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Exploring Place Metaphors in Educational Virtual Environments with Supportive 3D Worlds

This study examines the diverse use of place metaphors in Collaborative Virtual Environments (CVEs) to support learning communities. It analyzes the role of places, artifacts, and learners in these environments, drawing inspiration from Activity theory. The research aims to refine the existing classification of place metaphors in educational CVEs and identify their underlying goals and success factors. Ongoing work includes exploring new metaphors, such as real-place resemblance, and constructing common information spaces in 3D versus 2D environments.

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Exploring Place Metaphors in Educational Virtual Environments with Supportive 3D Worlds

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  1. Place Metaphors in Educational CVEs Ekaterina Prasolova-Førland Department of Computer and Information Science Norwegian University of Science and Technology ekaterip@idi.ntnu.no

  2. Motivation • A wide range of 3D educational environments • Great diversity in place metaphors used: from replicas of real universities to other planets or abstract constructions

  3. CVEs and learning communities • Collaborative Virtual Environments (CVEs) can support learning communities by • Supporting community building • Supporting communication • Supporting information sharing • Providing alternative space structure

  4. Characterization of CVEs • Inspired by Activity theory • Activities areperformed by learners • Activities are mediated by artifacts • Learners and artifacts are contained in places

  5. Place • Outlook • how a place ”looks like”, • e.g. a campus, a village or a palace • Structure • mutual relations between different parts of the environment, e.g. mutual position of rooms and buildings and teleportation links between places • visualizes social structures and power relations • Role • places serving specific purposes • meeting and working place, information space etc

  6. Artifact • Outlook • the way it looks like • e.g. a table, a flower, a link to a document, a sign • Structure • “visible” connections between parts • “invisible” links such as teleportation and functional links • Role • decorative, link to resources, symbolic etc • correspondent functionality

  7. Learner • Outlook • choice of avatar (child, tutor, alien etc) • body language (waving, dancing) • Structure • learner’s place in the social structure/network • connections between nick, created artifacts and traces left • Role • teacher, student, moderator, depending on context • supported by corresponding functionalities

  8. Existing classification of place metaphors in educational CVEs • Resemblance of physical place: • Buildings and campuses • Frontiers • Virtual places for specific purposes: • Meeting places • Information spaces • Virtual stages • Demonstrations and exhibitions • Workplaces

  9. Extended characterization Resemblance of physical place, outlook • Resembling concrete, real places (e.g. university) • Only ”looking” real (e.g. virtual houses without direct counterpart in real world) • Abstract (abstract constructions, defying physical laws etc) • Frontiers (extending virtual “land”)

  10. Extended characterizationResemblance of physical place, structure • Rigid/free • Structure generation method (e.g. automatic, by agents, manually by users etc) • Defining factors (e.g. social structure, structure of the course) • Structure components (e.g. “visible” walls, bridges and roads, “invisible” links etc)

  11. Extended characterizationRole • Creator/originator of the place • Teacher, students or agents • Purpose/goal of the place • Socializing vs. working • Demonstration of art vs. scientific concepts • Roleplaying vs. stage design • Presenting course materials vs. student projects • Design elements/facilities to meet the goal • Appropriate outlook/structure elements for the goal • Templates/tools for storing/retrieving multimedia elements • Visualizations, simulations, interactive elements etc

  12. Viras • A 3D world for supporting social awareness in a learning community • Based on Archipelago metaphor • Islands connected by bridges • Provides an informal atmosphere • Allows flexible place structuring • Recreates the way communities and groups are created • Learners create/modify places and artifacts, expressing their personality and activities

  13. Ongoing and future work • Using the characterization as a framework for examination of the place metaphors used in educational CVEs • Identifying connection between the metaphor features, the underlying goals and success factors • Refining the characterization framework • In-depth case studies • Exploration of potentialities and limitations of information space metaphor in 3D world vs. 2D • Other metaphors, e.g. “real-place resemblance” metaphor

  14. Construction of common information space in 3D vs. 2D • Constructing FAQ in CSCW course in Course Forum and Active Worlds • Advantages & disadvantages • How the effectiveness and user-friendliness of 3D CVE can be improved

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