Damian Schofield
he is currently Director of Human Computer Interaction (Full Professor) at the State University of New York (SUNY) at Oswego, a position he has held since November 2009. He also currently Adjunct Associate Professor of Forensic Computing at Edith Cowan University, Perth, Western Australia – Dr. Schofield began this visiting professor position in November 2011.
Prior to his move to America, he held the position of the Associate Professor of Computer Games and Digital Media, in the School of Creative Media at RMIT University in Melbourne, Australia. Before his move out to Australia, he was Lecturer in the School of Computer Science at the University of Nottingham, UK and a member of the management team of the prestigious Mixed Reality Lab, based at the University of Nottingham. While working in the UK, Dr. Schofield was also on the management boards of both the Visual Learning Lab (a HEFCE centre of excellence) and the Learning Sciences Research Institute (LSRI).
He also remains a director and major shareholder of Aims Solutions Ltd., a UK based company created in 2000, to provide computer graphics visualization services and virtual reality based simulation training products to a wide range of public and private sector organizations.
Among its interests and expertse: forensic visualisation, facial reconstruction, large scale, multi-player, pervasive gaming, robot empathy and disseminating health information to children.
He has published over 180 academic papers in journals and at international meetings. He has also published numerous magazine articles and has been invited to speak at a many prestigious forums. He is on the organising committee of a number of national and international conferences and has delivered many short courses for various organisations.
Building Bridges Between Education and Territory : The Power of Mixed Reality and Gamification
Advanced three-dimensional virtual reality and mixed reality technology, similar to that used by the film and computer games industry, can allow educational developers to rapidly create realistic, virtual, learning environments. These systems often allow both synchronous and asynchronous learning to occur. In these mixed reality worlds participants may be synchronously connected through a variety of devices, such as laptops, phones, watches, headsets and other ‘Internet of Things’ devices. This allows multiple learners to co-exist within the same virtual space creating an opportunity for shared and participatory educational experiences. Alternatively, participants may be disconnected in temporal, spacial and abstract dimensions from the material under consideration but still able to interact with educational resources in novel and engaging ways.
Generic rules of thumb regarding the specification, development, application, and operation of these mixed reality learning environments can be garnered from industrial training systems and applied in an educational context. This presentation will discuss these guidelines and also practical advice regarding the implementation of virtual educational systems, giving multiple examples. The talk aims to extrapolate the lessons learnt into general pedagogical guidelines, which should be considered for the development of any mixed reality based educational learning resources.