CuriosityXR: Context-aware Education Experiences with Mixed Reality and Conversation AI

The educational landscape is undergoing a fundamental shift towards a learner-centric model, emphasizing engagement, interaction, and personalization in the learning process. This study investigates new technologies that enable immersive, self-guided, and curiosity-driven educational experiences, addressing these crucial elements. The research delves into Mixed Reality (MR) as a tool for constructing a context-aware system that nurtures learners’ inquisitiveness while enhancing memory retention. The paper presents the design and development of "Curiosity XR," an MR headset application created using a research-through-design methodology, acting as a platform for educators to develop contextual and multi-modal interactive mini-lessons. Learners can engage with these lessons and also benefit from AI-supported learning content. The evaluation of this design involves a user participant study and subsequent interviews, revealing greater engagement levels, increased curiosity to learn, and improved visual content retention among participants. This work aims to encourage further exploration within the MR domain and promote the integration of MR and AI for the advancement of curiosity-driven education.