Extended Reality (XR) technologies offer many possibilities to support collaboration between remote and local team members. However, in a scenario with multiple devices and multiple interaction options, including virtual, augmented and the continuum of realities among them, it is still unclear how to select the right option to make collaboration more efficient. To provide some design insights in this context, this paper presents a comparative study of collaboration behaviours and outcomes when using different XR technologies, where X stands for Virtual or Augmented. In our experimental setup, pairs of users collaborated on three tasks drawn from visual analytics, each designed to require a different level of synchronization: low, medium, and high. We conducted a study with 40 participants (20 dyads), who performed tasks in two conditions: Augmented Reality (AR) and Virtual Reality (VR). All used the same equipment and interactions; only the immersive environment differed. The results suggest that collaboration outcomes differed only in high-coupling tasks, with AR showing a performance advantage. This may stem from a greater difficulty of synchronizing actions when perceiving a partner through avatars rather than directly. However, no significant differences were observed in collaboration dynamics, and the choice of XR technology did not appear to affect collaboration patterns. These findings suggest that, for collaborative analytical tasks comparable to those in this study, collaborators can choose the XR mode that best fits their preferences and current needs without concern about hindering teamwork.

This work focuses on exploring the use of Generative Artificial Intelligence to assist end-users in creating immersive experiences. We present a prototype that supports the creation and edition of virtual environments using speech commands expressed in natural language.

Abstract Cross-reality media technology creates alternate reality experiences in which the physical and the virtual world are interconnected and influence each other through a network of sensors and actuators. Despite technological advances, the landscape of cross-reality technology as an enabler of alternate reality educational experiences has not been explored yet. The technical expertise required to set up and program such mixed environments is too high to engage the problem owners (i.e. educational experts) in the design process and, hence, user-driven innovation remains challenging. In this paper we explore the co-creation of cross-reality experiences for educational games. We created a no-programming toolkit that provides a visual language and interface abstractions to quickly build prototypes of cross-reality interactions. The toolkit supports experience prototyping and allows designers to coproduce, with educational experts, meaningful scenarios while they create, try out and reconfigure their prototypes. We report on a workshop with 36 educators where the toolkit was used to ideate cross-reality games for education. We discuss use cases of game-based learning applications developed by the participants that follow different pedagogical strategies and combine different physical and virtual spaces and times. We outline implications for the design of cross-reality interactions in educational settings that trigger further research and technological developments.

Though virtual reality has been used for more than one decade to support learning, technology is now mature and cheap enough, and students have the required digital fluency to reach real settings. Immersive technologies have also demonstrated that they not only are engaging, but they can also reinforce learning and improve memory. This work presents a preliminary study on the advantages of using an immersive experience to help young students understand genetic editing techniques. We have relied upon the CHIC Immersive Bubble Chart, a VR (Virtual Reality) multi-device visualization of the most relevant topics in the domain. We tested the CHIC Immersive Bubble Chart by asking a group of 29 students to explore the information space by interacting with two different devices: a desktop and a VR headset. The results show that they mainly preferred the VR headset finding it more engaging and useful. As a matter of fact, during the evaluation, the students kept exploring the space even after the assigned time slot.

Traditional therapy methods for people with cognitive disabilities involve long periods of time performing exercises that can be tedious or unattractive for both patients and the professionals who work with them in specialized centers. In this work we aim at investigating the possibilities that combining music and virtual reality technology might offer for improving this scenario. Following this purpose, we applied an action research approach to co-develop with stakeholders a highly-configurable and accessible application to support exercising abilities usually targeted in rehabilitation therapy, such as coordination and motor skills, memory, and spatial perception. The results of an experiment carried out with both professionals and patients showed promising results, suggesting that this type of technology could improve the rehabilitation process, and make it more engaging.

