Immersive Learning Design at the University of Leeds

Gabriel Jones - Digital Education Service

Project overview

This project explores the design and implementation of immersive learning design resources produced using the recently procured media annotation and customisable navigation tool, ThingLink. The research will document use cases and analyse support needs from staff and academics across the university in the development of new learning resources, which are designed to be experienced in a range of immersive contexts, from 2D screen interactions to fully-immersive VR experiences.

The research approach

Media annotation and customisable navigation tools, such as ThingLink, represent an unprecedented democratisation of immersive learning design, empowering users with little or no coding experience to produce their own immersive learning experiences. Owing to the software's intuitive and easy-to-use interface, it is now possible for staff members at the University of Leeds to conceptualise, produce, and implement such experiences with minimal technical support from our Digital Education Enhancement teams. Together with the technological affordances of the new HELX centre, this could facilitate the large-scale proliferation of immersive learning, offering students in taught, hybrid, and fully online courses cutting edge educational experiences, informed by the latest pedagogical research. This LITE fellowship will support the success of such developments at the university of Leeds and to spark discourse on the global impact of democratised immersive learning design in higher education.

My LITE fellowship has four planned outcomes:

(1) a cross-faculty state-of-play report on the development and implementation of immersive learning resources at the university, including a taxonomy of use cases;

(2) a report on the support needs of staff in developing immersive learning resources, including the proposal of workflows between staff members and DEE teams are transparent, effective, and sustainable;

(3) stimulation of inter-disciplinary debate, innovation, and professional learning in immersive learning design at the university;

(4) documentation and dissemination of my findings in the form of conference presentations and peer-reviewed journal articles, establishing academic discourse around the emergence and impact of democratised immersive learning design, while signalling the university’s status as a key player in the field.

To find out more about the project please contact Gabriel Jones

Each fellowship has a project sponsor that helps the fellows achieve impact across the institution. The sponsor for this fellowship is James Pickering.

Project start date: September 2023