Abstract:

Immersive technologies such as Extended Reality (XR), holography and haptics are experiencing significant growth. While their main use cases are often associated with gaming and entertainment, these technologies are current being used for training, education, industry 4.0, tourism, etc., in which they provide several benefits. Regarding the education and training use cases, several studies performed on lab environments or small-cale experiments (such as Aula Infinita from Universitat Politecnica de Catalunya and Telefo nica – IE University initiative learning use case) have shown that utilizing immersive technologies for these purposes can aid knowledge retention and understanding of complex topics (e.g., require spatial vision).

This paper presents Universitat Politecnica de Valencia (UPV) flagship didactic innovation project Immersive Classroom, which aims to evaluate the feasibility of establishing a university-wide immersive teaching service for producing, adapting, and commercializing XR educational content, leveraging UPV’s Immersive Communications Laboratory, a pioneering facility dedicated to human-centered XR applications, with a focus on immersive education.

The Immersive Classroom project aims to validate the integration of immersive XR technologies into teaching across a range of degrees at UPV. The project involves faculty students and teachers from 12 UPV departments. Its general goal is to assess how immersive environments can enhance student understanding and make complex concepts easier to deal with.

The project specifically targets:
(i) technical validation of immersive teaching apps;
(ii) identification of suitable courses for immersive teaching across multiple degrees;
(iii) creation of XR-compatible teaching scripts and content;
(iv) definition of evaluation methods and learning outcomes;
(v) delivery of immersive classes with active student participation; and
(vi) feasibility analysis of a scalable immersive teaching service at UPV.

The final paper will:
(i) present an overview of the state-of-the-art Immersive Communications Laboratory, which is uniquely equipped to produce and host immersive learning experiences and has already supported several XR education pilots within national and EU projects;
(ii) describe the educational innovation framework and methodology adopted, including workflows for validation with students in real classroom settings; and
(iii) report selected success stories and lessons learned from deployed XR short informative pieces, such as applications on the electric field of a point charge (Physics engineering degree), heat transmission through walls (Industrial Technologies Engineering degree), and a robot assembly cell (Industrial Technologies Engineering degree).

A fourth application, about types of heat exchangers, is currently under development for this latter degree. All these applications are designed for use on standard smartphones and tablets, using rear-facing cameras to overlay virtual elements onto free space (e.g., on the floor) or onto specific physical objects equipped with tracking tags. The team plans to keep working on existing collaborations and develop many more applications for different degrees, which include Biotechnology, Physical engineering (Physics for Food Science and Technology), Industrial Technologies (heat exchange), Social Media (how to speak in public), Digital Technologies and Media (graphic design), Telecommunications (electromagnetic fields), among others.

Keywords:

Extended Reality, Augmented Reality, Virtual Reality, Immersive.