The Virtual Reality (VR) technology offers new possibilities to implement Geographical Information Systems (GIS), allowing the user to visualize and interact with map interfaces in more natural and immersive way. Moreover, they can provide the user with a wide field of view similar to the one obtained when using large displays. In this paper, we present a VR application that allows the user to display and interact with a GIS map using different types of interaction modalities.

Despite the increasing popularity of Virtual Reality (VR) technology, the designers of these type of environments stick lack the necessary support for designing effective and usable interfaces for their creations. This works aim to provide support to VR designers by comparing the efficiency (task completion time and error rate) and usability of four types of menu configurations with different geometry (radial and linear) and position in the world (non-diegetic positions and spatial positions). We present the results of two experiments that suggest that in both non-diegetic and spatial menus the task completion time is smaller on radial menus than linear menus. In the case of error rate and usability, no statistic significant differences between radial and linear menus were found regardless their position in the VR environment.

Building physical spaces interconnected with virtual worlds is a complex task that requires high technical knowledge and hours of programming and, as a matter of fact, is relegated to the work of expert professionals. The goal of this research is to lower the development threshold through the design of an end-user toolkit that provides a visual integrated environment for the rapid prototyping of cross-reality interactions. A user study with 8 participants showed the effectiveness of our approach and uncovered design opportunities and challenges for supporting the development of cross-reality environments.

In this paper we present VR GREP, an immersive End User Development (EUD) tool that supports authoring and modifying general purpose immersive VR environments, without having technical knowledge. The system aims to facilitate exploring the potential of immersive tools to support situated design practices.

The design of the user interfaces for educational games (EGs) poses specific challenges, as this feature does not only have an impact on the game playability but can also be used to reinforce learning or to establish associations between concepts. However, implementing advanced in-game interactions can be an issue due to the wide range of technologies for defining input modalities, actions and events that game designers need to consider. In this working paper, we propose an approach to ease the development of educational games that go one step beyond classical mouse and keyboard interaction and provide interaction alternatives within the same game rationale. Our proposal is based on the integration of a game design model and an ubicomp interaction toolkit that manages heterogeneous devices.

This work aims to explore the benefits and potential uses of Augmented Reality technology for supporting communication in presentations. This article presents the architecture and implementation of an Augmented Presentation Feedback System. The system allows a speaker equipped with an Augmented Reality Head-Mounted Display to display visual cues depicted over the listeners’ heads. These can be used as a way to provide the speaker with continuous, private, and immediate feedback on his or her explanations. The results of a case study conducted showed that the system not only assists the speaker in adapting the content and pace of the explanation to the listener but also helps to better manage their interventions and improve the flow of the presentation.

This work aims to explore the benefits and potential uses of Augmented Reality technology for supporting communication in lectures and presentations. In this paper we present the architecture and implementation of an Augmented Presentation Feedback System (APFs). The system allows a speaker equipped with an Augmented Reality Head-Mounted Display to visualize visual cues depicted over the listeners' heads. These can be used as a way of providing the speaker with continuous, private and immediate feedback on her explanations, so she can adapt the content and pace of the explanation to the specific needs of the listener and improve the flow of the presentation.

The complexity and sophistication of computer games is growing every day, not only in terms of graphical resources and advanced interaction mechanisms but also with regards to their narratives and their rules. In this paper we propose to tackle the complexity related to the rules and narratives of a game design by describing it through combinations of more simple game designs. This approach not only facilitates the description of game designs that are easy to manage and understand but also enables the reuse of game design components, and also allows the designer to respond to established trends in computer games such as the use of "missions" and "mini-games". The proposed approach has been applied to the design and implementation of an educational game (EG) called "Safety Village" of the minigame genre, which aims to help raise children's awareness of emergencies and domestic risks.

One of the most widely used methods for teaching is the lecture. During the last few decades lecturers and students have taken advantage of the progressive introduction of new technology for supporting these lectures. As this trend is very likely to continue, in this paper we will try to foresee some possible technology enriched future lecture scenarios.

