XR Courses on Campus

In this course, students will dive in-depth into the opportunities and challenges of integrating technology into formal K-12 classrooms. Students will get a chance to critically examine a range of learning technologies, including examples of their use and approaches for assessing their efficacy. As an outcome of this course, each student will construct a lesson plan for integrating a chosen technology in their own classroom

Examines the role that physical and digital games play in learning. Focuses on how people learn through play and how game structures support educational outcomes. Principles of game design are described and students apply them to the design of original games with a specified educational objective. Students learn to prototype, playtest, and evaluate the educational content of games. Surveys and samples games in the areas of serious games, persuasive games, games for impact, etc.

This course explores how body movement and physical engagement with the environment is related to how people learn. We will explore embodied cognition and related ideas from philosophy and psychology and apply them to educational contexts. The course will examine the ways that body activity has been employed in curricula and other learning interventions, and students will be exposed to new technologies that can respond to gestures and other embodied actions. Students will design their own embodied learning activities around a topic of their choosing.

A team and project-based course on the technical aspects of video game development and game engine internals: geometric modeling, game physics and AI, shader programming, real-time physically based rendering, and software engineering practices within the game industry. The central focus of the course is the development of a game by teams of 3 to 5 students. The course strongly emphasizes code development using a modern game engine. Students will gain skills necessary to develop games and to develop game engines.

Elements of databases, computer graphics and perceptual psychology combined to utilize the human visual system to improve user understanding of large datasets. Topics include appropriate and effective selection and construction of charts, organization of dashboards, and design for user engagement and interaction.

Provides a deep understanding of the fundamentals of virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR) systems through practical experience implementing these extended reality (XR) systems. Topics covered include visual and audio display technology, tracking, human perception and psychophysics, building user interfaces for XR applications, and analyzing XR experiences.

Basic mathematical tools and computational techniques for modeling, rendering, and animating 3-D scenes. 

Advanced methods for representing, displaying, and rendering two-, three-, and four-dimensional scenes. 

Major topics in and directions of research in artificial intelligence: basic problem solving techniques, knowledge representation and computer inference, machine learning, natural language understanding, computer vision, robotics, and societal impacts. Same as ECE 448. 3 undergraduate hours.

ME: Architectures for Mobile and Edge Computing. A graduate course that looks at key enabling technologies and contemporary research problems in mobile and edge computing hardware.

A new era of immersive computing (aka virtual/augmented/mixed/extended reality) has the potential to transform most human endeavors (e.g., science, education, entertainment, medicine, and more), similar to the transformative impacts of the eras of mainframe, personal, and mobile computing. There is, however, an orders of magnitude gap in the performance, power, and quality of experience of systems we can build today and those we desire. Bridging this gap requires hardware and software systems designers to have an interdisciplinary foundation to enable application-driven, end-to-end quality-of-experience driven, and hardware-software-algorithm co-designed systems. This course will provide students with such a foundation, covering the key algorithms that underpin immersive systems (e.g., from computer vision, graphics, machine learning, video, and audio); key hardware technologies (e.g., heterogeneous domain-specific acceleration of compute, memory, and I/O); and key software technologies (e.g., principled use of approximations, compilation for heterogeneous systems, and distributed system stacks). Students will be required to present and critique research papers and perform a substantial team project. 

Provides a hands-on introduction to the fundamentals of Design Thinking and Human-Centered Design. Students will analyze and reflect on design challenges as well as participate in human-centered design while working collaboratively on group projects. Through project work, students will learn methods to perform initial research and project scoping, conduct interviews, create journey maps and wireframes, brainstorm and propose ideas, plan and develop prototypes to communicate and test ideas

Discover the intersection of human-centered design and immersive environments in this comprehensive, project-based course. Learners will first explore the landscape of how human-centered design is currently being applied to various aspects of immersive experiences as well as develop speculative frameworks around the future of human-centered design in this context. Then, they will utilize design thinking to develop innovative solutions tailored to the challenges of immersive experiences spanning diverse industries.

This course brings together multidisciplinary student teams who will use the human-centered design approach to complete authentic projects. Thematic sections will require the teams to implement design thinking methodologies to conduct research, propose and prototype designs, and plan for the implementation and launch of final designs. Teams will be matched with appropriate advisors for guidance and inspiration.

This course teaches you how to represent audio, video, image, and bioelectric signals on a computer.

This course teaches you how to synthesize and understand audio and video signals.

This course explores system I/O from a humanperspective, combining HCI, psychophysics, and haptics. Through hands on mini-projects and a final project, students will learn about touch perception, user-centered design, and haptic device engineering, culminating in a demo day showcasing their haptic interaction projects. Additional key topics include actuator modeling, haptic rendering, and AR/VR applications.

Provides instruction and practice in the selection, organization, and preparation of content for instructional programs in business and technical settings. Provides students with a theoretical orientation to instructional design as well as the opportunity to experience the instructional design process as it applies to business and technical settings through the development of instructional materials

Effective project management skills are essential for successful professional development. This course, in particular, studies the basic principles, techniques, and best practices related to managing personnel, time, and resources in education and training projects. Through a variety of learning activities, including case study review and project simulation, students will apply project management concepts and tools in various training and education-related project development

Foundational theories and practices of educational psychology, including learning and development

Examines the history, theory, and practice of pedagogy in virtual environments. Students will read research literature, participate in online discussions through the Moodle course management system, and engage in real-time activities in several types of virtual worlds. The project component requires students to develop educational artifacts in virtual worlds and perform peer review of artifacts developed by other students. Projects will support some aspect of learning or teaching in the students' own workplace, and will incorporate multimedia, web, and other network-based resources

This course examines technologies that seek to promote and sustain engagement in learning, both in formal and informal settings. Topics covered include educational games, artificial intelligence, virtual environments, mobile devices, affective computing, pedagogical agents, narrative learning environments, and more. A highly interdisciplinary approach is taken by blending theory and evidence from psychology and education with discussions of technological advances. Students in the class will be expected to work in teams to design and implement a prototype for a problem of their own choosing.

Examines issues of Human Computer Interaction and the design of better computer interfaces.

The course provides an introduction to: issues in Human Computer Interaction; analysis of interfaces and their use; the interface design process as an engineering activity; designing usable interfaces under constraints; and the rapid prototyping and evaluation cycle. The course covers interface design in multiple contexts including websites, web-based applications, smartphone apps, regular computer apps and new contexts of interacting with computers. Elective course for the CAS in Digital Libraries concentration.

Examines the importance and application of immersive technologies such as virtual reality, augmented reality, and mixed reality. Students will also receive an introduction to designing content for these technologies (a formal design background is NOT required).