Immersive Interactive Virtual Reality and Informal Education
Μαρία Ρούσσου · 2000
. Research in conceptual learning and virtual reality is a relatively young field, but growing rapidly. The increasing development of virtual reality (VR) technologies has matured enough as to expand research from the military and scientific visualization realm into more multidisciplinary areas, such as education, art, and psychology. Consequently, virtual reality interfaces, interaction techniques, and devices have improved greatly in order to provide more natural and obvious modes of interaction and motivational elements. Nevertheless, the prohibitive costs and inaccessibility of VR technologies, coupled with issues of usability, educator training, operation, and maintenance, present important drawbacks for the educational use of VR making it difficult to incorporate in dwindling school budgets. In spite of these concerns and objections regarding the appropriateness and educational efficacy of virtual reality, there remain compelling reasons for believing that VR learning ...