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 kind of virtual habitat.

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

3D interactive environments became relativly popular by the end of last century. From its start, some educators and educational researchers have been investigating these spaces.

Types

• Desk-top virtual reality (Users look at a world on a screen)
• Immersive virtual reality (Users are immersed)

Links

Virtual environments

• SecondLife. Currently the most popular it seems, includes educational activities.
• Active worlds. This has been around for years, still popular.

(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 ...

Technical indexes

• Virtual Worlds Review

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).