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(January 9th) Illuminators’ Forum — Episode #6 Dialogic Immersion, Human–AI Learning Design, and the Expanding Ecology of Immersive Learning with Special Guest Lisa Dawley

Date: Friday, January 9, 2026
Time:

  • 7:30am Pacific

  • 10:30am Eastern

  • 3:30pm UTC

Format: Live online dialogue + community discussion
Series: Illuminators’ Forum — Global Environmental Scans toward the 2026 State of XR & Immersive Learning

Episode Framing

This conversation contributes to shared sense-making as iLRN continues its transition toward an Open Immersive Society, connecting early immersive learning research with emerging forms of dialogic and reflective immersion.

As immersive learning matures as a field, questions of what counts as immersion—and how immersion is designed, experienced, and governed—are re-emerging with renewed urgency. Advances in artificial intelligence, scholarly infrastructure, and open knowledge practices are expanding immersion beyond spatial and sensory presence into sustained dialogic engagement, reflection, and meaning-making over time.

This session brings those questions into focus through dialogue rather than declaration.

Lisa Dawley

Co-Founder (AERA SIG origins of iLRN)
Educational Technology Scholar | Human–AI Learning Design

Lisa Dawley joins the Illuminators’ Forum as a co-foundational voice from the early formation of immersive learning research. Her work helped shape early definitions of immersion grounded in situated learning, virtual worlds, and simulated environments.

Today, her research centers on Human–AI Learning Design, with particular attention to dialogic and reflective forms of immersion—where learners engage deeply in sense-making, identity work, and iterative reflection through sustained interaction with AI systems.

For this session, Lisa will share her Human–AI Learning Design Framework in an open-draft form, inviting structured community feedback prior to publication in alignment with iLRN’s Open Immersive Society principles.

Guiding Questions

This episode is organized around several interpretive questions:

  • How were early definitions of immersion shaped by immersive technologies and situated learning theory?

  • In what ways is immersion now unfolding through dialogic, reflective, and intrapersonal processes enabled by AI systems?

  • Can spatial, social, and dialogic immersion be understood as part of a broader ecology of immersive learning, rather than discrete or competing categories?

  • What new design responsibilities emerge when immersion increasingly mediates attention, reflection, and identity?

Context: 2025 Environmental Scans → 2026 and Beyond

To situate the dialogue, the session will briefly surface advances identified through the 2025 Illuminators’ Forum global scans, including:

  • Open Science and Knowledge Sharing
    Increased use of open drafts, transparent methods, and community-engaged scholarship.

  • Evolving Scholarly Systems
    New infrastructures for peer review, publication, and collective sense-making beyond traditional venues.

  • Immersive Data Visualization and Knowledge Representation
    Emerging uses of immersive and multimodal representations to support interpretation and synthesis.

  • Deliberative Scholarly Discourse
    A shift toward slower, dialogic, and more reflective forms of professional exchange.

These developments provide the backdrop for positioning dialogic and reflective immersion as part of a broader trajectory rather than an isolated trend.

Session Flow (Approximate)

  1. Opening Context — iLRN environmental scan highlights and Open Immersive Society framing

  2. Foundational Reflection — From immersive virtual worlds to dialogic immersion

  3. Dialogue — Immersion as an ecology across spatial, social, cognitive, and intrapersonal dimensions

  4. Community Discussion — Participant questions and shared sense-making

  5. Closing Synthesis — Implications for 2026 and future iLRN work

Why This Conversation Matters

This session works to clarify relationships between past and present research, between immersive environments and dialogic systems, and between technological affordances and human learning processes.

It supports iLRN’s ongoing effort to articulate immersive learning as a coherent but plural ecosystem, capable of evolving responsibly alongside advances in AI, XR, and open scholarly practice.

  • Open Immersive Society

  • Human–AI Learning Design

  • Dialogic and Reflective Immersion

  • Immersive Learning Ecologies

  • 2025–2026 Global Environmental Scans

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