Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
1.1 Collaborative virtual environments for learning
Advances on technology, engineering, and instruction have enabled to diversify education
and training support computer systems −see Table 1. Initially, the development of this kind
of systems adopted the Computer Aided Instruction paradigm and was subsequently
refined with Artificial Intelligence techniques implemented in the Computer Aided
Intelligent Instruction paradigm. From the viewpoint of Artificial Intelligence, systems have
been developed based on two rather divergent instructional approaches: Intelligent
Tutoring Systems and Learning Environments (Aguilar, et al., 2010).
Computer Supported Collaborative Learning (CSCL) is probable the last of the paradigms
emerged in the late nineteenth century. Koschmann (1996) referred to it as associated with
instructional technology: “
This developing paradigm, for which the acronym CSCL has been
coined, focuses on the use of technology as a mediational tool within collaborative methods of
instruction
”.
Technology
Engineering
Instruction
T
I
Monolithic
Programming
Behavioral
Approach
Mainframes
Cognitive
Approach
Personal Computers
Structured Paradigm
M
E
Networks & Peripheral
Devices
Object Oriented
Paradigm
Constructivist
Approach
Collaborative
Learning Approach
Virtual Reality
Agents Paradigm
Table 1. Advances on Technology, Engineering and Instruction
CSCL basis is the Socio-Constructivism theory, in which core idea is that human knowledge
is constructed upon the foundation of previous learning and within the society. People, as
social creatures, are highly influenced by the interaction with their socio-cultural
environment, in such a way that this interaction contributes to the formation of the
individuals.
CVEs for learning, the computer systems developed under the CSCL paradigm, can be
described as a conceptual space in which a user contacts or interacts, in possibly different
time and space conditions, with other users or their representation, or with elements of the
environment such as data or objects. Thinking in CVEs in this way includes a conceptual
asynchronous character that Churchill & Snowdon (1998) did not take into account.
According with the interface offered to the user, CVEs could be classified as:
One-dimensional environments - based on text or text in combination with some
symbols (e.g. emoticons).
Two-dimensional environments - based on text and complemented with figures (e.g.
comics).