In order to enjoy the benefits that the use of computer games may provide for supporting the area of informal education, it is necessary to rely on design models, methods and tools to help reduce the high costs traditionally associated with the development of these kinds of systems. In this paper we present a model which seeks to facilitate the reuse and adaptation of designs of these types of games. The model has supported the implementation of two different games for training children on emergency situations.

The aim of this work is to support educators in the design process of computer game based learning experiences for teaching children about the risks of emergency. As an educational experience can be tailored to different student needs, the risk characteristics of emergency at hand, and the educational purpose of the experience, the proposed model includes the necessary elements to provide all this information. In this way the teacher can specify the requirements of the educational experience, and based on this information to propose possible configurations of the elements of the game.

The communication and the collaboration in a multi-disciplinary team can be diminished due to the different specification tools and languages used by the diverse members of the team. The MODUWEB approach tackles this problem allowing the integration of different design perspectives through model-driven development (MDD) techniques. Such integration is completely transparent to the users of the modeling languages, that is, the designers of the Web-based educational systems, and in this way their productivity is not affected. This paper describes a prototype of a system which implements the MODUWEB approach to combine two domain specific languages dealing with different perspectives of the design of a Web-based educational system: IMS learning design for educational design and Labyrinth for Web design.

Evaluation is one of the most important activities in the didactic materials creation since it allows developers to check if the features of created material satisfy all the requirements established at begin of its development and if that material can be an effective support to achieve the educational goals of a particular instructional situation. Its results provide relevant information for the material redesign in such cases when those requirements or educational goals are not satisfied. In this paper we describe an approach to evaluate IMS LD-based materials during their development and deployment in an educational process.

This work aims to provide the instructors of learning process specified by means of an educational language (EML) with a mechanism to modify the process definition during runtime. The paper presents the results of some experiments carried out as part of the evaluation of the envisaged solution. The core ofthe proposed solution is a model which allows the instructor to describe variations of the original learning process design, as well as to evaluate and monitor the process progress. The model is complemented with a method which organizes the performance of the instructor actions supported by the model, and a mechanism to allow its application on running instances of the process. To state the suitability of the proposed method and the expressivity of the adaptation model, the solution has been applied on three different scenarios. Three real learning processes supported on Moodle platforms have been replicated on Unit of Learning (UoL) versions described by means of IMS Learning Design(IMS LD). The adaptations and monitorizations performed by the instructors in the Moodle versions have been described using the adaptation model elements and applied to UoLs following the proposed method guidelines.

It is not always possible to foresee all properties values of a learning design process at design-time. Sometimes, it is not until its proper execution when those values can be established. Besides, some of the original definitions must be modified to adapt the learning process to its current execution context. This is especially necessary with properties related to the synchronization and temporization of the different activities that constitute the learning process. Due to the above, to successfully implement a learning process, the designers need to use a language expressive enough to allow a detailed description of the runtime behavior of the course and a mechanism to modify its definition during run-time.

A complex learning process (CLP) is understood as the result of the dynamic and unanticipated integration of diverse pedagogical approaches in a learning process, based on the collaboration between instructors and learners. Educational modeling languages are used to specify and design learning processes that can be adaptable to the demands of a particular pedagogical context. Based upon IMS service-oriented architectural principles, a framework for learning process composition and execution is presented. The objective of that framework is to enable the dynamic and unanticipated composition of distributed learning services. This is guided by a case study of how this framework can be implemented in a complex learning scenario.

In the last years several learning systems have been developed trying, on a different extent, to develop a solution to the problem of personalization of the learning process. Their objective is to provide the learner with a learning system able to adapt the course to her specific characteristics, knowledge, objectives and learning goals. Further more, we would like a learning system that could be sensitive to the context in which the learning session is taking place and capable to adjust the appropriate parameters accordingly. Taking this into account, the authors have selected a group of desirable characteristics for an ideal learning system and have reviewed some of the solutions developed in the last years trying to find out which of those ideal characteristics have already been implemented and which others have not.