Collaborative Learning through Flexible Web CVE - Teaching through Multi-User Virtual Environments - page 471

Chapter 25
Collaborative Learning
through Flexible Web CVE:
The Experience of WebTalk

Ugo Barchetti
University of Salento, Italy

Alberto Bucciero
University of Salento, Italy

Luca Mainetti
University of Salento, Italy

ABSTRACT

This chapter describes the technological platform of the authors' learning experiences and its evolution
through the years, providing insights into the reasons that led to significant design choices and offering
guidelines on how to deal with technological issues.

INTRODUCTION

shared virtual environments. These applications
(re)create a multi-user virtual world, according to
Damer (1997), as two or three-dimensional graphi-
cal environments inhabited by users (represented
as digital actors called “ avatars ”) that share with
other users time, space and actions, cooperating
together for a common goal.
Several different software systems, both com-
mercial and research prototypes, support today's
Collaborative Virtual Environments. We started
in 1998 a development, WebTalk, which has
evolved, over the years, to the current WebTalk04,
described in the next paragraphs.

Shared virtual environments, as collaboration
tools, CVE, are mainly intended as a way to sup-
port collaboration of several users working on a
common (virtual) scene (data model). Communi-
cation between instructors and trainees (simula-
tion and training applications), sharing data (for
visually supported discussions of scientists or
decision-makers) (CSCW), support for innovative
teaching-learning and support for collaborative
e-learning (CSCL), are all examples of use for

DOI: 10.4018/978-1-61692-822-3.ch025