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module. The ITS architecture adapted for an Intelligent Collaborative Virtual Environment
(ICVE) (Aguilar et al., 2010) is shown in Figure 1.
Student Module
Expert Module
Tutoring Module
(Scaffolding)
Environment (CVE)
Communication Module
Team
Fig. 1. ICVE Architecture
The systems for training developed to date may be classified depending on the issue they
emphasize as: simulation processes, generation of believable environments, and
collaboration processes; three aspects that can be integrated in a single system, an ICVE for
learning.
The component in charge of the domain of the application has the capacity to execute the
simulations of the task to be trained as they are executed in the present systems. VR
technology allows recreating environments with believable features (Youngblut, 1998)
offering the possibility of being trained in tasks that may be expensive, risky, or even
impossible to reproduce in the reality.
Regarding the collaboration process, in an ICVE by including virtual agents to replace team
members (Rickel, 2001), the trainees can have a team training experience when the complete
human team is not available. It is also possible to integrate into the environment personified
PVAs to offer them support, in the same way an instructor or a human peer would do.
Within VR technology, a PVA may assume a 3D representation similar to that used by a
human in the environment; they can be embodied through an avatar. The PVAs
personification seems to generate positive effects in the perception of the apprentices during
their learning experiences (Lester et al., 1997), with two key advantages over earlier work: they
increase the bandwidth of communication between students and computers; and they increase
the computer's ability to engage and motivate students. Some early empirical results on PVAs
embodied effectiveness are on the topics of (W. L. Johnson, Rickel, & Lester, 2000): interactive
demonstrations, navigational guidance, gaze and gesture as attentional guides, nonverbal
feedback, conversational signals, conveying and eliciting emotion, and virtual teammates.
A PVA can be defined as an intelligent agent that makes decisions about how to maximize the
student learning process. PVAs as a result of its goal can function within the ICVE as tutors,
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