This article describes an educational research using Augmented Reality (AR) and Virtual Reality (VR). First, I clarify the definitions of AR and VR. After that, I introduce examples of research on learning environment and educational support systems which are implemented by AR and VR. AR is classified based on the augmented reality display in the real environment. VR is classified based on the degree of immersion. And I will discuss how each technology is used in the context of education or learning. Later, as an example of industry, we will introduce case studies focusing on automobile HUD. Finally, from the comparison with industrial cases, we will summarize the issues of future learning environment and educational support system research using AR/VR.

Virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR) can provide simulated experiences. These technologies also have the potential to support locomoting viewpoint. Therefore, they may help solve some key problems in the field of astronomy. First, this paper describes those issues. Then, the paper introduces the equipment that the authors have developed for VR, AR, and tangible learning systems in astronomical education. Finally, examples are provided of the learning effects researchers have found while using the learning equipment presented in this paper.

This paper describes how to apply the communicative robots in technology literacy education. As a measure to cope with social issues such as population decline, many plans using various new technologies is presented. However, in social development of these technologies, human resource development to utilize them is also necessary. Therefore, we believe that technology literacy education corresponding to new technology is necessary. We have been conducting technology literacy education at our medical university since 2014 utilizing communicative robots. I believe that communicative robots can be used in classes as a very interesting user interface. In this report, I will refer to why communicative robots are utilized in education. Then, I will explain and discuss several class design examples.

It is extremely important from the viewpoint of educational and learning effect to grasp the mental state of the learner in the teaching-learning process. In the interaction between teacher and learner, the authors formalize the relationship between teacher's utterance, learner's physiological data, and learner's mental state. In this research, we attempt to extract teacher's utterance and physiological index of learner and mental state using machine learning, and we found that it is possible to estimate the mental state from utterance of teacher and physiological information of learner with high accuracy. Furthermore, we outline the overview and future works or problems of our Intelligent Mentoring System: IMS which have developed according to findings of our research series.

We have installed network-connected cameras and field servers in an agricultural field. In addition, we have developed a field monitoring system that enables elementary school children to observe the agricultural land from their classroom through the Internet and used it in primary school since 2011. However, a teacher could not use agricultural work images in her class because the number of the images taken by the network cameras with an infrared sensor exceeds 50,000 per year. In this study, we developed a function to add metadata to the sensor detection images for improving easiness of search of the agricultural work images from all images. This paper describes a method for automatically classifying images of agricultural work employing both image processing technology and information on the date and time of image capture.

Response analyzer systems with ID marker sheets enable teachers to gather data about students’ understanding levels quickly at a low cost. ID marker sheets held by students are captured by front cameras and recognized to identify answers as well as students. However, holding ID markers during classes is a burden for the students. It may disturb continuous learning activities of students. Therefore, we propose a stationary marker for extending use-cases of paper-based response analyzer systems. Before designing the stationary marker, we have adopted a novel marker recognition method that realizes robustness for occulusions. We have also modified the method to improve performance. After that, we have also analyzed the limitation of the marker recognition method through simulation for designing the stationary marker. A comparative experiment with a conventional hand-held sheet method was conducted. We confirmed that the proposed stationary marker method is easier to use than the conventional hand-held sheet method.

In classes using PCs, monitors and computer cases obstruct the line of sight, and a teacher is hard to know students’ activities. Therefore, in this paper, we propose a method to know the activities from operations of mouses and keyboards. The method visualizes the operation data as a heat map to present it to teachers intuitively. We reveal that the teacher can intuitively recognize students' activities by our method in the comparative experiment with the desktop capture.

The purpose of this study is to explore educational methods for UML programming for novices. We introduce MDD method to our education. In this case, a metamodel, a source code template and a domain specific language (DSL) are key factors. By using metamodel, learners are expected to be able to draw program with appropriate difficulty. By using a source code template, learners are able to get source codes without programming language typing. By using a DSL, teachers can control the difficulty of the problems given to their learners. In this paper, we describe our research approach using MDD and three key factors, then, show our educational step-by-step programming method. We also describe the results of our educational trials with proposed method.

The current authors previously proposed a 3-phase learning process that included a web-based review and used this approach to implement blended learning (BL) for beginning learners of Chinese language at university. Given the rapid spread of smartphones, students have increasingly requested learning materials for use on smartphones over the past few years. However, few learning materials have been designed to facilitate this mode of learning using smartphones and there are no clearly defined approaches to designing such materials for BL by beginning learners of Chinese. The current study has focused on microlearning to resolve these problems. The authors have proposed guidelines for designing review materials for use on smartphones to facilitate BL based on microlearning and have developed the review application KoToToMo. The results of a pilot study suggest that this approach is effective at maintaining the motivation to learn and promoting independent study particularly with regard to speaking.