Lana Plumanns

Investigating mixed-reality teaching and learning environments for future demands : the trainers’ perspective

The first three industrial revolutions were characterized by the invention of water and steam engine, centralized electric power infrastructure and mass production as well as digital computing and communications technology. The current developments caused by the fourth revolution, also known as “Industry 4.0”, pose major challenges to almost every kind of work, workplace, and the employees. Due to the concepts of cyber-physical systems, Internet of Things and the increasing globalization, remote work is a fast-growing trend in the workplace, and educational strategies within virtual worlds become more important. Especially methods as teaching and learning within virtual worlds are expected to have an enormous impact on advanced education in the future. However, it is not trivial to transfer a reliable educational method from real to the virtual worlds. Therefore, it is important to adapt, check and change even small didactic elements to guarantee a sustainable learning success. As there is a lot of ongoing research about using virtual worlds for the training of hazardous situations, it has to be figured out which potential those environments bear for the everyday education of academic staff and which competencies and educational support trainers need to have respectively can give in those worlds. The used approach for this study was to investigate the trainers’ didactic perspective on mixed-reality teaching and learning. A total of ten trainers from different areas in Germany took part in this study. Every participant pursued both roles: the teaching and the learning part in a virtual learning environment. In order to assess the learning success and important key factors the experiment yields data from the participants’ behavior, their answers to a semi-structured interview and video analysis, recorded from the virtual world. Resulting data were analyzed by using different qualitative as well as quantitative methods. The findings of this explorative research suggest the potential for learning in virtual worlds and give inside into influencing variables. The online gaming experience and the age of participants can be shown to be related to participants’ performance in the virtual world. It looks like the barriers for the affected trainers are low regarding utilization of virtual worlds. Together with the mentioned advantages and possible usages, the potential of these setups is shown.

Enhancing the Learning Success of Engineering Students by Virtual Experiments

In a world that is characterized by highly specialized industry sectors, the demand for well-educated engineers increases significantly. Thus, the education of engineering students has become a major field of interest for universities. However, not every university is able to provide the required number of industry demonstrators to impart the needed practical knowledge to students. Our aim is to fill this gap by establishing Remote Labs. These laboratory experiments are performed in Virtual Reality environments which represent real laboratories accessible from different places. Following the implementation of such Remote Labs described within our past publications the aim of this contribution is to examine and evaluate possibilities of controlling Remote Labs from arbitrary locations. These control mechanisms are based on the virtualization of two concurrently working six-axis robots in combination with a game pad remote controller. The evaluation of the virtual demonstrator is carried out in terms of a study that is based on practical tests and questionnaires to the measure learning success.

Designing Hands-On Robotics Courses for Students with Visual Impairment or Blindness

School laboratories let students playfully experience the fundamentals of, for example, robotics, computer science, and technology-related topics. By working with LEGO Mindstorms, secondary school students get a chance to learn on a cognitive, emotional, and haptic level and gain experiences with the aid of even more advanced robotics. However, due to an impairment or lack of sight, it is hardly possible for some students to fully participate in a programming process or in building a robot. To overcome this unintentional discrimination, the interdisciplinary student laboratory “RoboScope” at RWTH Aachen University has teamed up with a group of experts to develop a barrierfree robotic course. Since then, the course has been tested and implemented based on concurrent evaluations and frequently held at RWTH and several other German schools. The presented work covers an overview of different kinds of visual impairment and lab settings and the development cycle of the courses at RWTH from design to testing, implementation, and further development regarding the evaluations. Evaluations show that students who are visually impaired or blind appreciate the opportunity to participate in the field of robotics. An insight into the evaluation concept that differs from “regular” courses in the “Roboscope,” as well as the results are used for further development.

On the Relevance of Digital Learning Cultures Within Online Business Education

Advancing digitisation on the job requires a rethinking and redevelopment towards a new business education that is able to address the challenges of increasing complexity. Business qualification measures have to do justice to an increasingly flexible and interconnected life and work environment that is linked to the application of new technologies. Thus, the industry of the future, including large, medium and small enterprises, must apply new ways and strategies in order to enable their employees to embrace and adequately deal with the new digital chances and challenges. In this, the important question for research and practice concerning business education is not whether digital formats should be integrated into qualification measures but indeed how they must be applied.

Thank you for playing science: Robotic Education at DLR_School_Lab RWTH Aachen

The current developments being triggered by Industry 4.0 pose major challenges for robotic education; hence, the demand for students from fields affiliated with science, technology, engineering, mathematics and robotics in particular is steadily increasing. In this research paper, the “DLR_School_Lab_RWTH Aachen”, an interdisciplinary student laboratory created to counter this challenge, is described and evaluated. Founded in 2013 by RWTH Aachen University and the German Aerospace Center (DLR), the DLR_School_Lab RWTH Aachen offers high-tech experiments in the field of robotics to secondary school students. Since its foundation, it has served as a highly successful extracurricular learning venue. Through active experimentation with robots in application scenarios and based on research from aeronautical, space, energy and transport fields, students have had the opportunity to receive an insight into different scientific disciplines and carry out hands-on experiments. The findings of this research suggest that the visit to the DLR_School_Lab RWTH Aachen enhanced the participants’ interest in studying STEM fields. The results are under discussion and further steps, which take the results of these findings into account, are being planned.