Designing Web-Based Educational Virtual Reality Environments - Teaching through Multi-User Virtual Environments - page 164

ing process. These features are further enhanced
by the use of virtual reality technology in online
education as described later in this chapter.

connection with a discussion group can be
bidirectional, i.e. users actively participate
in a discussion or one way i.e. a user can
only watch a discussion.

Asynchronous Communication

Asynchronous communication systems are
widely used by e-learning applications, mainly
because of their low cost and their flexibility in
terms of time and place i.e. students can approach
the learning material without any time or place re-
striction. This feature enhances learning and allows
students to determine when they will participate
in the learning process and how much time they
really need to assimilate the new information.
The main drawback of using asynchronous com-
munication in education is that it turns learning
into an impersonal process.

Web is not only a source of knowledge, but also
a perfect means for communication, which sup-
ports time and space independency. One of the
most popular ways of communication in case of
web-based learning environments is asynchronous
communication between learners and instructors.
In asynchronous communication, the simultaneous
participation of all the involved parties (learners
and instructors) is not a prerequisite. That is,
learners choose when they will read the teach-
ers' instructions or communicate with the other
members of the learning process. Asynchronous
communication is based on technologies, most of
the Web users are familiar with. The main tools
used for this purpose are the following:

Synchronous Communication

Synchronous communication refers to the
ability of two or more remote users to interact in
almost real-time either exchanging text messages
or transmitting sound or video. A wide range of
technologies can be used to provide synchronous
communication between learners and instructors.
The final decision heavily depends on the network
capacity and the total cost of the application. The
main synchronous communication technologies
used by web-based learning environments are
outlined below:

• E-mail: This is the most popular applica-

tion of asynchronous communication ad-
opted by the majority of web-based learn-
ing environments. Reliability, low cost and
flexibility are some of its features, which
make it the basic means of communication
on the Web. One of its main advantages is
that the receiver can read his/her e-mails at
any time and from any place. Moreover, it
enables the communication between learn-
ers and instructors as well as the creation
of groups through the use of mailing-lists.

• Online Chat: This technology is primarily

meant to refer to direct exchange of text
messages between two or more users. The
communication through text messages is
usually adopted by virtual classroom (term
virtual classroom is described in detailed
later) applications, where students' groups
can take advantage of the learning tool pro-
vided in order to discuss in real time.

• Bulletin Board Systems-BBS: Bulletin

boards are systems using asynchronous
communication, where users can send or
read announcements. Each user can choose
a topic according to his/her interests or read
messages in a chronological order. The ap-
proach of a BBS is usually restricted to the
members of a learning process. • Audio Conference: These systems enable

the communication of multiple users in re-
al-time through the transmission of audio

• Newsgroups: Typically, a newsgroup is fo-

cused on a particular topic of interest. The