voyeurism

longitudinal effects in the effectiveness of educational virtual fieldtrips

Happy New Year :-)

last year i was privileged to be invited to be part of an authorial team comprising faculty from the Emerging Analytics Center at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock, the Center for Immersive Experiences at Penn State, the Department of Geosciences at Penn State, and the Laboratory of Geo-information Science and Remote Sensing at Wageningen University.

our paper on the Longitudinal effects in the effectiveness of educational virtual fieldtrips, helmed by Jiayan Zhao, has just been published in the Journal of Educational Computing Research.

its abstract reads:

Virtual and immersive virtual reality, VR and iVR, provide flexible and engaging learning opportunities, such as virtual field trips (VFTs). Despite its growing popularity for education, understanding how iVR compared to non-immersive media influences learning is still challenged by mixed empirical results and a lack of longitudinal research. This study addresses these issues through an experiment in which undergraduate geoscience students attended two temporally separated VFT sessions through desktop virtual reality (dVR) or iVR, with their learning experience and outcomes measured after each session. Our results show higher levels of enjoyment and satisfaction as well as a stronger sense of spatial presence in iVR students in both VFTs compared to dVR students, but no improvement in learning outcomes in iVR compared to dVR. More importantly, we found that there exists a critical interaction between VR condition and repeated participation in VFTs indicating that longitudinal exposure to VFTs improves knowledge performance more when learning in iVR than through dVR. These results suggest that repeated use of iVR may be beneficial in sustaining students’ emotional engagement and compensating the initial deficiency in their objective learning outcomes compared to other less immersive technologies.

my first sharing on our team's perspective on AI in education at ICER 2021

here's a recording of my very first sharing of our team's perspective on Artificial Intelligence, Data Science, Machine Learning and Computer Vision in education.

i was privileged to be invited to share during the 21st International Conference on Education Research which has been taking place over the past two days. ICER 2021 is hosted by Seoul National University, to whom i remain very grateful for the trust they extended to me.

sharing our work on physiological stress, local microclimate, wearables and Data Science at AAG 2022

my team and i are very excited to share that we have been afforded the opportunity to share our early and ongoing work at the intersection of physiological stress, local microclimate, wearables and Data Science, during the conference of the American Association of Geographers (AAG) which runs from the 25th of February till the 1st of March 2022.

our paper on Investigating the relationship between physiological stress and environmental factors through Data Science, the Internet of Things and DIY wearables has been invited to be part of a symposium on the 25th of February organised by Ast/P Guiming Zhang from the University of Denver and Ast/P Xi Gong from the University of New Mexico. My co-authors are Nguyen Duc Minh Anh and Nguyen Thien Minh Tuan.

the theme of the symposium is Human Dynamics Research: Mining Human Dynamics with Big Data, and it is sponsored by the Spatial Analysis and Modeling (SAM) specialty group, the Geographic Information Science and Systems specialty group, and the Cyberinfrastructure specialty group of the AAG, as part of the 8th Symposium on Human Dynamics Research.

Dr Gong is a faculty member of the Department of Geography & Environmental Studies, at the UNM Center for the Advancement of Spatial Informatics Research and Education (ASPIRE). Dr Zhang is a faculty member of the Department of Geography and the Environment at his university. Together, they describe the symposium as follows:

With the advancement of information and communication technologies (ICT), location-aware technology, and mobile technology, data about human behaviors and interactions in physical, virtual, and network space has been generated at an unprecedented scale. The so-called big data bring in both opportunities and challenges for understanding, modeling, and predicting human dynamics. On one hand, the big data are collected from ubiquitous data sources (social media data, volunteered geographic information - VGI, sensor data, GPS tracks, transaction records, etc.); the data can cover aspects and scales of the human dynamics that are unseen from traditional data. On the other hand, revealing meaningful spatio-temporal patterns are challenging due to the high volume, velocity, and variety nature of the big data. Recent cutting-edge techniques such as data mining, machine learning, and artificial intelligence (AI) open up new opportunities for unveiling the hidden spatio-temporal and network patterns of human dynamics in the big data.

