Virtual Reality represents a promising career guidance tool, allowing young people to explore working life in an engaging and safe way. In this paper, we report a study that investigates the pedagogical potential of Virtual Reality in career guidance, how this technology contributes to the development of career learning skills, and how to integrate it in the daily operational practice of career guidance. We adopt a mixed-methods approach, combining qualitative interviews with counselors and quantitative evaluation data from clients at welfare centers. The findings indicate that Virtual Reality can foster engagement, reflection, and vocational orientation, particularly among youth with limited work experience. At the same time, the use of this technology and its long-term impact is shaped in a determinant way by systematic constraints such as adequate training, time, technical support, and managerial commitment. The paper contributes to current research by showing how virtual reality can enhance career guidance and offering practical recommendations for its effective integration into practice.

The paper presents a study of applying peer learning enhanced by Augmented Reality to neuroanatomy education. One of our research questions focuses on exploring how peer learning can improve students’ motivation, engagement, and autonomy. With other research questions, we look at the design and evaluation of an Augmented Reality application to better support collaborative learning and engagement, communication, and interaction. We employed mixed methods in the Design-Based Research paradigm, leveraging the strengths of quantitative and qualitative data, to design a holistic, educational intervention and describe its impact. The findings indicate that the approach we applied can enhance autonomy, motivation and engagement via collaboration and visualization. The data also show the potential of the Nevrolens application to effectively support group work and learning about brain anatomy. The paper suggests directions for future research on peer learning with Augmented Reality, including both educational and technological recommendations.

This work was motivated by the need to enable teaching educational robotics and other STEM topics in online and blended modes supported by digital tools. This need has been highlighted by the outbreak of the covid-19 pandemic. This paper presents the research findings and outcomes of a systematic effort to design, implement, and demonstrate the feasibility of preparing, creating, and applying enhanced digital educational material for educational robotics activities using augmented reality technology. The integration of augmented reality with educational robotics was identified through the Group Concept Mapping methodology, and the feedback obtained was utilized to develop a co-design instructional methodology. To demonstrate this approach a universal framework is proposed, accompanied by two augmented reality implementations employing reusable digital assets.

This paper outlines the objectives of the working group on developing a model Augmented Reality curriculum for higher education. We motivate the need for the model curriculum by the growing Augmented Reality industry and subsequent demand for trained professionals. While the industry is growing, the educational offers that train the required skills remain limited and fragmented. The working group will address this challenge by surveying the state of the art in Augmented Reality education are reviewing available data on industry requirements. Based on the results, the group will develop a new model Augmented Reality curriculum. The working group will also develop future work recommendations for the design of teaching materials and integration of Augmented Reality in computing curricula.

This paper presents a new concept of `Immersive Job Taste' - interactive virtual reality demonstration of a workplace that aims to give a feeling of going through an average workday of a professional with elements of basic training. The main target audiences of Job Taste simulations are young job seekers who can be aided in selecting a career path at school or a welfare center, choosing the first or a new occupation, often after a period of being unemployed. The design methodology behind the Immersive Job Taste concept includes presentation of a workplace, typical tasks, feedback on performance, and advice on applying for jobs in the specific industry. We developed several scenarios and applied different virtual and augmented reality concepts to build prototypes for different types of devices. The prototypes were evaluated by several groups of primary users and experts. The results indicate a generally very positive attitude towards the concept. In this paper, we discuss the potential impact of applying the concept and directions for future work.

This paper presents the results of the Virtual Internship project that aims to help young job seekers get insights of different workplaces via immersive and interactive experiences. We designed a concept of `Immersive Job Taste' that provides a rich presentation of occupations with elements of workplace training, targeting a specific group of young job seekers, including high-school students and unemployed. We developed several scenarios and applied different virtual and augmented reality concepts to build prototypes for different types of devices. The intermediary and the final versions of the prototypes were evaluated by several groups of primary users and experts, including over 70 young job seekers and high school students and over 45 various professionals and experts. The data were collected using questionnaires and interviews. The results indicate a generally very positive attitude towards the concept of immersive job taste, although with significant differences between job seekers and experts. The prototype developed for room-scale virtual reality with controllers was generally evaluated better than those including cardboard with 360 videos or with animated 3D graphics and augmented reality glasses. In the paper, we discuss several aspects, such as the potential of immersive technologies for career guidance, fighting youth unemployment by better informing the young job seekers, and various practical and technology considerations.

