Designing Web-Based Educational Virtual Reality Environments - Teaching through Multi-User Virtual Environments - page 165

messages over IP. Peripheral devices such
as microphones, speakers and audio cards
are needed, however, this requirements is
counter balanced by the fact that users do
not need to use their keyboard for writing
messages.

of the learning process, in which they can either
discover or even produce new knowledge.
An educational virtual environment can be
defined as one or more virtual worlds that offer
multiple educational functionalities to each user-
student (Bouras & Tsiatsos, 2002). Within these
virtual worlds, students can navigate, interact
with virtual objects and study the educational
material, which can be a 3D model or text, image,
sound and video. Besides, it is widely recognized
that virtual reality technology engages students'
attention and turns learning into pleasant and en-
tertaining process. In short, three are considered
to be the main features of these applications:
immersion, interactivity and representation in
three dimensions.
Generally, the use of virtual reality technology
in Web provides a new framework for distance
education, since it can be regarded as the exten-
sion of internet in third dimension. This capabil-
ity allows the development of Web-based virtual
learning environments, which are approachable
by all internet users. The most practical use of
virtual reality is in training and simulations.
However, there are many applications aiming to
reproduce a learning process of a real classroom.
These applications allow students to interact
with information in a physical sense beyond the
conventional interaction supported by typical
two-dimensional Web sites.

• Video Conference: The simultaneous

transmission of audio and video informa-
tion enhances learning and approaches sig-
nificantly the learning condition of a real
classroom. Therefore, this technology has
drawn the attention of the scientific com-
munity and it is now considered as one of
the most valuable tools in distance educa-
tion. The participants of a video confer-
ence can watch teacher's motions or even
his/her expressions. Of course, the network
requirements should ensure an adequate
bandwidth for the transmission of video
data.

The main advantage of an application support-
ing synchronous communication is the real-time
interaction between all the members of the learn-
ing process. This feature facilitates the creation
of virtual classroom's conditions; however, it
requires the simultaneous presence of learners
and instructors as opposed to the asynchronous
communication.

Virtual Reality in Distance education

Pedagogical Approach

Virtual reality has introduced a new form of edu-
cation allowing students to experience situations,
instead of simply reading or hearing about them
(Rudin, 1995). Its use in online distance education
set the base for the implementation of interactive
systems offering to students the ability to broad
their knowledge without any help from their
teachers (Manitsaris et al, 2001). The interactive
functionalities supporting virtual reality environ-
ments reinforce the active participation of students
and therefore they are not any more regarded as
simple passive observers, but as active members

Web-based virtual learning environments play a
multilateral educational role providing not only
a platform for the presentation of educational
material, but also a communication means among
the members of a learning community. These ca-
pabilities allow the creation of a virtual learning
environment in which educators and learners are
able to perform classroom-like tasks. To ensure
the educational effectiveness of the learning envi-
ronment, appropriate pedagogical methods should
be considered, especially in the designing phase