CUR - The Council on Undergraduate Research

3D Learning Environments in Practice - Virtual Museum and Virtual Classroom Case Studies

Sam Williams, Denis Gracanin, Department of Computer Science, Virginia Polytechnic Institute & State U, 2202 Kraft Drive, Blacksburg, VA 24060, USA.

Amid a global pandemic, accessibility to technology for communication and educational purposes has taken the center stage for many institutions. Current solutions such as Zoom and Microsoft Teams have been rapidly adopted by these institutions. These services provide basic features like camera recording, microphone audio, screen sharing and chat features. Zoom also provides in-browser access to meeting rooms, a core testament to accessibility, especially during this pandemic. Extended reality (XR) based meeting services like Mozilla Hubs provide the same while using engaging virtual environments that replicate real-world experiences (e.g., mobility, spatial audio). However, to determine best practices and facilitate faster adoption of XR-based meeting and education services, we need to research and identify the adoption barriers and compare XR-based and current solutions. We describe several user studies. First, we present and discuss qualitative feedback from educational activities in Mozilla Hubs to provide an insight into its performance and comparison to current solutions. Second, we analyze findings from a virtual museum app built in Unity that assesses viewers’ knowledge with a quiz to provide an insight into how effective XR environments are for educational purposes. Results from these studies will help inform future research about effective uses of XR-based meeting and education services.

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