CHI 2020 SIG

CHI 2020, April 25–30, 2020, Honolulu, HI, USA

Collaborative Learning & Co-Creation
in XR

Figure 1: Artist’s impression ofcollaborative learning andco-creation in XR

Anna Vasilchenko
Newcastle University
Newcastle upon Tyne, UK
a.vasilchenko@ncl.ac.uk

Yoichi Ochiai
University of Tsukuba
Tsukuba, Ibaraki, Japanwizard@slis.tsukuba.ac.jp

Jie LiCWI
Amsterdam, NL
j.li@cwi.nl

Kai Kunze
Keio University
Yokohama, Japan
kai@kmd.keio.ac.jp

Bektur Ryskeldiev
Sayan Sarcar
University of Tsukuba
Tsukuba, Ibaraki, Japan
bektour@slis.tsukuba.ac.jp
sayans@slis.tsukuba.ac.jp

Iulian Radu
Graduate School of Education
Harvard University
Cambridge, MA, USA
iulian_radu@gse.harvard.edu

Abstract
In this SIG, we aim at gathering researchers and practitioners to reﬂect on using XR technologies to support collaborative learning and co-creation, and to foster a joint force byconnecting the Learning and Education community and theXR community at CHI. We witness a signiﬁcant increase inCHI publications relating to these research areas: 292 titles
about “collaborative learning” or “co-creation” since 2015
compared to 96 in 2010-2014; and 1180 titles about XR
since 2015 compared to 288 in 2010-20141 . This SIG willbring together researchers, educators, designers and practitioners to 1) stimulate a cross-disciplinary discussion on
the opportunities of collaborative learning and co-creation
in XR; 2) foresee the future directions, standards and obstacles to introduce XR to education; and 3) build a joint
community connecting XR and education research at CHI.

Author Keywords
Extended reality, virtual reality, augmented reality, mixedreality, collaborative learning, co-creation, CSCW, CSCL
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CHI’20 Extended Abstracts, April 25–30, 2020, Honolulu, HI, USA
ACM 978-1-4503-6819-3/20/04.
https://doi.org/10.1145/3334480.3381056

CCS Concepts•Human-centered computing → Mixed/augmented reality; Virtual reality; Collaborative interaction; Collaborative content creation; CSCW;

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CHI 2020 SIG

Why Collaborative Learning & Co-creation?
We bring collaborative learning and co-creation together
in this SIG, since we believe they are interrelated
concepts, both of which propose the idea of students
as interactive partners, andco-creators of their learning[2]. We posit that co-creation
could be one of the means ofcollaborative learning and effective collaborative learningis the outcome of co-creation
activities.
Collaborative learning invite students to interactively
learn in small groups withshared authority and responsibility for group actions andoutcomes, which has significant academic, social, andpsychological beneﬁts [6].
A number of studies haveidentiﬁed factors that boost
collaborative learning (e.g.,[13, 18], which generally
agreed that collaborative
learning requires active social interactions, group goals,and individual accountability.

CHI 2020, April 25–30, 2020, Honolulu, HI, USA

Introduction
XR technologies as deﬁned by Fast-Berglund et al.[3], including Virtual Reality (VR), Augmented Reality (AR) andMixed Reality (MR), have seen a drastic increase in commercial popularity. However, these technologies, so far,have focused mainly on individual experience [15]. As technologies and connectivity evolves, XR is expected to become social experiences, inviting multiple users to interact
and co-create with the virtual representations of other users[7]. This social trend in immersive experience requires a
new understanding of how communication and collaboration between users would happen in the context of XR, andwhat principles of collaboration in the real world and what
new rules should be considered in XR environments.
Another trend we witness in HCI is the rise of interest in
XR technologies to support collaborative learning, ranging from speciﬁc learning domains such as physics [9],medicine[4] or choreography [10] to more general applications like skills training [5] and delivering instructions forphysical tasks [17]. XR technologies have potential to support both physical aspects of learning (visualization of invisible concepts, e.g., electromagnetics, molecular biology)
as well as learner’s cognitive processes [14]. Previous studies suggest that individual XR experiences have a positive
impact on learning outcomes such as better content understanding, long-term memory retention, and increased
motivation [8]. With the advocacy for collaborative learning, it is logical to start thinking about how collaborative XR
technologies can be employed for the same purposes.