This session welcomes both methodological research on mining human dynamics with big data and human dynamics applications utilizing big data. Potential session topics include, but not limited to:
• Mining, detecting, or modeling human dynamics in physical, virtual or network space using big data (such as social media data, VGI, sensor data, GPS tracks, and transaction data).
• Algorithm design/optimization for mining human dynamics in big data.
• Spatio-temporal analytics of human dynamics using big data.
• Comparison of big data and traditional data in human dynamics research.
• Innovative data sources and data collection methods for human dynamics research.
• Data quality and privacy issues of big data in human dynamics research.
• Visualization of human dynamic patterns in big data.
• Predicting human dynamics based on historical pattern analysis on big data.

Data Science and AI, the SORBET Project and Yunnan Rangers shared during the opening keynote of ELSI 2021

my team and i are very happy and humbled that our various projects on Data Science and AI, the Socially Responsible Behaviour through Embodied Thinking (SORBET) Project, and the Yunnan Rangers hybrid on-site / off-site Augmented Reality board game has been chosen by the Director of the National Institute of Education, Singapore to be shared during her opening keynote delivered during this year's Educational Leadership Summer Institute (ELSI).

ELSI 2021 was hosted by the College of Education, De La Salle University, the Philippines, from the 30th of September till the 2nd of October. This year's theme was Educational Leadership in the New Normal: Navigating Technodependence.

we would like to thank our Director for her gracious encouragement.

:-)

Disciplinary Intuitions: welcoming college students to NTU's Undergraduate Research Experience on Campus (URECA) AY 2021 / 2022

further to my post two months’ ago, my team and i are really happy and privileged to welcome four college students (from a total of fifteen applicants) to our projects offered under NTU’s Undergraduate Research Experience on Campus (URECA) programme for the Academic Year 2021 / 2022.

one of our students is from the National Institute of Education, another is from the School of Computer Science and Engineering, another is from the School of Materials Science and Engineering, and another from the School of Physical and Mathematical Sciences.

the opportunity to participate in URECA is extended through invitation only to select second- and third-year undergraduates, who will subsequently be conferred as NTU President Research Scholars.

the projects we have offered are:

NIE21271 - Exploring Data Science through the visualisation of environmental data from the Internet of Things

NIE21276 - Game-Based Learning and the surfacing of leadership dispositions within a campus

NIE21287 - The design and development of an adaptive and assistive coding tool for students through the use of artificial intelligence and machine learning

NIE21303 - Safe management in endemic COVID through monitoring the capacity of defined spatial areas

Destination Guide -> SL18B -> Beneath the waves

Beneath the Waves at SL18B

Come explore ecosystems, such as the littoral zone, reef environment, neretic zone, and the demersal zone of the oceans. This installation is dedicated to all who have designed and built wonderful marine ecosystems in the waters of Second Life over the past eighteen years.

Visit in Second Life

 

Beneath the waves: an installation at SL18B

today sees the start of two-and-a-half weeks' of commemorative events (collectively known as SL18B) celebrating the eighteenth anniversary of the main grid of Second Life coming out of beta :-)

the annual celebrations are always something i look forward to, and i have participated by contributing installations in 2008, 2009, 2011, 2013 and 2020.

this year, i had not anything new to share with fellow residents, but i felt prompted to participate nonetheless. 

inspired by this year's theme of 'hidden worlds', i designed and built a simple installation dedicated to all those who have contributed wonderful and awesome aquatic and marine ecosystems in the waters and oceans all over Second Life, over these past eighteen years. 

titled 'Beneath the waves', i tried my best to represent the vertical zonations of the littoral, the reef, the neritic, and the demersal. 

Beneath the waves is also dedicated to the memory of Ebbe Altberg.

Beneath the waves is located at SL18B Incredible. when you visit, do consider visiting the two parcels immediately to the east and west of the installation. 

adjoining Beneath the waves to the east is an installation representing the Second Life Endowment for the Arts. The SLEA is the spiritual successor to the former Linden Endowment for the Arts (LEA), a decade-long partnership with the arts community that aimed to help new artists, cultivate art in SL, and foster innovation, collaboration and education.

adjoining Beneath the waves to the west is an installation representing the Second Life Coast Guard. The goal of the SLCG is to teach those interested, real life safe boating courses from within the virtual world. 

