Designing Web-Based Educational Virtual Reality Environments - Teaching through Multi-User Virtual Environments - page 175

lar structure of liver and the deformation of
hepatic cells resulting in the flow of bile in
the blood. The modeling of all models was
performed under the guidance and supervi-
sion of expert doctors. The simulation pro-
vides multiple interactive functionalities,
such as navigation in 3D space, deforma-
tion of cells or change of their transpar-
ency. Thus, students actively participate in
the learning process acquiring knowledge
through their interaction with the virtual
models.

and network requirements. Furthermore, special
equipment (e.g. a large number of cameras) is
required for the reconstruction of user's model,
reducing so the number of potential users i.e.
special equipped studios are required for the
participation of a user in the tele-immersed world.

CONCLUSION

In this chapter we presented a study on the design-
ing and building of virtual reality environments
for distance education on the Web. The mostly
applied pedagogical methods such as behavior-
ism, cognitivism, constructivism and collabora-
tive learning were studied and specific designing
requirements were analyzed based on the triple
nature of web-base virtual learning environments.
The chapter also includes research on the role of
virtual reality and Web technologies in distance
education and presents a prototype system for
the distance education of medical students. The
proposed application takes advantage of the recent
advances on Web and virtual reality technologies
in order to reproduce conditions of a real learning
process and enhance learning through a real-time
interactive simulator providing significant advan-
tages to the distance education of medical students.
In the future, the application can be extended to
support a wide range of medical simulations and
relative educational material providing so a more
integrated educational role.

The proposed application has been designed
and developed for the distance education of
medical students; however, it can be also used as
a valuable complementary tool in a real univer-
sity classroom. Especially, the use of the Web-
based simulation in a real learning process can
assist students to perceive easier the cellular
structure of human liver as well as to study the
development of a pathological condition resulting
in jaundice.

FUTURe ReSeARCH DIReCTION

Nowadays, a virtual world is defined as being a
computer-based virtual environment, where users
can interact with each other and the environment.
The use of 3D reconstruction techniques for creat-
ing 3D models from dynamic scenes is expected
to give rise to tele-immersed worlds, where users
will be represented by their own reconstructed
models. The user will have full capabilities of
walking around the virtual or augmented environ-
ment and interact with it or with the rest of the
tele-immersed users. This new technology will
offer to the user the possibility to interact with
remote people like being there and doing things
together in a complete collaborative and immer-
sive environment. However, this technology still
faces some limitation in terms of computational

ReFeReNCeS

Atkins, M. J. (1993). Theories of learning and
multimedia applications: An overview. Re-
search Papers in Education , 8 (2), 251-271.
doi:10.1080/0267152930080207

Avouris, N. (2000). Introduction in the Human-
Computer Communication . Athens: Diavlos.