The “Journey” of the XR Designer: Exploring Immersive Learning Experience of Virtual and Augmented Reality in Classrooms

The COVID-19 pandemic was a great opportunity for learning and solving challenges to develop tools that enable excellence in distance education. This research summarizes the “journey” of research professors in educational innovation, detailing the results of different classroom implementations of virtual and augmented reality lessons at both Tecnologico de Monterrey and Mälardalen University for industrial engineering and design programs. In this paper, we describe the methodology for designing virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR) lessons from two different approaches: designing a lesson for a specific topic and the design of a lesson using virtual and augmented reality lessons already realized and adapted to enhance learning using this type of emerging methodologies. The obtained results show the implementation of the lessons in different training units and how enhanced engagement and deeper understanding can be promoted through extended reality (XR).