Lowell awarded Office of the Provost’s Innovation Hub Grant

A College of Education faculty member was awarded a Purdue University Office of the Provost Innovation Hub Grant for her project to assist faculty in understanding and implementing extended reality (XR) technologies in their instructional practice.

Victoria Lowell (PI), clinical associate professor of Learning Design and Technology (LDT) in the College’s Department of Curriculum and Instruction, and lead academic advisor of the Emerging Technologies and Learning, Design, and Technology (ETLDT) Research Group, will collaborate on the project with the Envision Center, Purdue’s Teaching and Learning Technologies, and the Center for Instructional Excellence.

The project is titled “Professional Development for Educators: Enhancing Instruction with Extended Reality Experiences for Enhanced Learning Opportunities.” Extended reality (XR) includes virtual reality (VR), augmented reality (AR), mixed reality (MR), and XR technologies with artificial intelligence (AI).

“We will be developing, implementing, evaluating, and researching the benefits and impacts of this professional development training,” Lowell said. “The project addresses the need for training on teaching methods and experiential learning opportunities with XR technology here at Purdue. The series will introduce Purdue educators to enhanced instruction using XR technologies for experiential/authentic learning and assist them in enhancing their existing instruction with XR technology using instructional design practices. Information and resources shared through the workshops and learning experiences will provide participants with knowledge and skills to integrate XR technology-supported authentic learning experiences.”

Collaborators are:

Learning Design & Technology graduate students: Denis Uebiyev, Stuart White, Anthony Ilobinso, Weijian Yan, and Yueqi Wang

Kevin Jones (MS, Curriculum & Instruction with a concentration in Education 2023)

George Takahashi, lead visualization scientist, Envision Center, Rosen Center for Advanced Computing

Lowell’s research group, Emerging Technologies and Learning, Design and Technology (ETLDT), is actively completing numerous research projects on using emerging technologies in formal education, informal education, and professional development training. The Professional Development for Educators project will run for one year beginning July 2023.

Source: Victoria Lowell vllowell@purdue.edu