CID-137
ISSN 1403-0721
Department of Numerical Analysis and Computer Science
A System for Exploring Open Issues
in VR-based Education.
Gustav Taxén and Ambjörn Naeve
CID, CENTRE FOR USER ORIENTED IT DESIGN
KTH
Gustav Taxén and Ambjörn Naeve
A System for Exploring Open Issues in VR-based Education
Report number: CID-137
ISSN number: ISSN 1403 - 0721 (print) 1403 - 073 X (Web/PDF)
Publication date: August 2001
E-mail of author: gustavt@nada.kth.se, amb@nada.kth.se
Reports can be ordered from:
CID, Centre for User Oriented IT Design
NADA, Deptartment of Numerical Analysis and Computer Science
KTH (Royal Institute of Technology)
SE- 100 44 Stockhom, Sweden
Telephone: + 46 (0)8 790 91 00
Fax: + 46 (0)8 790 90 99
E-mail: cid@nada.kth.se
URL: http://cid.nada.kth.se
A System for Exploring Open Issues in VR-based
Education
Gustav Taxén
Ambjörn Naeve
Center for user-oriented IT design
The Royal Institute of Technology
Lindstedtsvägen 5
S-100 44 Stockholm, Sweden
+46 8 790 92 77
[gustavt | amb]@nada.kth.se
ABSTRACT
Virtual Reality (VR) has been shown to be an effective way
of teaching difficult concepts to students. However, a
number of important questions related to immersion,
collaboration and realism remain to be answered before
truly efficient virtual learning environments can be
designed. We present CyberMath, an avatar-based shared
virtual environment for mathematics education that allows
further study of these issues. In addition, CyberMath is
easily integrated into school environments and can be used
to teach a wide range of mathematical subjects.
There is convincing evidence that students can learn from
educational VR systems [19]. However, a number of
unresolved issues regarding the efficiency of such systems
still remain. These include:
Immersive vs. non-immersive VR. Several different
authors have shown that immersive VR, where the user is
in a CAVE or wears a head-mounted display, can be more
efficient for learning than monitor-based desktop VR [4].
However, current immersive VR systems are expensive,
fragile, and can be cumbersome to use. These drawbacks
make them hard to integrate into school environments. On
the other hand, desktop VR systems can often run on
standard PC hardware, equipment that is increasingly
common in classrooms today. Also, students using desktop
VR systems are less likely to experience motion sickness
and fatigue, factors that are known to inhibit learning [7].
It is unclear whether the advantages of desktop VR
systems can make up for their lack of immersion.
Collaboration in educational VR systems. A number of
different initial studies suggest that collaboration between
students in virtual environments have a positive effect on
learning [10][14][2][12]. However, little is known about
how the presence of a teacher influences learning in VR
applications. It is likely that students will benefit from
teacher guidance, but it is also possible that a system that
allows the teacher to take a more active role within the
virtual environment would have a positive effect.
Figure 1. A CyberMath exhibition on focal surfaces.
INTRODUCTION
Virtual Reality systems have the potential to allow students
to discover and experience objects and phenomena in ways
that they cannot do in real life. Since the early 90s, a large
number of educational VR applications have been
developed. These include tools for teaching students about
physics [6], algebra [1], color science [16], cultural
heritage objects [17] and the greenhouse effect [10].
Avatar-based multi-user virtual environments often induce
the formation of user communities. The increased level of
anonymity and “safety” in such communities may
encourage users that usually avoid experiential learning
situations to participate in educational activities [5].
However, it can be more difficult to avoid digression in
discussions when the participants are anonymous than
when they are known to each other [11]. There are few
available guidelines for handling large-scale participation
in educational VR systems.
Visual realism in educational VR systems. A number of
different studies have shown that visual realism in VR
applications must be used with care [18]. It is not certain
that an increased level of realism will improve learning
since it may distract a student from focusing on the key
concepts that is to be learned. However, the motivational
value of excessive visual realism is very high, something
that the motion picture and computer games industries
have been taking advantage of for decades. How to use
realism in order to highlight key relations and concepts in
educational VR applications is still an open question.
This paper presents CyberMath, a system in which all of
these issues can be explored. To our knowledge, no
previous educational VR system has all the features
necessary for such studies. In addition, CyberMath is built
to support the teaching of many mathematical subjects,
ranging from elementary school content to post-graduate
content. Our system also supports a variety of teaching
styles, including teacher lecturing and student-initiated
exploration.
SYSTEM DESCRIPTION
CyberMath is an avatar-based shared virtual environment
that is built on top of DIVE [3]. DIVE has the ability to
display interactive three-dimensional graphics as well as to
distribute live audio between standard desktop PCs. It also
supports a number of other hardware configurations,
ranging from head-mounted displays to CAVE
environments. It is possible to allow different users to
access the same virtual environment from workstations
with different hardware configurations. These features
make it easy to integrate DIVE applications in schools and
also allow us to study how different levels of immersion
influence the learning process.
