Collaborative environmental education using distributed virtual environment accessible from real and virtual worlds

  • Authors:
  • Masaya Okada;Hiroyuki Tarumi;Tetsuhiko Yoshimura;Kazuyuki Moriya

  • Affiliations:
  • Kyoto University, Kyoto 606-8501 Japan;Kagawa University, 2217-20 Hayashi-cho, Takamatsu-city, Kagawa 761-0396 Japan;Kyoto University, Kyoto 606-8501 Japan;Kyoto University

  • Venue:
  • ACM SIGAPP Applied Computing Review
  • Year:
  • 2001

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Abstract

We have designed and implemented a support system for collaborative environmental education, DigitalEE, which realizes distributed virtual environment accessible from real and virtual worlds. This system introduces the following diverse features into environmental education: global arguments supported by the Internet, giving learners pseudo experiences by virtual reality, supplementing real natural experiences by augmented reality, and giving learners experts' valuable knowledge by distance education. Shared virtual space in the distributed virtual environment is "3D virtual nature", which is a VRML world representing the real nature. Learners learning through direct experiences can enter the 3D virtual nature from the real world with mobile computers, whereas experts and other participants can enter the 3D virtual nature from distant locations with their personal computers. People throughout the world can communicate with each other while sharing the same place virtually between real and virtual worlds. Learners' observation, experts' knowledge, and other participants' information are continuously accumulated in the shared 3D virtual nature as VRML objects and web pages, and the world is being updated dynamically in the learning process. With these ideas, DigitalEE realizes a new style of environmental education such as collaborative outdoor learning supported by knowledgeable experts throughout the world and interactive virtual tours to inaccessible natural environment.