Maria C. R. Harrington

• Ph.D. Information Science
• Professor (Associate) at University of Central Florida

Over the past 20 years, there has been a debate on the effectiveness of virtual reality used for learning with young children, producing many ideas but little empirical proof. This empirical study compared learning activity in situ of a real environment (Real) and a desktop virtual reality (Virtual) environment, built with video game technology, fo...

This paper introduces the AR Perpetual Garden App and highlights reasons why it is unique and important in its use of immersive, augmented reality for informal learning. The design and construction of the application created a virtual diorama based on facts, using realistic 3D models and accurate perspective. Design affordances permit annotations w...

This paper describes a virtual field trip application as a new type of immersive, multimodal, interactive, data visualization of a virtual arboretum. Deployed in a game engine, it is a large, open-world simulation, representing 100 hectares and ideal for use when free choice in navigation and high fidelity are required. Although the computer graphi...

This is a perspective that presents a viewpoint on immersive informal learning applications built as digital twins of the natural world. Such applications provide multimodal, interactive, immersive, embodied, and sensory experiences unique and different from typical game art environments because they are geospatial visualizations of data and inform...

Employees face many demands throughout the workday. Participating in activities can help employees recover from the pressures of work, and physical activity and time spent in nature are among the most beneficial. Simulations of nature offer some of the benefits of actual contact with nature and can address some of the barriers to exercising outdoor...

This paper contains the results of a survey of the 36 ABET accredited undergraduate programs in Information Systems (IS) from 2012 in the USA. With the goal of discovering the makeup of a typical ABET accredited IS program, each educational institution's website was searched for applicable information about its undergraduate program for information...

The Virtual Trillium Trail is a new kind of desktop virtual reality application that crosses over into the area of geospatial, educational simulations. Visual fidelity significantly impacts intrinsic learning, activity in situ, and knowledge gained, independent of other factors. The main empirical contribution of this report is on the impact of the...

“Video Game Development, a Serious Educational Component of the Curriculum: Part II Overview of the Torque 3D Educational Site License.” This session is intended to build upon last year’s nearly standing room only session. This year, I will review educational resources made available in Garage Games Torque 3D Educational Site License. We will revie...

: “A review of the effectiveness of Google Earth and Google Sketch-up as free tools used to build a 3D campus in a project management class.” A computer science department project management class offered this spring 2012, has demonstrated initial student success in constructing a few test buildings in Google Earth, thus proving that the SRU Compu...

Capstone projects and internships are acceptable educational practices and pedagogy as they provide opportunities to apply academic knowledge to business problems in context. These approaches provide experience to solve complex information systems problems. These are valuable learning experiences, as the information systems students have to apply k...

Within the context of the information systems academic curriculum (Landry, Daigle, Longenecker, and Pardue, 2010) and educational pedagogy, part of the aim of information systems education research is to understand how to improve students’ ability to solve real world problems with technology. Several approaches have been accepted and are commonly u...

The game industry has been expanding exponentially in the past decades, mainly by making games more appealing to a wider audience. In addition, the level of complexity in control interfaces and graphics has increased steadily. As a result, there is a growing demand for human factors and ergonomics practitioners to ensure the users’ engagement. Furt...

Paper, presentation, and demonstration of The Virtual Trillium Trail (http://www.mariacrharrington.org/virtualtrilliumtrail.html)

Presentation, and demonstration of The Virtual Trillium Trail (http://www.mariacrharrington.org/virtualtrilliumtrail.html)

In today’s highly networked world business connect to customers and potential customers through social networking sites, such as Facebook and Twitter. On such sites, business can discover customer’s profiles, interests, activities and even individual geo-location. Promotional marketing and advertising programs are tailored to each potential custome...

Video game programming is a complex, multidimensional, creative and a highly analytical exercise. It is demanding of students in that it uses both analytical and creative parts of the brain. Students must learn about and implement all parts of a computer program in such a class. Setting up their development environments, data structures, syntax of...

Mobile devices and software environments intended for child-centric learning activities are beginning to emerge. Of high interest are software applications categorized as virtual and augmented realities, which can run on mobile devices. Close to 40 significant research projects were reviewed, analyzed, deconstructed, and organized into a meta-ontol...

Reported are ethnographic observations comparing and contrasting real and virtual reality field trips. The content was from a fourth grade elementary science and ecology curriculum of the Audubon Society of Western Pennsylvania. Ecology education is an area of enormous importance, especially now in the period of climate change. Technology may help...

While there are many studies on collaborative or guided scientific inquiry in real, virtual,and simulated environments, there are few that study the interplay between the design ofthe simulation and the user interface. The main research aim was to decompose thesimulation and user interface into the design parameters that influence attention,curiosi...

From: Harrington, M.C.R. (2008). The Virtual Trillium Trail: The value of Freedom and Fidelity in the child-computer-environment interface. Carnegie Mellon Human-Computer Interaction Institute Seminar Series. September 17, 2008. CMU, Pittsburgh, PA. This talk will present information on a new kind of virtual reality application, one that crosses o...

This work started with the informal observation of my daughter as she actively inquired about her world around her. Her seemingly innocent questions have profound implications for real time science education. How could these common daily experiences of information seeking behavior be supported or augmented, and transferred to a virtual or augmented...

Children possess vivid imaginations and freely, almost impulsively, share new knowledge with peers. At times, they also create art spontaneously or in response to powerful experiences. How can we best design interfaces to virtual and augmented reality technologies to support children in their independent quests for knowledge and acts of creation? I...

While there are many studies on collaborative or guided scientific inquiry in real, virtual and simulated environments, there are few that study the interplay between the design of the simulation and the user interface. Or how those design parameters impact attention, curiosity, inquiry and learning of scientific material or acts of creation for ch...