Round Earth Project - collaborative VR for conceptual learning

Abstract

The Round Earth Project is a collaboration among researchers in computer science, education, and psychology. It investigates two alternative pedagogical strategies for teaching children that the Earth is spherical and the implications of that fact. One strategy, is the transformational approach which attempts to effect conceptual change by breaking down the children's prior models. In contrast, the selectionist attempts to effect learning in an alternative setting, free of preexisting biases, and to relate that learning back to the target domain, the Earth.