The number of students with Intellectual Disability (ID) enrolled in general classes increases. They appear to meet difficulties in acquiring basic science literacy skills and addressing grade-aligned curriculum. Digital technology seems to contribute to this challenge by engaging students in augmented and virtual environments, especially by enabling 3D representations of abstract and difficult to visualize physical magnitudes and phenomena. This work investigates design issues regarding the development of digital learning environments that contribute to Science Education for students with ID. In this phase, the study explores the perceptions of different groups of professionals and a student with ID regarding the structure of matter. They interacted with different versions of both an augmented and a virtual environment simulating the water vapor in microscopic view. A focus group discussion revealed important data concerning presence, simulator sickness, acceptance and satisfaction for the two environments. The results show that professionals prefer engaging, rather than scientifically aligned representations. The choice between augmented and virtual reality seems to depend on the instructional objectives and strategies based on the specific academic profile of each student with ID.

Augmented Reality (AR) appears to have great potential in education and training. Although this technology has become mainstream through the use of handheld mobile devices, consumer-grade AR glasses are beginning to become available. These glasses could unlock the potential of AR by increasing freedom of movement, performance and safety. This preliminary study explores user experience and acceptance of state-of-the-art AR glasses. A simple activity was created to visualize electromagnetic radiation for science literacy purposes and then evaluated by university students (N=154). The results showed moderate spatial presence, low simulator sickness and high levels of acceptance and satisfaction.

Differences in technological characteristics between expensive head-mounted displays like Oculus Rift and low-cost mobile-based Virtual Reality (VR) devices may affect the experience of the user and learning in virtual environments with an educational content and therefore are important to be studied. This paper describes a study that aims at finding differences in levels of spatial presence, usability, simulator sickness, satisfaction, workload and learning outcome between Oculus Rift and a low cost smartphone VR Headset, when users interact with an educational virtual environment. Our results do not show differences in the variables studied. It seems that mobile-based VR systems could provide acceptable levels of immersive user experience and contribute to the pedagogical use of VR.

This paper attempts an empirical study regarding the attitude of primary education students (n=32) towards gesture based interfaces in educational contexts. A simple construction activity was designed and tested both with Microsoft Kinect and the traditional mouse. The main finding was that Kinect was preferred over mouse, even though it was less easy to use. It seems that gesture based interfaces increase student's motivation and engagement. Nevertheless, in order to fully exploit their potential as educational tools, the following are needed: more robust motion sensing technology, exploitation of the kinesthetic taxonomy and customized educational software.

Technological factors, user characteristics and didactic strategies do not function consistently across Educational Virtual Environments. This study investigates the impact of viewing condition and didactic strategy on attention allocation, suspension of disbelief, spatial presence, and learning outcomes in an Educational Virtual Environment concerning ancient Greek pottery. Our results show that the viewing condition does not affect attention allocation, suspension of disbelief, and spatial presence. Learning outcomes are better in the monoscopic viewing condition. Didactic strategy has an impact on suspension of disbelief and learning outcomes. Domain specific interest associates with higher level of attention allocation and spatial presence, while spatial presence is not related to learning outcomes. More research is needed in order to identify the role of each one of the above factors in Educational Virtual Environments.

Multi-user virtual environments (MUVEs) seem to have great potential in education. Current educational uses of MUVEs seem to exploit them more as group interaction platforms and less as worlds where users learn by interacting and modifying the environment in a constructivist approach. There is also a need for systematic research efforts that will lead to guidelines and principles for designing and evaluating effective learning activities in MUVEs. This paper presents preliminary empirical results from an exploratory study with university students. A collaborative problem-based physics learning activity was designed in Second Life® (SL), following a constructivist approach. Students (n=30) collaborated “in-world” in pairs assisted by a tutor, in order to solve the problem. Data were gathered using a questionnaire and session recordings. The study focused on issues related to educational environment design, collaboration and instruction. Results indicate that satisfactory, engaging and effective collaborative learning activities can be realized in SL.