Fall 2019 Equity Exchange - Extended Reality

CGEST Founder and Executive Director Dr. Kimberly Scott welcomed Dr. Mina Johnson-Glenberg and Professor Retha Hill to the ASU Polytechnic Campus on Tuesday, September 18 for the Fall 2019 STEM Equity Exchange. Equity Exchanges are a series of lectures hosted by CGEST to promote collaboration between researchers, disciplines, and practitioners who study the underrepresentation of women and girls of color in STEM and culturally responsive teaching techniques. They encourage presenters and audience members to critically investigate ways to address disparities in STEM fields and to frame their work within a broader context of industry, researchers, equity, and philanthropy.

The Fall 2019 Equity Exchange focused on women in tech and the role of extended reality (XR), including both augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR), and its usefulness in promoting learning storytelling, and encouraging equity for women of color and other underrepresented populations in science and technology. Dr. Mina Johnson, a psychology research professor at Arizona State University Tempe Campus, talked about her work at Embodied Games, LLC, a virtual and augmented reality game studio for STEM and education focused activities that include gestures and motion in the learning and game-playing process. Dr. Johnson founded Embodied Games in 2013 with the goal of using the body to promote active learning. Dr. Johnson highlighted her team’s work with the Oculus Rift technology and their new game “Natural Selection: Catch a Mimic.” The VR game allows players to catch virtual butterflies to understand the processes of natural selection and within-species variation. Dr. Johnson further emphasized the potential of VR in facilitating student learning through integrated gestures, guided exploration, and agentic student learning, all in the name of producing affordable, accessible VR games with good “edu-content” to invigorate traditional classroom settings with new, active ways of learning.

Professor Retha Hill highlighted the ways journalists can use VR and AR technology to tell stories. Hill, the Director of the New Media Innovation and Entrepreneurship Lab and professor of practice at the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication, centered her presentation around her idea of “future of journalism” and its focus on innovative storytelling using XR technology. Hill discussed the ways she has encouraged students to use VR in their journalism. Examples include developing a toolkit of animations to help local tv news stations animate weather scenarios as a meteorologist describes them, and telling stories through apps that integrate AR elements with traditional journalistic stories and photographs. In particular, Hill highlighted several students' work with integrating AR and storytelling elements into iPhone apps, including the “Race Against the Record Holder,” which allowed users to pit their track times against the biggest names of the 2016 Olympics, and “The Last Cactus,” which emphasized sustainability and appropriate water usage.

After their presentations, Dr. Scott held a mini-roundtable discussion, inviting audience questions and speaker feedback on inequities in STEM and other technology careers, fields, and interests and how to address equal access and representational disparities for women of color and other marginalized populations. The questions raised complex issues that require careful attention to detail, collaborative work, and innovative solutions. The event was an exciting reminder of the innovative work happening on ASU’s campus involving women in tech and XR integration.

Written By:

Lydia McInnes

Graduate Research Assistant