STTR Phase I: Integration of Virtual Reality-based 3-D interactive simulations into classroom and online science curricula

这个小型企业技术转移研究(STTR)第一阶段项目专注于开发一个创新的教学技术平台，将基于虚拟现实(VR)的交互式3-D模拟整合到K-12和高等教育的物理入门课程中。这种方法将支持学习过程，为学生提供独特的可能性，让他们在虚拟现实生成的“现实”和“人工”世界中互动和探索他们的假设，从而使学生有可能以一种全新的方式‘体验’他们正在学习的东西。拟议的基于VR的3-D课件将包括丰富的教育功能强大的动态视觉表示(高质量的“逼真”对象、力和速度等概念的可视化、过程和肉眼不可见的事物的可视化、重点关注核心概念(例如高亮显示、放大、删除不相关的方面)、实时绘图工具等)，并允许实时交互和高度灵活的参数设置。为了促进心理模型的构建和与现实世界情景的联系，虚拟环境将被呈现出不同程度的抽象和现实主义，从非常去情境化的环境到虚拟活动中涉及化身(人形角色)的现实环境。目前，还没有商业上可用的VR系统在K-12或大学教育中部署用于常规教学。基于课程的虚拟环境在教育中的应用对于一个非常大的学生和教师市场来说立即是实用和经济有效的。拟议项目的主要影响是在科学教育中使用虚拟现实环境结合真实实验创建一个高质量、负担得起和广泛使用的基于课程的课件，或作为一个独立的虚拟实验室课件，用于基于网络(在线)的部署，作为执行单独和协作任务的工具。开发的模块不仅可以通过身临其境的虚拟现实系统访问，还可以通过负担得起的桌面3-D虚拟现实系统访问，以及通过网络访问界面访问。通过低成本的标准虚拟现实工具开发出学校系统经济上负担得起的有效模块课程，并将标准计算机用于日常课堂使用，将通过扩大代表不足群体的参与来缩小数字鸿沟。我们提议的创新教学技术方法和可视化工具的潜在结果也将通过推广影响到其他教育领域，在这些领域，交互式视觉展示对于帮助学生发展他们的认知和社交技能至关重要。

This Small Business Technology Transfer Research (STTR) Phase I project focuses on the development of an innovative instructional technology platform by integrating Virtual Reality (VR)-based interactive 3-D simulations into introductory physics curriculum for K-12 and higher education. This approach will support the learning process by providing unique possibility for students to interact and explore their hypotheses in VR-generated 'realistic' and 'artificial' worlds, thus making it possible for students to 'experience' what they are learning in an entirely new way. The proposed VR-based 3-D courseware will include a wealth of educationally-powerful dynamic visual representations (high-quality 'realistic' objects, visualization of concepts such as forces and velocities, visualization of processes and things invisible to the naked eye, focusing on core-concepts (e.g. highlighting, magnifying, removing irrelevant aspects), a real-time graphing tool, etc.), and allow for real-time interaction and high flexibility in parameter settings. To foster mental model construction and connection with real world situations, the virtual environments will be presented with a various degree of abstraction and realism, from a very de-contextualized setting to a realistic setting with avatars (human-form characters) involved in virtual activities. Currently, there are no commercially available VR systems deployed for regular instructional use in K-12 or university education. Applications of curriculum-based virtual environments in education are immediately practical and cost effective for a very large market of students and teachers. The main impact of the proposed project is the creation of a high-quality, affordable and widely accessible curriculum-based courseware in science education using VR environments in combination with real experiments or as a stand-alone virtual laboratory courseware for web-based (online) deployment as a tool to perform individual and collaborative tasks. The developed modules will be accessible not only through immersive VR systems, but also through affordable desktop 3-D VR systems, as well as a through a Web-accessible interface. The development of effective modular courseware being economically affordable by school systems via low-cost standard VR tools and the use of standard computers for daily classroom use will reduce digital divide through broadening the participation of underrepresented groups. The potential outcomes of our proposed innovative instructional technology approach and visualization tools will also impact, through generalization, other educational domains where interactive visual display is crucial in helping students to develop their cognitive and social skills.