Creative Education with Virtual Reality

As a digital technology that boasts affordances such as empathy and embodied cognition through realistic simulation in an immersive environment, virtual reality [VR] has enormous potential for enhancing the way our students learn (Shin, 2017). For example, students may learn procedural steps in mechanics and engineering, or investigate geographic terrain or the biologic makeup of cells at microscopic level with the realistic portrayals available on a range of VR apps and computer programmes.

Cardboard Virtual Reality Headset/Viewer [Image: CC0 license]

However, VR’s creative affordances in education should also be exploited to harness its capacity for encouraging creative thinking and design, going beyond merely a tool of instruction or information. CoSpaces Edu is a VR programme that can be used on mobile devices and desktop computers, online and offline. The scenarios created on the platform may be viewed either 2-dimensionally or through VR viewers that provide a more immersive experience. It has been designed to cater specifically for classroom use, where teachers may set design tasks for students, who may then create 3D virtual worlds and scenarios using a combination of Blockly coding and drag-and-drop methods. The programme allows students to manipulate a range of preset characters and objects, as well as the function to import external images or sound files in order to greater personalise the experience.

In a creative sense, CoSpaces Edu supports many pedagogical approaches including constructivist, constructionist and enquiry-based learning (Bower, Hower, McCredie, Robinson & Grover, 2014, p.6). Whilst it may not be wise to over rely on the technology for teaching concepts that may otherwise be taught more time-efficiently by traditional pedagogical methods, teachers may implement well-designed lesson plans and projects to achieve particular educational outcomes. Teachers may have students use their creativity to design VR scenarios wherein content knowledge is presented on a range of curriculum-based subjects such as music, science, history and of course, IT competency and computational thinking. The screenshot below for example, shows how students could use their creativity to design a scenario that introduces the viewer or user to the musical concept of time signature. This type of project encourages students to consolidate learning and express it in ways that require creativity in deciding on how to take the most advantage of learning in a VR environment. 

Virtual Reality is not only immersive, but it can also be used to encourage students’ creativity

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References

Bower, M., Howe, C., McCredie, N., Robinson, A., & Grover, D. (2014). Augmented Reality in education – cases, places and potentials. Educational Media International, 51(1), 1-15. doi: 10.1080/09523987.2014.889400

Shin, D. (2017). The role of affordance in the experience of virtual reality learning: Technological and affective affordances in virtual reality. Telematics And Informatics, 34(8), 1826-1836. doi: 10.1016/j.tele.2017.05.013

Creativity with Electronics

The ‘maker movement’ has been made possible because of the vast growth, portability and availability of digital technologies and the easy sharing and learning of ideas through the Internet (Martinez & Stager, 2014, p.13). The movement is a conception of constructionist principles that assert that learning becomes more concrete and purposeful as we make and share products that stem from creative experiences. With formal education in mind, the subject areas of digital technologies, science and mathematics are particularly benefited from constructionist learning, by giving students the opportunity to dive deeper and put their learning to practical use. Whilst the maker movement is generally observed and enjoyed in makerspaces, there are many potential resources that can be used within a confined classroom setting, meaning that the classroom itself can become a ‘mini makerspace’.

Such an environment can be provided to even very young students, for example through using a resource such as Makeblock Neuron. Neuron is a set of programmable electronic building blocks from which students can create working gadgets with sets ranging in size from few and basic to multiple and complex components. With the makerspace context in mind, students can use it to combine electronic inputs, outputs and power and communication sources with non-digital parts like Lego pieces, cardboard or wooden cutouts to make devices for an array of practical uses. The Makeblock company itself provides set templates of ‘projects’ that can be completed from following set instructions, or the user may simply choose to exert greater creativity in constructing products of their own design.

A Makeblock Neuron Set of building blocks

Makerblock provides a free app to be used for coding the Neuron building blocks

Project-based learning like this has proven to be of great use in fostering students’ creativity by providing them with authentic experiences and the freedom to make choices about where their learning will take them (Cress & Holm, 2015). For example, other than the obvious benefits of developing computational skills such as coding, teachers may encourage their students to use Neuron to learn about historical communication and Morse code by making a telegraph, or to learn about plant growth by making an automatic plant waterer based on soil humidity and temperature sensory information.

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References

Cress, S., & Holm, D. (2015). Creative Endeavors: Inspiring Creativity in a First Grade Classroom. Early Childhood Education Journal, 44(3), 235-243. doi: 10.1007/s10643-015-0704-7

Martinez, S., & Stager, G. (2014). The maker movement: a learning revolution. Learning & Leading With Technology, 41(7), 12-17.

Why use robotics in the classroom?

Too often, teachers see technology’s use in the classroom as a means of merely transmitting information to students (Rientes, Brouwer & Lygo-Baker, 2013, p. 124). However, the advantages that ever-advancing technologies provide, call for teachers to extend their uses to increasing students’ creativity and critical thinking skills. Robotics is one such field of technology that allows for the fulfilment of this endeavour, and many resources to teach with and about robotics exist, including the “toy robot” Cozmo.

