Retrieved from http:\/\/search.ebscohost.com\/login.aspx?direct=true&db=bth&AN=6259266&site=ehost-live<\/p>\n Georgiou, Y., & Kyza, E. A. (2017). A design-based approach to augmented reality location-based activities: Investigating immersion in relation to student learning. Proceedings of the 16th World Conference on Mobile and Contextual Learning – MLearn 2017<\/em>, (November), 1\u20138. https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1145\/3136907.3136926<\/p>\n Herrington, J., Reeves, T. C., & Oliver, R. (2007). Immersive learning technologies: Realism and online authentic learning. Journal of Computing in Higher Education<\/em>, 19<\/em>(1), 80\u201399. https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1007\/BF03033421<\/p>\n Kolb, A. Y., & Kolb, D. A. (2005). Learning Styles and Learning Spaces: Enhancing Experiential Learning in Higher Education. Academy of Management Learning & Education<\/em>, 4<\/em>(2), 193\u2013212. https:\/\/doi.org\/10.31219\/osf.io\/rdq97<\/p>\n Zec, D. (2013). Overview of Virtual Reality Technologies. East Central Europe<\/em>, 42<\/em>(1), 48\u201369. https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1163\/18763308-04201003<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" We\u2019ve heard the terms before. I\u2019m referring to the times when you\u2019re in the groove, the zone, the flow, whatever you want to call it. It\u2019s the time when your focus is fixated on one task and the rest of the world doesn\u2019t seem to exist and time just seems to fly by without your […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":100,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-372","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-lrnt526"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru0058\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/372","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru0058\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru0058\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru0058\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/100"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru0058\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=372"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru0058\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/372\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":373,"href":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru0058\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/372\/revisions\/373"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru0058\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=372"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru0058\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=372"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru0058\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=372"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}