SynergyNet: Supporting Collaborative Learning in an Immersive Environment

This interdisciplinary work will develop software to run and evaluate an exciting and innovative 'Interactive Immersive Classroom' called 'SynergyNet'. Critically, whilst providing a visually rich environment, the software will also capture pupils' learning interactions. Thus researchers will obtain data to become better informed about how pupils learn through collaboration.This research aims to create a radically new technology-rich learning environment that integrates with traditional classroom layouts and collective activities design and implement a new form of user interface for educational multi-touch systems.formulate a new pedagogy that eases transition and movement between teacher-centric and pupil-centric interaction analyse pupils' learning strategies to inform fundamental research by capturing data as pupils use the SynergyNet environment.This project will be composed of four stages that define both the developmental and the experimental work for different pupil age ranges. Each the project's phases will capture data that equates to the proposal's aims. To test SynergyNet, a set of specific educational applications will be developed to allow each aspect of its functionality to be assessed. These will be designed to promote different types of collaborative activity and to form reusable templates for teachers to use in a variety of teaching activities.