Collaborative Work on 3D Content in Virtual Environments: Methodology and Recommendations

Editor's Notes

• #2: Good afternoon! My name is Mikhail Fominykh. I am a PhD-candidate at NTNU and I study the use of 3D virtual environments for learning. Today I’d like to present you our paper “ Collaborative Work on 3D Content in Virtual Environments: Methodology and Recommendations” .
• #3: In this paper we talk about 3D virtual environments. At the moment we are working with the one called Second Life and I think most of you are familiar with this platform.
• #4: We identify 3 main reasons for choosing this technology for collaborative work with 3D content: 1. The work on 3D content is a new, creative and extraordinary activity. And we are investigating how it can be used for educational process. 2. In addition, 3D virtual environments allow people interacting in a way that conveys a sense of presence lacking in other media. This creates possibilities for other activities such as meetings and role-paying 3. The third reason is a possibility for visual expression and creativity
• #5: The main research questions that we are trying to answer in this paper are all related to the Collaborative work on 3D content : Why is it worth using this technology for Collaborative work on 3D content? How to describe, analyze and evaluate Collaborative work on 3D content? How to design an environment, tools and facilities for Collaborative work on 3D content? How to support and facilitate communities around Collaborative work on 3D content?
• #6: In this paper, we: present an explorative case study that aimed at studying how to support collaborative work on 3D educational content in educational context. analyze the results of the case study in comparison with the one previously conducted in similar settings. We explore the change in the experience that users had to investigate , the effect of the improvements that we made in the learning environment and the task. introduce and apply an original methodology for work with 3D content. present a set of recommendations for supporting collaborative work on 3D educational content.
• #7: The data in the recent study was gathered from three sources of evidence: direct observation of students’ activities online, virtual artifacts, such as chat log and 3D constructions, and users’ feedback in a form of group essays. After the study, the data were qualitatively analyzed. The recent study was carried out with 25 students in 7 groups, 2-4 students in each, both regular NTNU students (master and PhD level) and international students, participating in the NTNU international master program. The students were asked to build a visualization representing any research project and present it at a joint session by role-playing. This method is based on ‘constructionism’ ( Harel & Papert, 1991 ) – an educational philosophy, which implies that learning is more effective through the design and building of personally meaningful artifacts than consuming information alone ( Bessière, et al., 2009 ; Harel & Papert, 1991 ). Constructionism is related to the social constructivist approach ( Vygotsky, 1978 ), where the main idea is that learners co-construct their environment and understanding together with their peers. We also applied role-playing, which is a widely used and effective learning and teaching method. It implies an active behavior in accordance with a specific role ( Craciun, 2010 ; McSharry & Jones, 2000 ).
• #8: We conducted the case study in conjunction with 2 events: International event: Practical part of the exercise will be conducted conjunction with an “International Summer School on Collaborative Technologies, Serious Games and Educational Visualizations”, organized by the EU TARGET project (http://www.reachyourtarget.org/). Local event: Student projects will be exhibited in “National Science Week 2010” festival “Forskningsdagene/Forskingstorget”
• #9: List of constructions
• #13: On this slide, you can see a summary of the 3D construction analysis.
• #14: In the following , I will present the analysis of the students’ essays. Reflecting on their experience, most of the students reported that this exercise allowed them to learn more about cooperation methods and identify which of them are suitable for work in CVEs, for their group and for their task. Describing the collaborative process, 5 groups reported that they worked mostly asynchronously due to the different time schedules. Still 2 other groups preferred a synchronous mode, exploiting the advantage of increased workspace awareness as they could follow the development of the group construction in real-time. All the groups used many other communication and cooperation tools at different stages of the project work, including e-mail, instant messaging, file-sharing and video conferencing. Real-life meeting were also used by all the groups to a varying degree and for different purposes.
• #15: To mediate their understanding of the presented projects, the students used various design choices . The groups exploited different place visual shells from a very simple “room” to museums, galleries and conventional places. To present information, the students used various types of content . The most common tools were slide shows and posters, which were used by all groups except just one, however, in different settings. In 3 of the constructions, slides and posters played the role of the main sources of information, while in 3 others they were just complementing information, presented by visual symbols and interactive elements or simulations. Interactive simulations were used a lot by 2 groups, attracting interest and evoking positive feedbacks. At the same time, one of the groups emphatically refused to use interactive elements in favour of easy navigation (group 7). The use of visual symbols made some of the constructions highly appealing, intensively exploiting advantages of the technology. In addition to the above, 2 of the groups used links to web pages with further information and one of the groups used a video screen with a short clip. All the constructions were presented at the joint session. Although the students were given a task to prepare presentations as role-plays, most of the groups cut it to simply describing constructions (Table 1). Nevertheless, those groups who actually performed role- plays made a better impression on the audience, according to the feedbacks. Role-playings had another advantage in terms of explaining the details of the projects, since the audience was to a different degree involved in the play. Interactive simulations were also attracting audience by the possibility to try or test presented topic or system. Few groups or individual students prepared authentic avatars that were appealing and appreciated by the audience. The students were very different reflecting on their inspiration by other constructions in the Virtual Campus or elsewhere in Second Life. The feedback varied from stressing the importance of studying other constructions to mentioning a minor effect of this kind of studying for inexperienced users. One of the groups criticized all the constructions presented in the campus in terms of presentation means and tools, while another group was very positive exactly about this, stressing that they were inspired by the constructions on the island for the building and the tools contained inside.
