Mixed-Reality and Project Based Curriculum Development : Empowering STEM Learners and Educators in Southwest Virginia Appalachian Region

The recent advances in mixed-reality (MR), mobile and related technologies indicate a tipping point in our ability to go beyond the standard educational, and training settings and study adaptive processes during complex physical, social, and educational interactions in realistic complex environments. Such technologies are exciting because they permit educators to move beyond artificial experimental settings that have limited ecological validity. We hypothesize that using these technologies in a real-world context, where computer generated stimuli are blended with the real-world stimuli, will provide necessary affordances in support of higher-fidelity embodied interactions resulting in more effective skill development, experiential learning, training and education. That will, in turn, help address prohibitive social impacts (e.g., resource and other disparities) to provide an exciting opportunity to re-define education and learning experiences while maintaining utility and effectiveness. To illustrate the challenges and opportunities we describe the development and deployment of a HoloLens application for Nurse Aide skills training. The application is used by nursing students at Washington County (Virginia) Career & Technical Education Center. The goal is to augment the student’s experience in the classroom settings and to provide a rich set of educational contents in an MR environment.