Many students have considerable difficulty appreciating
the relevance of mathematics. We believe that an informal
and fun milieu aids in motivating such students and also
encourages the formation of user communities. Therefore,
we have chosen to build CyberMath as an exploratorium
that contains a number of exhibition areas (figure 1). This
allows teachers to guide students through the exhibitions
but students can also visit CyberMath at their leisure,
alone or together with others. For additional flexibility, we
have added a lecture hall where standard PowerPoint
presentations can be shown. Furthermore, since DIVE can
distribute information across multiple local area networks,
users from different physical locations can visit the
exploratorium simultaneously.
Multiple users can simultaneously manipulate an
exhibition object in CyberMath. In order to reduce
confusion, it is important to make explicit the presence of
users in the virtual environment. In addition, we believe
that visualizing user presence increases the potential for
user-to-user collaboration and interaction. For simplicity,
we have chosen to let the standard DIVE avatars represent
CyberMath visitors, but we are currently experimenting
with alternative avatar designs. The way users control their
avatars in CyberMath is similar to many popular computer
games. Since many students are familiar with these games,
our hope is that this will shorten the time required to
master the controls.
When a user points to an object in the environment using
the computer mouse, his/her avatar will indicate this
through a ”laser pointer” – a red line from the eye of the
avatar through the indicated point on the object. Each
avatar also has a sound indicator that is activated when its
corresponding user speaks into the computer microphone.
Exhibited objects can be rotated and translated by using
the computer mouse. Action buttons situated next to
interactive exhibitions control animations and visual
representation of the objects in the exhibit.
All objects in CyberMath, including the user avatars, can
be visualized at a number of different levels of realism,
ranging from uniformly colored surfaces to radiosity
lighting. This makes it possible to investigate how realism
affects learning in virtual environments.
DIVE supports rapid prototyping through Tcl/Tk scripts.
We have complemented this support with a Mathematicato-DIVE conversion utility that can be used to convert
standard three-dimensional Mathematica objects and
animations to the DIVE file format. It is then
straightforward to add Tcl/Tk code to turn the converted
Mathematica objects into interactive CyberMath
exhibitions. This makes it possible to support rapidturnaround teacher-driven development of new CyberMath
exhibitions in the same fashion as in the QuickWorlds
project [13]. The next step is to develop an exhibition
construction tool that will allow teachers without Tcl/Tk
knowledge to create their own exhibitions.
It is also possible to associate URLs with CyberMath
exhibition objects. When a user clicks on such an object,
its URL is opened in a WWW browser. This makes it easy
to offer additional information about the exhibited objects
(such as mathematical formulae and links to other relevant
WWW pages).
DIVE has the ability to log all interactions between avatars
and objects. Together with standard audio and video
recording equipment, this provides a platform for
assessment of learning in CyberMath.
A number of example exhibition areas in
exploratorium have been completed. These include:
the
Interactive transformations. In this exhibit, users can
explore the effect of any R3→R3 transformation on
different mathematical entities such as points, lines, planes
and spheres. The user can interactively manipulate the
entities and immediately see the results of the
transformation, either in a separate coordinate frame or in
the same coordinate frame as the untransformed surface
(figure 2). This makes it possible to explore
transformations in a new way and get an intuitive sense for
how a specific transformation works. We believe that this
increases the cognitive contact with the mathematical
ideas behind the transformation formulae.
Generalized cylinders. This exhibition illustrates how to
increase the number of degrees of freedom in revolution
surfaces through the use of differential geometry [15]. In
particular, it is shown how to construct an orthogonal net
across the surfaces for texture mapping. The exhibition
includes a number of three-dimensional animations and
wall posters. Differential geometry is usually taught at the
post-graduate level (if at all). However, our initial usability
tests indicate that CyberMath makes it possible to
effectively introduce these concepts to undergraduate
students.
1.
Effectiveness of the human/computer interface
(navigation, sound quality, orientation of avatars,
etc.).
2.
Perceived level of immersion and awareness of other
users in the virtual environment.
3.
Level of collaboration (teacher-student and studentstudent).
4.
Transfer of content, feasibility of CyberMath as
teaching tool.
The average ratings for these themes were 3.23, 3.49, 3.35
and 4.10, respectively. These results are hardly conclusive.
Nevertheless, they suggest that even though improvements
in user interface and environment design are necessary,
CyberMath has the potential of becoming a powerful tool
for teaching mathematics.
We are planning a larger deployment of CyberMath at the
Royal Institute of Technology and a series of new usability
tests. These tests will focus on three main areas:
Figure 2. The interactive transformations exhibition. The
user is manipulating the green plane in the domain on the
left and the corresponding transformed surface appears in
yellow on the right. The transformation is displayed on the
wall between the two coordinate systems.
USABILITY TESTING
We have completed two initial usability tests, one small
test at our lab with three users and one larger test with
fourteen users. In both tests, the students were
undergraduates at different universities in the Stockholm
region. A mathematics teacher from the Royal Institute of
Technology (that is familiar with CyberMath) guided the
students through the generalized cylinders exhibition hall.
The teacher was in a separate physical location and all
students were sitting at different workstations in one room.