SL18B runs till the 6th of July.

a trajectory in Artificial Intelligence, Data Science and Machine Learning

as my team's experience with Maker Motes and the Internet of Things has grown since our first forays eight years' ago, we have anticipated that the datasets generated by the sensor meshes we have emplaced within school campuses across Singapore would be growing, too.

in late 2019, we started monitoring the field of Artificial Intelligence (AI), Data Science and Machine Learning (ML), especially as applied to learning and education. 

we have been dissatisfied with the extent to which the particular paradigm of using AI as tools for analysing student behaviour and performance has been pervasive in much conversation around education.

we challenged ourselves to continue exploring and keeping open minds, and, in - Steve Jobs's words - not to "settle".

we particularly also wanted to extend the narrative around AI, Data Science and ML beyond the traditional domains of Mathematics and Computer Science.

this year, together with some of our students, we conceptualised two examples of the applications of AI, Data Science and ML to the Digital Humanities.

the first is an idea for a History lesson unit in which a dataset of historical commercial voyages is visualised using the R programming language, in order to show the extent to which Singapore as a trading post in the 19th century was connected to other parts of the world.

the second is an idea for poverty mapping in which several years of satellite imagery is analysed using trained Machine Learning models in order to identify patterns of development across regions and countries in Southeast Asia.

through God's grace, and through the very kind invitation of Seoul National University, i will be sharing these projects on a session themed on Education Technology and the Learning Sciences, as part of the 21st International Conference on Educational Research (ICER) to be held on the 21st and 22nd of October.

all thanks be to God alone.

Credit: Lambert & Co., G.R. / Singapore
Leiden University Library, KITLV, image 150813 Collection page Southeast Asian & Caribbean Images (KITLV)

Yunnan Rangers hybrid AR board game at the 7th international conference of the Immersive Learning Research Network

our team has received news that we will be able to present a paper on the hybrid Augmented Reality (AR) board game that my team developed - Yunnan Rangers - during this year's international conference of the Immersive Learning Research Network (iLRN).

our paper is titled Communal Spaces As Ludic Resources Of Learning With Augmented Reality And Board Games. its abstract reads: This paper describes a learning activity using Augmented Reality (AR) which seeks to take advantage of the potential for learning about history and culture through exploration. This is represented by a garden in a university campus that affords visitors a scaffolded experience comprising a game-driven narrative in which visitors to the garden may assume the roles of different protagonists. In addition, we also sought to design a paper-based board-game for visitors who are not yet able to visit the garden in person. Both aspects of the learning activity – namely, the game-driven narratives in the actual garden as well as in the board-game equivalent – were piloted in December 2020. The study suggests that a combination of Augmented Reality, storyline and role-play could increase the probability of encounters with spontaneous elements in learners’ local environments that encourage learning.

iLRN 2021 runs from the 17th of May till the 10th of June, and i am scheduled to read the paper on the 2nd of June :-)

 

Yunnan Rangers hybrid AR board game: shared with alumni of the Nanyang Technological University

my team and i are very grateful to the Development Office of our parent university - the Nanyang Technological University (NTU) - for so graciously deeming our recent hybrid Augmented Reality (AR) board game Yunnan Rangers as worthy of being shared with those members of the alumni of the university who are currently based in China.

the Development Office supports the university's mission by fostering meaningful relationships and strategic partnerships with philanthropists, alumni, business community partners, corporations, foundations and friends that result in goodwill and philanthropy towards education and research that underpin a shared sustainable future. Together, the Office and its partners nurture the next generation of leaders and build sustainable support in education and academia.

the Office will be sharing Yunnan Rangers in a coming Electronic Direct Mail in both English and Mandarin Chinese, to alumni. for example, the Mandarin Chinese version will be shared with NTU China, which is an industry-academia collaboration between NTU and the Chongqing Yubei District People's Government in Yubei district, Chongqing municipality.   

it's such a privilege for us, because we conceptualised, designed, and developed Yunnan Rangers during 2020 - as part of our team's response to COVID-19 - particularly with the Chinese diaspora in mind. it's tremendous that our parent university understands, appreciates, and is able to support our work in Augmented Reality and learning.

we are so grateful to the Development Office of the NTU.

:-)