Breaking the Zoom gloom for students: hi-tech to lo-tech solutions.

Abstract

Challenge that ‘Zoom Gloom!’ (Wiederhold 2020) Learners describe their ‘best learning moment’ as a ‘flow’ – a point of psychological deep involvement of immersion in an activity or a task, which results in deep learning and high levels of satisfaction (OU Innovating Pedagogy Report 2021). The Learning Development community are experts at creating these types of activities (see the amazing LearnHigher site); this post explores how we can further enhance our student offering through considering extending learning opportunities through simulations. Students report enjoying the added dimensions of more immersive learning experiences, yet only 20%, mainly in health care and engineering gain any ‘real life’ simulation experiences as part of their curricula (Jisc 2020 ‘Student digital experience insights survey’ summarising the experiences of over 20,000 HE students and a range of 28 HE institutions). We ran an LD@3 session ‘Using Google cardboard to engage learners’ to demonstrate how, with with very basic equipment (a SMART phone with internet access able to run 360 video clips from YouTube and Google cardboard – available from Amazon for around £5.00) we can all offer students those ‘tasters’ of a more immersive experience. This blog outlines the technologies which can be used to create different kinds of learning experiences, all of which we tried out with our Nursing Students, and there is a resource list at the foot of the document.