After the guided tour, the students answered a 1-to-5
rating Likert-scale questionnaire. The questions were
divided into four themes:
§
Immersion: To what extent do different levels of
immersion (desktop monitor, wall projection, headmounted display, CAVE) influence the long-term
retainment of knowledge acquired through virtual
environments?
§
Collaboration and teaching strategies: How does the
possibility of large-scale participation influence the
teaching and learning processes? To what extent must
teachers adapt their teaching style in collaborative
virtual environments?
§
Realism: Can the increased motivational value of a
realistic environment compensate for the lack of
immersion in desktop-based systems? Can we produce
a set of guidelines for using visual realism in virtual
environments for education?
Our hope is that these tests will produce new insights into
how to design efficient VR systems for education. We are
also planning to build a number of new exhibition areas,
including one that presents elementary three-dimensional
geometry and one that introduces geometric algebra [8].
We will use results from research on awareness and
accommodation in virtual environments to further guide
the design of these exhibition areas [9].
REFERENCES
1. Bricken, W. Spatial Representation of Elementary
Algebra. In Proceedings of the 1992 IEEE Workshop
on Visual Languages, 55-62.
2. Brna, P., Aspin, R. Collaboration in a Virtual World:
Support for Conceptual Learning? In Proceedings of
the IFIP WG 3.3 Working Conference “HumanComputer Interaction and Educational Tools”, 113123.
3. Carlsson, C., Hagsand, O. DIVE - A Multi User Virtual
Reality System, In Proceedings of IEEE VRAIS ’93,
394-400.
4. Cronin, P. Report on the Applications of Virtual
Reality Technology to Education. HRHC, University of
Edinburgh,
February
1997.
http://www.cogsci.ed.ac.uk/~paulus/vr.html
5. Dede, C. The Evolution of Constructivist Learning
Environments: Immersion in Distributed, Virtual
Worlds. In Educational Technology, 35 (5), 1995, 4652.
6. Dede, C., Salzman, M. C., Loftin, R. B. ScienceSpace:
Virtual Realities for Learning Complex and Abstract
Scientific Concepts. In Proceedings of IEEE VRAIS
’96, 246-252.
7. Dede, C., Salzman, M., Loftin, R. B., Ash, K. Using
Virtual Reality Technology to Convey Abstract
Scientific Concepts. In Jacobson, M. J., Kozma, R. B.
(Ed.), Learning the Sciences of the 21st Century:
Research, Design, and Implementing Advanced
Technology Learning Environments. Lawrence
Erlbaum, 1997.
8. Doran, C., Dorst, L., Hestenes, D., Lasenby, J., Mann,
S., Naeve, A., Rockwood, A. Geometric Algebra: New
Foundations, New Insights, ACM SIGGRAPH ‘00
Course Notes.
9. Hedman,
A.,
Lenman,
S.
Orientation
vs.
Accommodation – New Requirements for the HCI of
Digital Communities. In Proceedings of HCII ’99, 457461.
10. Jackson, R. L. Peer Collaboration and Virtual
Environments: A Preliminary Investigation of MultiParticipant Virtual Reality Applied in Science
Education. In Proceedings of the ACM 1999
Symposium on Applied Computing, 121-125.
11. Jin, Q., Yano, Y. Design Issues and Experiences from
Having Lessons in Text-Based Social Virtual Reality
Environments. In Proceedings of the 1997 IEEE
International
Conference
on
Computational
Cybernetics and Simulation, vol. 2, 1418-1423.
12. Johnson, A., Roussos, M., Leigh, J., Vasilakis, C.,
Barnes, C., Moher, T. The NICE Project: Learning
Together in a Virtual World. In Proceedings of IEEE
VRAIS ’98, 176-183.
13. Johnson, A., Moher, T., Leigh, J., Lin, Y-J.
QuickWorlds: Teacher-Driven VR Worlds in an
Elementary School Curriculum. In Proceedings of
ACM SIGGRAPH ’00 Educators Program, 60-63.
14. Moher, T., Johnson, A., Ohlsson, S., Gillingham, M.
Bridging Strategies for VR-Based Learning. In
Proceedings of ACM CHI ’99, 536-543.
15. Naeve, A., Eklundh, J. O. Representing Generalized
Cylinders. In Proceedings of the 1995 Europe China
Workshop on Geometric Modeling and Invariants for
Computer Vision, 63-70.
16. Stone, P. A., Meier, B. J., Miller, T. S., Simpson, R. M.
Interaction in an IVR Museum of Color. In
Proceedings of ACM SIGGRAPH ’00 Educators
Program, 42-44.
17. Terashima, N. Experiment of Virtual Space Distance
Education System Using the Objects of Cultural
Heritage. In Proceedings of the 1999 IEEE
International Conference on Multimedia Computing
and Systems, vol. 2, 153-157.
18. Wickens, C. D. Virtual Reality and Education. In
Proceedings of the 1992 IEEE International
Conference on Systems, Man and Cybernetics, vol. 1,
842-847.
19. Winn, W. The Impact of Three-Dimensional Immersive
Virtual Environments on Modern Pedagogy. University
of Washington, HITL, Report No. R-97-15, 1997.