Last October, TELL members hosted 2 presentations and 1 roundtable at AECT conference 2019.

The first presentation was entitled “The Creations of a Virtual Campus – Enabling Online Education with VR“. It was part of the D&D division and discussed strategies for promoting the use of virtual reality in higher education. In this presentation, Hao explained how TELL members designed a 3D Virtual Reality Learning Environment (VRLE) with OpenSimulator emulating some of the buildings of the University of Missouri campus. The 3D VRLE for distance was created to host a student orientation for online graduate students.

The second presentation was entitled “An Evidence-based Study on the Confidence and Cognitive Load in a 3D VR Teacher Education Environment“.  In this presentation, Hao presented the results of an empirical study performed as part of a research project developed funded by the STAR grant. The presentation included the development process of the VRLE for the study, how the researchers collected the data for the study, results from data analysis, and a discussion of the implications.

A roundtable entitled “Virtual Media Gallery: Engaging Online Students with Simple VR Activities of Low-Cost” was led by Jhon. Strategies to engage students with self-developed activities and open-source software were discussed.

                                                                                                                                                                                                       Hao introducing the results of the study in one of the presentations

Jhon leading a round-table of AECT conference 2019

Furthermore, a presentation was entitled “An Interactive 3D VR Microfabrication Cleanroom Lab Training“. Dr. Xu introduced the background of the lab, participants and general procedure of this training, and the future plans.