• #16: The students provided feedbacks on how their understanding of the group’s own research topic improved during the visualization effort. All the groups except one claimed that they became more aware of the presented topic and their understanding (subjectively) increased. At the same time, 3 groups described the pre-phase to the actual construction as the most ‘learning-intensive’, since during this phase they had to discuss how to present their projects in the best possible way, e.g. “how to implement the concept into something concrete”. Groups that recreated real-life items in their presentations appeared to be the ones that benefited from the actual construction, though mentioning that the experience was not as rich as in reality. Reflecting on the understanding of the projects presented by other groups , the students emphasized the importance of interactive elements as experience-enhancing and giving a practical idea of the presented topic. Some additional comments (both positive and negative) were related to exploiting the unique advantages of the technology, stressing the value of creating something that is impossible (or expensive) in the real world and criticizing extensive use of 2D graphics and slideshows in particular. Engaging the audience in presentations and role-plays was considered an important factor for increasing understanding of the topic. Using voice chat or, in some cases, both voice and text chats was recommended to make presentations appealing and easy to follow. Authentic avatars and the overall atmosphere of a construction as well as recreating real-life buildings were also considered to be important for enhancing the learning experience. Comparing experience of creating a project presentation using a 3D CVE technology to a ‘traditional’ slideshow presentation , all the groups acknowledged superiority of CVEs in terms of interactivity, flexibility and innovativeness. Most of the students noted that presentations in a 3D environment are more comprehensive and provide more complete experience. At the same time, the number of critique comments was significant. According to the feedback, the main disadvantage of a CVE technology is its complexity resulted in a “tremendously increased” time and effort required for preparing a presentation and moreover – special skills. The second important disadvantage of CVEs arises from their advantage. Exciting functionality and advanced graphics often draw the focus from the topic away. The third disadvantage is the lack of feedback from the audience. The students doubted the usefulness of 3D CVEs, since it is impossible to “have full control over a group” and “force the students to pay attention”. Few balanced opinions were given supposing that there are some tasks and topics that are more suitable for each technology. Only 1 group mentioned higher system resources requirements for running CVEs. This point was considered less important, since all the students had powerful enough personal computers and additionally a computer class equipped with up-to-date hardware. In it interesting to note that only 1 group put a single point describing an advantage of a ‘traditional’ slideshow presentation, while everybody criticized CVEs.
• #17: Now I will say a few words about the comparison of two case studies. We structured the comparison in 3 levels: content, service and community. 1. In the recent study, the students had examples of the use of different types of content and visual shells and therefore could apply wider design choices in their constructions. 2. We have introduced “Role-playing” as a presentation method. 3. We have developed new facilities on the island: tutorials and ready-to-use resources that resulted in better elaborated constructions. 4. We have reconstructed few buildings from the university campus and from the city that resulted in a more appealing atmosphere. 5. On the community level, we have attracted visitors from different communities and different countries 6. All the constructions are still standing on the island and we are working on a tool that will allow to save them for next generations of students.
• #18: In the paper, we provide a set of recommendations for organizing collaborative work with 3D content, based on the study results and our previous experience. We structure them again in 3 levels: Content level: Encourage participants to consider different types of virtual exhibits for different types of information. Using only text and posters is not usually justifiable in 3D space, while the purpose of interactive elements and the meaning of visual symbols can be unclear without explanation. Encourage participants to elaborate aesthetics, functionality and expressed meaning of the visual shell . Consider dynamics of the content and use it for the benefit of the participants. Organize live performances around the content, such as role-playing. Service level: Organize tutorials , introducing technology basics for participants. Provide additional materials and be available for questions during the work. Provide basic building resources , allowing the participants to start early composing structures from ready-to-use blocks. Community level: Define the domain and engaging issues for the members ( Wenger et al. 2002 ), such as research projects at a university. Support connections between different communities such as students and teachers, external experts and the general public. Create dedicated community spaces with corresponding initial community events, such as Virtual Science Fairs and seminars. Provide initial boundary objects and introduce shared artefacts as catalysts of collaboration, such as an infrastructure supporting interactive communication and “points of focus” around which the interaction and collaboration will be structured ( Thompson 2005 ). Create community repository ( Wenger et al. 2002 ), such as a virtual gallery, exhibiting 3D constructions.