CSCL Techniques in Collaborative Virtual Environments: The Case of Second Life - Teaching through Multi-User Virtual Environments - page 149

To complement the set of gestures-animations
presented above, our team created some further
gestures-animations which could be used in order
to facilitate communication. These are presented
in Table 6. The trigger column refers to the way
the gesture/animation is activated through the text
chat window.

A. Student Voice : One of the major problems
in online meetings is to distinguish the
person who speaks. Thus, we designed the
Student Voice Tool, which enables the dif-
ferentiation of the speaking user through a
ring with the denotation “Speaker”, over
his/her avatar's head and a microphone
near the mouth (Figure 3). The metaphor
was implemented with the HUD technique
and students have to wear the HUD in order
to use its functions. More specifically, if a
student wishes to speak then the following
actions take place:
◦

Virtual Tools and metaphors

Visual metaphors are an essential part of virtual
worlds such as SL. In Heilig (1992), research
revealed that 70% of information uses the opti-
cal channel. We assume that visual metaphors in
e-learning can boost collaboration in collabora-
tive virtual environments and produce effective
learning; in order to evaluate this assumption
we designed virtual tools implementing useful
visual metaphors. In the following sections, five
implemented tools are described:

The student declares his/her request
to speak by raising his/her hand (use
of Raise hand gesture)

◦ The Discussion coordinator (who

uses the “Now Speaking tool” pre-
sented below) assigns him/her the
“Speaker role”

Table 5. Second Life's built in metaphors

Activity Avatar Appearance

Away The avatar is shown to be sleeping when the user is inactive for a specific time.

Typing: Chat The Avatar is shown moving its hands like typing.

Talking: Voice Chat An animated symbol blinks over the talking avatar's head while a default animation shows the avatar's lips moving

An avatar can carry objects using the attach function. Also, interaction with objects includes a touch function,
which is depicted as a laser.

Interaction with objects

Table 6. List of implemented gestures-animations for the users

Action-Statement Description Trigger

Raise Hand Avatar raises hand, requesting permission to speak /hand

Encouragement Avatar hand animation for encouragement /encourage

Show avatar The avatar points at someone else /you

Show self The avatar points at itself /me

Clap The avatar claps /clap

Doubt The avatar's facial expression shows doubt /hmm

Agreement The avatar shakes its head up and down /yes

Disagreement The avatar shakes its head left to right /no

Ignorance The avatar shakes its head left to right and frowns /dontknow