Developing Mixed Reality Educational Applications: The Virtual Touch Toolkit.

Area of Science:

• Educational Technology
• Human-Computer Interaction
• Mixed Reality

Background:

• Developing engaging educational activities often requires specialized technical skills in programming and electronics.
• Integrating virtual and real-world elements in education presents significant technical challenges for educators.
• Existing toolkits may not adequately address the needs of non-expert users like teachers.

Purpose of the Study:

• To introduce Virtual Touch, a toolkit designed for creating educational activities in a mixed reality environment.
• To simplify the process of developing and deploying educational applications by abstracting technical complexities.
• To empower teachers to create their own interactive learning experiences without needing advanced technical knowledge.

Main Methods:

• Development of the Virtual Touch toolkit, focusing on ease of installation, configuration, and programming.
• Integration of tangible elements to bridge the gap between virtual and real-world interactions.
• Testing the toolkit through the creation and deployment of various educational applications in secondary schools.

Main Results:

• The Virtual Touch toolkit successfully facilitates the creation of mixed reality educational activities.
• Teachers with limited technical backgrounds were able to independently develop educational applications.
• The toolkit effectively abstracts the complexities of tangible interfaces and virtual world programming.

Conclusions:

• Virtual Touch empowers educators to create innovative mixed reality learning experiences.
• The toolkit democratizes the development of educational technology for non-expert users.
• This approach enhances the integration of technology in secondary education by enabling teacher-led content creation.