Cozmo on its charging dock with 3 included blocks that Cozmo reacts to for different tasks

Whilst it is a toy at surface level, Cozmo also provides ample opportunities for teaching basic coding principles through a programming language on its connected Cozmo app for iOS, Android and Fire devices, which uses coding ‘blocks’, or with a more complex programming language called Python which may be used by experienced coders. It is this ability to program Cozmo that can help the student become an “active producer” (Monroy-Hernandez & Resnick, 2008, p. 51) as they work within the confines of the gadget’s affordances to manipulate the robot for a variety of creative purposes. It can be used for example, to teach younger primary students about not only digital concepts such as sequencing and algorithms, but also practical or life-skills concepts such as direction and orientation (see Figure 1 below for an example of making a track for which Cozmo may be programmed to manoeuvre). Students may further extend their creativity by experimenting with the ‘CodeLab’ component of the app to program Cozmo to perform tasks with a combination of lifting, stacking, talking, turning, moving, playing games and even recognising faces.

Figure 1: Simple pathway made of paper ready for Cozmo to be programmed to manoeuvre

Taking a constructionist approach and providing hands-on experience with robotics engages both students and teachers in the learning of STEM concepts (Kim et al., 2015). Using toy-like robots in particular, can prove useful to the primary school teacher who struggles to pique young students’ interests in complex digital concepts, and for teachers of older students, more age-appropriate robots may be taken advantage of for motivating them to be creative in the digital context.

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References

Kim, C., Kim, D., Yuan, J., Hill, R., Doshi, P., & Thai, C. (2015). Robotics to promote elementary education pre-service teachers’ STEM engagement, learning, and teaching. Computers & Education, 91, 14-31. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.compedu.2015.08.005

Monroy-Hernández, A., & Resnick, M. (2008). FEATUREEmpowering kids to create and share programmable media. Interactions, 15(2), 50. http://dx.doi.org/10.1145/1340961.1340974

Rienties, B., Brouwer, N., & Lygo-Baker, S. (2013). The effects of online professional development on higher education teachers’ beliefs and intentions towards learning facilitation and technology. Teaching And Teacher Education, 29, 122-131. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.tate.2012.09.002

Computational Thinking and Coding-Capable Students

The Australian Curriculum and Reporting Authority [ACARA] has prioritised computational thinking as a skillset to be taught to and developed amongst Australian students in the primary and secondary curricula (ACARA, 2018). It is therefore, the teacher’s duty to be well equipped with the knowledge and resources to teach computational thinking to youth living in a world where “technology plays a key role in almost everything we do” (Rose, Habgood & Jay, 2017, p. 297).

Teachers’ doubts of self-efficacy or ability with regards to teaching computational thinking need not be a hindrance to its inclusion in the classroom. Resources are now increasingly available, abundant, affordable, and many are even specifically targeted at children’s interests and developmental capabilities. Examples of such resources range from free lessons on stacking tangible plastic cups with instructional sheets to teach about configuration (“My Robotic Friends”, 2013), to using computer programmes such as Scratch or ScratchJr to teach concepts like abstraction, decomposition, algorithms and debugging (Rose, Habgood & Jay, 2017).

Scratch would prove a valuable resource in the classroom where enough computers are available for students’ use, or even as a homework activity to be completed by students in their own time. Features like the pre-set cartoon cat ‘character’, colourful coding blocks, differing levels of tutorials and project ideas, all contribute to a child-friendly user interface that not only encourages computational thinking through coding skills, but that also motivates the user to be creative with sounds, images, motion, game-making, story telling and a range of other potential, creative uses (see the figure below for the author’s initial investigations with Scratch).

Integrating advice from Wing (2006, p. 35), teachers may use such a programme to set “intellectually challenging and engaging…problems” as projects for students to work on, thereby opening its uses up to a range of cross-curricular learning. This would require the teacher’s creativity in producing suitable and efficient uses of coding, and could extend further from simple coding in Scratch, to having the students code websites about English literature or music theory, for example. The opportunities for enhancing computational thinking skills are vast and may be tailored to the needs of students at all ages and abilities, and therefore, should be viewed as a serious contender of teachers’ classroom time.

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References

Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority [ACARA]. (2018) F-10 curriculum: Digital Technologies: Aims. Retrieved from https://www.australiancurriculum.edu.au/f-10-curriculum/technologies/digital-technologies/aims/

“My Robotic Friends”. (2013) (pp. 1-8). Eugene. Thinkersmith. Retrieved from https://csedweek.org/files/CSEDrobotics.pdf

Rose, S., Habgood, M., & Jay, T. (2017). An Exploration of the Role of Visual Programming Tools in the Development of Young Children’s Computational Thinking. The Electronic Journal Of E-Learning, 15(4), 297-309.

Wing, J. (2006). Computational thinking. Communications Of The ACM, 49(3), 33-35. http://dx.doi.org/10.1145/1118178.1118215