XR Hackathon Going Online: Lessons Learned from a Case Study with Goethe-Institut

TL;DR

This paper presents a case study of an online XR hackathon focused on language and culture, highlighting lessons learned, innovative approaches like a custom VR framework, and research-backed language learning evaluation methods.

Contribution

It introduces an improved hackathon formula with a custom VR framework and research-based language learning evaluation criteria, based on lessons from a previous event.

Findings

Successful online hackathon organization during COVID-19

Implementation of a custom VR framework for participants

Development of research-backed language learning evaluation criteria

Abstract

In this article we report a case study of a Language and Culture-oriented transdisciplinary XR hackathon organized with Goethe-Institut. The hackathon was hosted as an online event in November 2020 by our University Lab in collaboration with Goethe-Institut as a follow-up to our previous co-organized event within our research group Living Lab. We have improved the formula of the event based on lessons learned from its previous edition. First, in one of the two hackathon tracks we provided the participants with a custom VR framework, to serve as a starting point for their designs to skip the repetitive early development stage. In cooperation with our partner, Goethe-Institut, we have also outlined best modern research-backed language-learning practices and methods and gathered them into actionable evaluation criteria.