Virginia Commonwealth University VCU Scholars Compass Theses and Dissertations Graduate School 2010 VIRTUAL REALITY IN ART EDUCATION Sohhyoun Yoon Virginia Commonwealth University Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarscompass.edu/etd Part of the Art Education Commons © The Author Downloaded from https://scholarscompass.edu/etd/2021 This Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by the Graduate School at VCU Scholars Compass. It has been accepted for inclusion in Theses and Dissertations by an authorized administrator of VCU Scholars Compass. For more information, please contact libcompass@vcu. School of the Arts Virginia Commonwealth University This is to certify that the thesis prepared by Sohhyoun Yoon entitled VIRTUAL REALITY IN ART EDUCATION has been approved by her committee as satisfactory completion of the thesis requirement for the degree of Master of Art Education Dr.
Buffington, Assistant Professor, Department of Art Education Dr. Sara Wilson McKay, Assistant Professor, Department of Art Education Dr. Taylor, Chair and Associate Professor, Department of Art Education Dr. Toscan, Dean of the School of the Arts Dr.
Douglas Boudinot, Dean of the Graduate School May, 2010 © Sohhyoun Yoon, 2010 All Rights Reserved VIRTUAL REALITY IN ART EDUCATION A Thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Art Education at Virginia Commonwealth University. by SOHHYOUN YOON BFA, Hongik University, Seoul, Korea, February 1997 Director: DR. BUFFINGTON ASSISTANT PROFESSOR, ART EDUCATION Virginia Commonwealth University Richmond, Virginia May, 2010 Acknowledgement I would like to express my gratitude to many people in aiding me in the creation of this thesis. First, I appreciate my advisor, Dr.
Buffington for helping me deepen the content of my thesis. Also, I wish to thank her for enabling me to finish this thesis through the assignments and deadlines. In addition, as English is my second language, her patience is taken to me with kindness and gratitude. I feel fortunate to meet her as my advisor because she provides a role model of good educator who is warm heart.
To my committee member Dr. Sara Wilson McKay, I am very gracious for the time and effort spent in evaluating my work. To chair of department Dr. Taylor and professors Dr.
David Burton, Dr. Nancy Lampert, Dr. Mary Jane Zander, Dr. Donna Green, and Dr.
Min Cho, I would like to say thanks for teaching me a solid foundation in art education and supporting my interest in technology in the classroom. I am grateful to Semi Ryu who is a professor in Kinetic Imaging department for giving me chance to explore the creation of Virtual Reality spaces and the inspiration to use it in art education. To my family and relatives, especially, mother, father, sister Sohjoung, Soyoung, and her family, uncle and aunt Lee and, second cousin Minjee, I would like to say ii thanks for giving me the love and opportunity to study abroad and discover more aspects of myself. To my husband, Tommy, I am deeply moved by his love, support, and technical advice in Second Life.
iii Table of Contents Page Acknowledgements. ii List of Figures. vii Chapter 1 CHAPTER 1. 4 Significance of the study.
5 Suggestions for further study. 8 Technology in Education. 13 Virtual Reality in Education. 16 Second Life in Education.
27 Part I: Unit Overview. 28 iv Part I: Big Idea–Identity. 29 Part I: Unit Objectives. 31 Part I: Standards of Learning.
32 Part I: Student group Targeted. 33 Part I: Time Required. 34 Part I: Instructional Plan. 41 Part I: Overall Unit Evaluation.
45 Part II: Unit Overview. 47 Part II: Big Idea: Display their identities-gallery project. 48 Part II: Unit Objectives. 48 Part II: Standards of Learning.
49 Part II: Student group Targeted. 51 Part II: Time Required. 51 Part II: Materials. 51 Part II: Instructional Plan.
58 v Part II: Overall Evaluation. 77 vi List of Figures Page Figure 1: Basic templates. 40 Figure 2: Finished templates with textures. 43 Figure 3: Completed clothing.
43 Figure 4: Example of an object. 54 Figure 5: Example of an artwork. 57 Figure 6: Example of a gallery. 60 Figure 7: Asian style of a gallery and artwork.
60 vii Abstract VIRTUAL REALITY IN ART EDUCATION By Sohhyoun Yoon, MAE A Thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Art Education at Virginia Commonwealth University. Virginia Commonwealth University, 2008 Major Director: Dr. Buffington Assistant Professor, Art Education This thesis project presents possible uses of Virtual Reality for art education. To understand VR, this thesis reviews the history of using technology in educational environments and explores the concepts, definitions, and characteristics of VR in general.
Then, it shows diverse purposes of VR for education and art educational environments. For an art class, the units present the use of Teen Second Life, which is a free on-line virtual world. The units demonstrate how art educators may use Teen Second life for high school art classes to build students’ understandings of their identities by creating their avatars, clothing, objects and artwork and by displaying the viii artwork in a virtual community. The purpose of this thesis project is to suggest possible uses of VR for art educational environments.
ix CHAPTER 1 Introduction As technology develops at a fast speed, educational environments for children and educators also change very quickly. Technology plays such a crucial role in contemporary society that many of us could not imagine what our life would be like without computers and the Internet. Computers serve as vehicles through which teachers and students can conduct their studies, design and create art, and obtain information. The widespread use of computers and progression of media led to the development of “Virtual Reality” (Sherman & Craig, 2003).
