A systematic Approach for the Evaluation of Education Themes adaptability to Virtual Reality Environment

Research work by Jamal Siam

Modern and new teaching /learning method are always investigated to increase the efficiency of the education process; naturally the new methods adopted to achieve the increase of the efficiency tends to be based on highly cognitive approaches with almost learning by doing procedures; this type of learning procedure must guarantee an almost complete interaction between the learner, the teacher and the learned subject. The use of interactive methods directly implies the necessity of using high technology and computer enhanced methods instead of the spoon feeding class teaching followed by a separated laboratory work. Virtual Reality can be a very useful tool in integrating the theoretical knowledge with the practical procedures, but the lack of large experience in the field of Virtual Reality specially in the education stream and the lack of a clear characterization of the themes that can be implemented in VR environment may discourage people even from starting to think of developing courses and themes in the Virtual Reality environment.
A research work in this field that designs a road map for the theme developer in the Virtual Reality environment should be considered essential to encourage the developers to develop their own Virtual Reality themes.
Objectives: The research should
• characterize the pedagogical learning objectives targeted by the VR environment
• characterize the learning methods supported by the VR environment
• characterize the assessment methods that can be used in a formative assessment procedure based on the VR environment
• characterize the basic parameters of the themes adaptable for Virtual Reality environment
• establish a clear procedure for measuring the learning outcomes of the themes developed in the VR environment
• establish a set of performance parameters that measure the performance of VR based themes in comparison with traditional and other technology enhanced learning methods
• establish a road map for the development of a VR based them in education
(Ongoing research work)