Goal
We aim at connecting two communities at CHI: the XR andthe learning/education community. Therefore, we would like1
We performed the search on Google Scholar and obtained thesearch results on December 16, 2019

to invite participants who are interested in related research
directions to establish a dialog, exploring the challenges,opportunities and long-term research plans of XR technologies for collaborative learning and co-creation.
Stimulate cross-disciplinary discussion
The ﬁrst goal is to stimulate a cross-disciplinary discussion on the opportunities of collaborative learning and cocreation in XR. We would like to provide a platform for professionals from different domains to share their expertiseand thoughts on this SIG topic. These professionals can beresearchers who are working on various aspects of collaborative learning, co-design, co-creation, participatory design, ethical issues of XR, social XR; developers or content
creators who are actively making XR applications; practitioners, policy makers who are working on regulations andpolicies for the new technology.
Raise awareness about opportunities & obstacles
The second goal is to foresee the future directions, standards and obstacles to introduce XR to education with aspeciﬁc focus on collaborative learning activities, as wellas co-creation. So far, many commercial XR products havebeen primarily developed for entertainment. We would liketo explore the existing applications for XR co-creative learning and see what beneﬁts are observed there, in terms oflearning and collaboration. We aim to raise the awarenesson the unique beneﬁts that XR can bring to education andcollaboration; the standards to deﬁne and measure XR
experiences (e.g., visual quality, latency standards); andalso the challenges to make XR acceptable and available tolarger audience at affordable cost.
Build a joint community
The third goal is to build a joint community connecting XRand education/learning research at CHI. With the accessof XR technologies, models of education and collaboration
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Co-creation has been associated with many researchareas, including co-design
and participatory design of
new products or services[12], content co-production[1], and co-creation with citizens in public innovation [16].
Ramaswamy Ozcan [11]provide a new perspective on
co-creation and deﬁne it as
the "enactment of creation
through interactions". They
stressed that co-creation is
not just two or more humanactors coming together inactivities, but entails various
types of interactions among
human actors, technologicalsystems, and environments.

CHI 2020, April 25–30, 2020, Honolulu, HI, USA

must be evolved. We would like to invite professionals fromboth communities to think about future research on how
XR technologies can push further the geographical boundaries, simplify the access to educational resources and offer
customized/experienced-based education support; how XRtechnologies motivate students and improve their creativity
and collaboration skills; what hidden health risks we mightoverlook about XR technologies.

T3: How can XR co-creation be scaled up? Although
growing fast, XR technologies are still niche as commercialproducts. Enabling low-latency interactions in XR require
enormous amounts of data to work effectively. So far, lackof mobility, bulky headsets and network lag may still preventit to scale up. The roll-out of 5G may provide the capacities
to enable stable and consistent connection for XR at larger
scale.

Discussion Topics

T4: What risks of XR on learners we should think ofand how to address them? XR technologies bring along
new ethical challenges. Using XR tools, we can expose
vast amounts of private data, such as facial expressions,speech data, and even retina patterns that can be used touniquely identify us. The frequent and prolonged exposure
to XR environments could be harmful to our mental health,and lead to social isolation.

We will host discussion around collaborative learning andco-creation in XR. We propose (but not limited to) the following topics (T1-T4) :T1: What are the added values and missing aspects in
XR compared to non-XR methods in facilitating collaboration? XR technologies have the potential to portray 3D
spatial information, to exploit learners’ natural behaviors,and to immerse them in the virtual learning world. XR canuse avatars or photo-realistic holograms to offer appearance, gestures, directional voice, and ability to interact withother learners, and with the virtual artifacts. XR can also go
beyond reality, providing learning materials that are not possible in the real world. However, it is not realistic to have XR
technologies replicate the real world interactions. Speciﬁc
new interaction techniques (e.g., mid-air haptics, automatic
object recognizing, viewports sharing) should be designedfor XR collaboration.
T2: What are the obstacles for introduction of XR technologies to regular education? We foresee some obstacles: (1) the cost of XR tools may be daunting for largescale adoption; (2) the educators and parents lack knowledge about the potential of the technology, and tend to be
anxious about the effects of XR on children; (3) the availability of advanced education content in XR.

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CHI 2020, April 25–30, 2020, Honolulu, HI, USA

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