In this paper, we present the design rationale and evaluation of the Sticky Notes tool that we designed within the 3D virtual world of vAcademia based on our original method of using stream processors for displaying a large amount of media contents in a 3D environment. We explore the facilitation of creative collaborative activities, such as brainstorming, round-table discussions, and project work. This type of activities usually requires a large amount of media content to be displayed and available for modification in a shared space. We argue that 3D virtual worlds can be successfully used for facilitating such activities and can potentially be superior to the commonly used technologies, as they allow the sense of immersion close to reality and tools that might be even more convenient than in reality. The evaluation results demonstrate performance superiority of the method over those commonly used and the pedagogical value of the tool developed.

Understanding culture is an integral part of international operations in developing countries and conflict zones. Cultural encounters in countries such as Afghanistan might introduce a number of challenges. This paper presents the experiences with the CAMO project (Cultural Awareness in Military Operations) seeking to address these challenges. The goal of the project has been to create a game-based simulation in the virtual world of Second Life for pre-deployment cultural awareness training among Norwegian military personnel preparing for service in Afghanistan. At the same time, due to the gradual withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan, training cultural awareness among civilian personnel becomes more important. This paper will present some experiences from the CAMO project, discussing how the proposed methodology could be extended for non-military use as well, and outlining the challenges and directions for future work.

In this paper, we address the challenges of applying three-dimensional virtual worlds for learning. Despite the numerous positive conclusions, this technology is far from becoming mainstream in education. The most common problems with applying it in everyday teaching and learning are steep learning curve and demand for computational and network resources. In order to address these problems, we developed a stream processors texture generation model for displaying educational content in 3D virtual worlds. The model suggests conducting image-processing tasks on stream processors in order to reduce the load on CPU. It allows designing convenient and sophisticated tools for collaborative work with graphics inside a 3D environment. Such tools simplify the use of a 3D virtual environment, and therefore, improve the negative learning curve effect. We present the methods of generating images based on the suggested model, the design and implementation of a set of tools for collaborative work with 2D graphical content in vAcademia virtual world. In addition, we provide the evaluation of the suggested model based on a series of tests which we applied to the whole system and specific algorithms. We also present the initial result of user evaluation.

In this work, we propose an innovative approach, 3D recording, to support serious games and educational role-playing. 3D virtual worlds (3D VWs) are often used for generating educational content. Even though this technology allows creating full context of the real-life educational process, it is usually recorded as flat 2D video (such as Machinima in Second Life), which eliminates many advantages of the technology, such as sense of presence (Mckerlich et al. 2011). In addition, there are no systematic approaches for combining synchronous and asynchronous learning modes. We propose that 3D recording is capable of solving these challenges, as it offers an easy way for creating advanced 3D content from synchronous activities, as well as accessing this content in both synchronous and asynchronous modes.

In this paper, we present a new approach to educational activities in 3D virtual worlds. This approach is based on a new vision of content and learning process in virtual worlds and related to a new platform called vAcademia. This virtual world is designed and developed specially for educational purposes, and it has an integrated set of tools for a number of learning activities. The main original feature of vAcademia is 3D recording, which allows capturing dynamically everything in a given location in the virtual world. A 3D recording looks like a live virtual class providing students with a collaboration space and giving a sense of presence. In such a manner, vAcademia supports a new type of digital content - 3D recording or virtcast, which is created based on synchronous activities and opens new possibilities to explore. In this paper, we present the functionality, scenarios of use, and challenges of the educational virtual world vAcademia.

In recent years, virtual museums have become more widespread and the usage of them for educational purposes has increased. They are used to facilitate educational process in different ways, such as presenting their exhibitions online and serving as a place for educational activities. In this paper, we present an example of such a virtual museum - ldquo3D Virtual Environment for Learning Artsrdquo. Still, only few of existing virtual museums provide sufficient support for collaboration and social interaction. Therefore, considering the growing importance of collaborative technologies and social networking in education, we show how a virtual museum can be enhanced and extended to serve as a collaborative virtual workshop.