Mixed Reality in Education: Towards a New Paradigm
Abstract: The most obvious use of Mixed Reality (MR) in education (and not only) is to reproduce objects/apparatuses/tools/organs… that would be hard to see or dangerous to manipulate in the real world. In this paper, we put forth a new approach, proposing to use MR to represent concepts instead of objects, designing educational experiences where MR is used to prompt students to recall, select, combine, concepts either in an individual or a in a cooperative way, via playful and competitive activities. MR thus becomes the trigger for learning content (which takes place before the experience, in a “traditional” way) and competences (which takes place during the experience). In this paper, the activities’ schemas that have been designed in the frame of the “Action for 5G” project (a project aimed to devise ways of exploiting the possibilities offered by super high connectivity) are shared, showing how a sophisticated technology like MR can be turned into a “low-threshold, high-ceiling” tool that any teacher can introduce into the classroom.