Ekaterina Prasolova-Førland
Program for learning with ICT (LIKT)
Norwegian University of Science and Technology
This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it

In the recent years, the usage of 3D Collaborative Virtual Environments (CVEs) for educational purposes has increased. CVEs have promising potential for supporting learning communities because of their capability to provide a social arena where students and teachers can meet overcoming the barriers of the physical world, thus supporting communication and community building. Also, the virtual space provides a dynamic and flexible environment where learners, especially distributed ones, can share information and form the environment according to their needs. 3D visualization is a powerful tool for supporting understanding and memorization of complex concepts and is widely used in an educational context. Also, 3D CVEs provide a constructivist learning environment where learners can collaboratively construct their understanding by exploring, building and sharing their experiences with peers. Therefore, 3D CVEs can be used for a wide range of collaborative educational activities such as lecturing, virtual demonstrations and simulations, creative visualization of educational content, as well as for storing community resources, working on assignments and socializing. For better flexibility and accessibility in different educational settings, 3D CVEs can be augmented with mobile devices such as PDAs. This talk presents some concrete examples and experiences of using 3D CVEs in different educational situations and briefly discusses the pros and cons of this approach.