3D interactive environment

Draft

Definition

• 3D Interactive environments are often referred to as virtual reality or interactive 3D and have a figurative appearance. Much like our own world, this type of world allows interaction with other (networked) beings as well as manipulation of objects (Loeffler & Andersen 1994). They are a kind of virtual habitat.

See also: virtual environment for an overview on different categories.

3D interactive environments became relatively popular by the end of last century. From its start, some educators and educational researchers have been investigating these spaces. However, the "killing application" are shared computer games, in particular MMORPGs.

Types

• Desk-top virtual reality (Users look at a world on a screen, typically used for gaming or social worlds)
• Immersive virtual reality (Users are immersed)

In education

• Attempts to use a 3D interactive environments, (i.e. virtual habitats based on desktop virtual reality) are not new. For example, Active Worlds did provide a educational separate server space for years, e.g. Daniel K. Schneider had his students play with it 1997.

• The problem with these environments is that there is not much to do in such an environment, so why use it then after "dressing as avatar" and "let's build a home" effects runs out ... ?

Typical useful applications

• Role playing
• Mission training
• Procedure training

Links

Indexes

• Avatar teleport (indexes several virtual habitats. But some of them are dead)
• Virtual Worlds Review
• Les environments virtuels collaboratifs en réseau qui utilisent le langage VRML

Virtual environments

• Second Life (SecondLife.com). Currently the most popular it seems, includes educational activities.
• Active Worlds (multiple server spaces). This technology has been around sine 1995 and is still popular. However, they don't seem to answer any emails regarding educational worlds ....
• DigitalSpace Traveler
• Meet3D
• Blaxxun. One of the first VRML-based systems, once dead but seems to be alive again (12:48, 1 April 2007 (MEST)).
  • Blaxxun technologies (info about servers)
  • community.blaxxun.com

(More) conceptual meta resources and portals

• Second Life Education Wiki A virtual world resource for educators and academics. Very up-to-date Wiki.

• SimTeach: Information and Community for Educators using M.U.V.E.'s

• New World Notes. James Wagner's blog on Second Life related stories and issues. Probably the best place to start reading, if the concept of living in virtual environment may sound strange to you ...

References

• Barab, Sasha A. ,Kenneth E. Hay, Michael Barnett and Kurt Squire (2001). Constructing Virtual Worlds: Tracing the Historical Development of Learner Practices, Cognition And Instruction, 19(1), 47-94. PDF

• Ingeborg Krange, Tove Kristiansen, Lars Helljesen, Ola Ødegård and Annita Fjuk, (2000), Collaborative learning, Interactive 3D technology, ICT in schools, Telenor R&D Report ISBN 82-423-0516-1. PDF

• Pike, Lewis, E-learning in virtual worlds: Skills for Life for the 21st Century, SimTech article, HTML, retrieved, 17:17, 15 September 2006 (MEST).