Background of Virtual Reality (VR) “Virtual Reality” is a technology, which allows a user to interact with a computer-simulated environment, be it a real or imagined one. The term “Virtual Reality” (VR) was coined by Jaron Lanier, who is computer scientist and philosopher, in 1989 in conjunction with his Virtual Programming Language (VPL) Research (Albani & Lee, 2007; Grau, 2003; Sherman & Craig, 2003). Also, VR allows users to experience sensory input in a three-dimensional space (Sakatani, 2005). Burdea and Coiffet (2003) stated, “Virtual reality is a high-end user-computer interface that involves real time simulation and interactions through multiple sensorial channels.
These sensorial modalities are visual, auditory, tactile, smell, and taste” (p. 1 Statement of the problem and research questions VR represents a new stage in computer technology that allows more interaction using software and responds to the users’ actions (Sherman & Craig, 2003). According to Jackson, Taylor and Winn (1998), this new technology has significant potential in the education field. Byrne (1993) pointed out that VR helps students understand complex data in science.
At this point, it is valuable to look over the efforts of applying VR for educational purposes in general, and to seek possible uses in art education. VR spaces have been used in various areas such as art, science, medical science, and general education (Kommers & Zhiming, 1997). This shows that it is worthy to explore the use of VR in art education as well. In this research, I will examine two major questions related to using VR to help students learn art: (1) What types of Virtual Realities exist and are currently used in education? (2) What would a VR art curriculum for high school students to use Second Life entail? Literature Review “Virtual Reality” is a powerful human-computer interface that has implications for many areas (Burdea & Coiffet, 2003).
Kommers and Zhiming (1997) wrote, “VR is a newly emerging tool for scientific visualization that makes possible multisensory, three-dimensional modeling of scientific data” (p. They also pointed out that even though VR technology was still primitive, the use of VR could be predicted to broaden in telerobotic, telepresence surgery, virtual chemistry, virtual planetary travel, virtual 2 entertainment, and architectural design. Youngblut (1998) described over fifty Virtual Reality applications in desktop and Head-mounted display (HMD) environments for diverse educational purposes, showing that the use of VR can be extremely widespread. Also, he presented how VR helped students learn new concepts through VR technology.
Due to the positive prospect of using VR in education, two studies were conducted by the Human Interface Technology Laboratory (HIT Lab) at the University of Washington in collaboration with the Pacific Science Center (1992). The purpose of these studies was to find whether students age 10 to 15 could work with VR technology and enjoy VR. These studies found that many of the children involved were able to learn VR through the process of creating virtual spaces (Byrne, 1993). According to Youngblut (1998), the HIT Lab collaborated with an educational development center to develop a VR system in a van.
Named the Virtual Reality Roving Vehicle (VRRV), this van brings VR to schools and gives students and teachers the opportunity to experience and create VR. The use of VRRV let students be more involved in the development of VR on the topics of Wetland Ecology and Global Warming. Also, this project gave teachers a chance to learn and create VR including “Atom world” which helped students learn science concepts. The objective of developing the VRRV was to teach children to make virtual worlds so that they can better understand the curriculum and to achieve specific learning goals (Mellet d’Hauart, Richard, & Follut, 2001).
Harmony Quest, a VR for an interdisciplinary art curriculum, was designed to expose students to VR technology. The goal of this art-based study was to raise 3 students’ awareness of important roles in collaboration and to develop multidisciplinary curricula for the benefit of many people. Another goal was to make VR accessible in schools and communities (Sakatani, 2005). According to Sakatani (2005), in Harmony Quest, students extended their confidence in their own learning as they experienced VR within supportive groups.
Through this teaching and learning process, students were exposed to diverse information, resources, Internet, e-mail and experienced VR with joy. Methodology Background to the study This thesis project is part of an initial attempt to explore the possible uses of VR in art education. I first introduce the concept of VR and explain how VR has affected educational environments. I then examine the present use of technology relevant to VR in art education through a literature review.
Following the literature review, I present units of instruction for high school students to use Second Life which is a 3-D virtual world entirely built and owned by its residents. The units involve the VR Second Life and an interdisciplinary art curriculum for secondary art students. Design of the study In the literature review, I examine the use of VR technology in education and art education. Also, I review the development of VR from the beginning to the present.
By examining the brief history of the VR, I found diverse purposes for using VR in education, special education, art, games, and entertainment. Therefore, I used these ideas when designing the units for a high school art class using Teen Second Life. The 4 use of Teen Second Life may facilitate dynamic communication online between students or students and teachers through VR. Also, this VR may be used to lead an interdisciplinary art unit for students in various school subjects.
The purpose of the units is that students learn and experience art through Second Life, extend their ideas in art making, and become aware of their responsibilities in an online community. This thesis project will help art educators learn effective ways to bring VR to the art classroom. Moreover, this project will open people’s eyes to the advantages and disadvantages of using VR for art education. The important point is how we, art educators, can use VR and transform it into an effective vehicle to improve students’ learning.