Our VR system for training childcare workers in picture-book reading skills, which recently won the Grand Prize at the Learning Innovation Grand Prix, has now been accepted into the XR track of ACM SIGGRAPH Asia 2025!! While the main SIGGRAPH conference is one of the most prestigious in the field, this is its Asian counterpart. Even so, it ranks 6th in the Computer Graphics category on Google Scholar Metrics (as of October 2025). Our co-researcher, Prof. Fukushima, and his student, Aiura-san, worked very hard on this. Congratulations! I would also like to express my sincere gratitude to the reviewers.

Aiura, W., Yamada, M., and Fukushima, S. (2025). ImaginaBook: Guiding Virtual Child Smiles via Behavioral Cues in XR Picture-Book Storytelling, SIGGRAPH Asia 2025.

I understand that the acceptance rate for the XR track is generally around 20%, making it quite a narrow gate (especially from the perspective of Educational Technology, it is a very narrow gate indeed). I am very pleased to receive such recognition. I recently visited Fukuoka Girls’ High School, where we are collaborating on this research, and received valuable feedback from the expert teachers there, which provided hints for making the system even better. I look forward to continuing this excellent research together with Prof. Fukushima’s team and Fukuoka Girls’ High School.

In addition to this, I also recently presented at eLearn2025 on the use of VR in World History inquiry, where we conducted a pilot study examining the differences in Shared Cognition and learning effects between students who used HMDs and those who did not (it was a one-shot pilot study, but it showed almost no difference. Since no difference is a happy result, I am pleased). Given that it is quite difficult to have everyone experience it within a 50-minute class, I would like to explore ways to use it that can enhance instructional effectiveness. This project is also being conducted in collaboration with Prof. Fukushima, Aiura-san, and Fukuoka Girls’ High School.

Thank you for your continued support.