1. Building Educational Virtual Environments page 1 ICALT 2002 Building Educational Virtual Environments C. Bouras, and T. Tsiatsos Computer Engineering and Informatics Department, University of Patras and Research Academic Computer Technology Institute, GREECE tsiatsos@cti.gr, ru6.cti.gr

2. page 2 ICALT 2002 Building Educational Virtual Environments Introduction This paper presents the Educational Virtual Environments (EVE) prototype, which integrates a variety of communication and collaboration tools to support Collaborative Virtual Environments (CVE) focused on collaborative e-learning

3. page 3 ICALT 2002 Building Educational Virtual Environments Educational Virtual Environment An Educational Virtual Environment (EVE) is a Collaborative Virtual Environments (CVEs) that support collaboration and interaction among users for educational purposes

4. page 4 ICALT 2002 Building Educational Virtual Environments Why CVEs for collaborative e-learning? …because they: –offer the advantages of nearness and social presence through a shared virtual space populated by avatars –can support non-verbal communication through avatar gestures, facial expressions during a collaborative e- learning session –are more suitable for collaborative e-learning than videoconferencing tools (which target mainly in frontal learning) –can support many people at the same time in the same virtual place –can simulate tools that are located in a traditional classroom (such as card moderation boards and whiteboards)

5. page 5 ICALT 2002 Building Educational Virtual Environments EVE prototype It simulates a classroom giving the users communication and collaboration capabilities and necessary tools for realizing collaborative e-learning scenarios It is based on a multi-user platform for networked virtual environment implemented using VRML and Java

6. page 6 ICALT 2002 Building Educational Virtual Environments User Interface of EVE Prototype http://ouranos.ceid.upatras.gr/vr/

7. page 7 ICALT 2002 Building Educational Virtual Environments Functionality (1/2) Multiple communication channels –voice chat –text chat –non verbal communication through gestures User's representation and awareness through avatars Manipulation of users Manipulation of shared objects

8. page 8 ICALT 2002 Building Educational Virtual Environments Functionality (2/2) The presentation table tool with –a 3D Whiteboard/slide presenter –a brainstorming board –a video presenter –support of drag and drop learning material Application Sharing Break-out session rooms for supporting sub- groups of users in the same e-learning session

9. page 9 ICALT 2002 Building Educational Virtual Environments The end Thank you for your attention! tsiatsos@cti.gr