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Advanced multimedia techniques offer significant learning potential for students. Dale (1946, 1954, 1969) developed a Cone of Experience (CoE) which is a hierarchy of learning experiences ranging from direct participation to abstract symbolic expression. This paper updates the CoE for today's technology and learning context, specifically focused on the use of multimedia in education. The new hierarchy, called the Multimedia Cone of Abstraction (MCoA), has fewer primary levels than the CoE but many more total levels because of multiple potential sublevels. The purpose of the MCoA is to help instructional designers of educational content to select appropriate multimedia for each learning context.

Virtual reality (VR) technology has demonstrated effectiveness in a variety of technical learning situations, yet little is known about its differential effects on learners with different levels of visual processing skill. This small-scale exploratory study tested VR through quasi-experimental methodology and a theoretical/conceptual framework based on supplantation theory, cognitive load theory, Dale's Cone of media concreteness, communication theory, and Lowenfeld's visual/haptic perceptual typology. The study compared the differential effects of VR and traditional still-image presentations of surgical operating room environments to students with high- and low-visual perceptual styles. Descriptive statistics and two-way ANOVAs were used to examine main and interaction effects on six learning performance and opinion variables. Several significant main effects and disordinal interactions suggested that communication channel noise and cognitive load may disrupt supplantation-concreteness benefits of VR, particularly for low-visual learners. Follow-up qualitative data suggested these overload issues may have dissipated when the VR presentation was moved into a classroom learning environment.

Virtual reality (VR) that immerses users in a 3D environment through use of headwear, body suits, and data gloves has demonstrated effectiveness in technical and professional education. Immersive VR is highly engaging and appealing to technically skilled young Net Generation learners. However, technical difficulty and very high costs have kept immersive VR out of most education institutions and corporate training programs. Now, a new technology is making the learning benefits and competitive advantages of VR possible cost effectively. This new technology, called desktop virtual reality, has recently improved dramatically and can now put high-quality virtual environments on standard desktop and laptop computers. This paper introduces instructional uses of VR, reviews the characteristics and benefits of desktop VR, overviews the hardware and software required to develop and use desktop VR for learning and training, and reviews the theoretical foundations and experimental findings from a research program on this innovative technology currently in progress at Oklahoma State University in the United States.

Virtual reality (VR) has demonstrated effectiveness as an instructional technology in many technical fields. However, VR research has generally lacked a sound theory base to provide explanatory or predictive strength. Further, research into the effectiveness of "new desktop technologies" that place VR within the reach of schools and teachers is currently embryonic. The study reported here is a pilot and is highly exploratory. It is a first step in developing a theory-based line of inquiry into desktop VR as an instructional technology with potential for Career and Technical Education. Grounded in several theory and research strands, this study compared the effects of presenting a complex scene via desktop VR and a set of still photographic images. The two treatments were given to groups drawn from the general population with equal representation by both genders and two age groups. Two performance measures and a confidence measure were analyzed using 2-way ANOVAs. Statistically significant main effects for treatment were found for all three measures, all in favor of the VR treatment. These findings were consistent with predictions based on the study's theory base. Several main effects for age and gender, and trends for interactions of age and gender with treatment, were also identified that may provide impetus for further research.(Contains 6 tables and 1 figure.)

Virtual Reality has been defined in many different ways and now means different things in various contexts. VR can range from simple environments presented on a desktop computer to fully immersive multisensory environments experienced through complex headgear and bodysuits. In all of its manifestations, VR is basically a way of simulating or replicating an environment and giving the user a sense of being there, taking control, and personally interacting with that environment with his/her own body. In this article, the author discusses the benefits of using visual technologies for teaching and learning in industrial education. Such a technology is virtual reality (VR). The capabilities and possibilities for VR technology may open doors to new vistas in industrial and technical instruction and learning, and the research that supports them. The emergence of desktop VR now makes it possible for industrial educators to add this powerful high-impact technology to their classroom instructional mix, and to build a unique research base in the field. Desktop VR may be a technology whose time has come for both research and practice in industrial education. With recent breakthroughs in technical and cost accessibility, the door to the world of virtual reality is standing wide open. For industrial teacher educators and researchers, it's only a matter of walking through. Furthermore, implications and recommendations for the use of VR technology as a potential tool for technical and industrial training are discussed.

This study used a cross-case analysis methodology to compare four line-of-inquiry studies of desktop virtual environments (DVEs) to examine the relationships of gender and computer gaming experience to learning performance and perceptions. Comparison was made of learning patterns in a general non-technical DVE with patterns in technically complex, occupationally-specific DVEs. Two oppositely-gendered occupations were sampled in the technical studies: surgical technology and policing. The cross-case analysis confirmed in the occupationally-specific DVEs the gender effect in favor of males on spatial learning that has been documented in previous research literature. It also supported a gaming experience effect in favor of more experienced gamers, but did not clearly demonstrate a relationship between gender and gaming experience. Several implications and recommendations are presented for practitioners and researchers in adult vocational, career, and technical education.

Students in career and technical education (CTE) programs have many environments they need to discover, explore, and understand. For CTE teachers, transporting their students to these environments can be difficult, dangerous, or even impossible. However, there is now a way to take students on location anywhere without leaving the classroom. Virtual reality (VR) was introduced in the late 1960s as immersive experiences with computer-generated imagery presented through head-mounted displays (HMDs). It now includes several different types of computer-based experiences ranging from fully immersive environments with complex HMD gear and body suits, to realistic PC-based programs. VR technologies have proved to be effective in improving learning in a variety of occupational settings and subjects, and reports from both industry and teachers show a generally high level of enthusiasm for the instructional potential of VR. The recent development of high-quality desktop VR systems that function on off-the-shelf PC equipment and without high costs or complex programming is now bringing the benefits of VR within the reach of schools and teachers. Through this new technology, CTE teachers can now actively engage their students in learning environments that are truly exciting, motivating, and engaging. To borrow a metaphor from the technology itself, the VR door is open; CTE teachers need only to click on a hotspot, step through, and discover the instructional excitement that awaits them and their students.

Summarizes the basic concepts and principles of visual literacty, sketches the technocultural background in which it is founded, and suggests some ideas about how it might be put into practice by educators. (Author/JEG)

Suggests 11 dimensions of cognitive style which influence learning, and proposes a three-step instructional design plan to move beyond individual instruction to individualized instruction, so that differences in learners need not result in differences in learning. (Author/JEG)

The model stresses interactions among specific combinations of cognitive task requirements, learner characteristics, and instructional treatment properties, in a manner analogous to the aptitude-treatment interaction (ATI) model. "Supplantation" is the provision of overt assistance to learners in performing a specific process required by a task. (Author/SJL)