Virtual worlds became an appealing and fascinating component of today's internet. In particular, the number of educational providers that see a potential for E-Learning in such new platforms increases. Unfortunately, most of the environments and processes implemented up to now do not exceed a virtual modelling of real-world scenarios. In particular, this paper shows that Second Life can be more than just another learning platform. A flexible and bidirectional link between the reality and the virtual world enables synchronous and seamless interaction between users and devices across both worlds. The primary advantages of this interconnection are a spatial extension of face-to-face and online learning scenarios and a closer relationship between virtual learners and the real world.
Interactivity is closely related to aspects of networking and interdisciplinary development, bringing together researchers from engineering, computer science, media art and design, and social sciences. Here, the importance of computer science needs to be emphasized along with the growing immersion of digital systems in our daily life: dealing with computers can be seen as a new cultural technique besides reading, writing, and calculating [
From a cultural or psychological perspective, virtual 3D worlds allow to study human behaviour in a decoupled, reversible way—like mirroring the reality, including other people’s intimate thoughts, by interacting through a the 3D interface [
Considering this, a systematic combination of real life and virtual interaction is promising a huge benefit for electronic learning, in terms of (not only virtually) tangible E-learning interfaces that enrich the experiences of learners—and probably also those of teachers. By a felt-as-somatic interaction with the learning environment the cognitive capabilities of students can be exhausted to a much larger extent than in traditional classroom settings, where learners are typically acting in a much more passive and less individual way. In the following, this paper demonstrates how the tangibility of real-life objects can be closely interweaved with elements in a virtual 3D world. The goal of our work was to systematically interconnect classroom and virtual learning in order to provide a higher level of individuality and flexibility to the user—not only in terms of a “3D remote control,” but as a generalized architecture for flexible, bidirectional interchange of media between different environments (like classroom, media lab, learning platform, and virtual world). The many technical facets of our architectural framework are outside the focus of this paper, like service mash-ups [
A widely accepted model for interconnecting different teaching/learning settings is blended learning [
We believe that the direct interconnection of different educational settings allows for a seamless combination of synchronous scenarios during the lecture (with interaction between teachers and learners) and asynchronous scenarios before and after (individual or collaborative preparation and wrap-up)—regardless of the used platform. This enhances the learning comfort, increases the scope and quality of a lecture, and advances mobility and equality of opportunities for learners and lecturers. Current developments in this area can be divided into two groups: point-to-point connections and systematic redesigns.
There exist a number of Based on the practical need to simplify and accelerate the processes to deploy teaching and learning material, there have been some developments to automatically integrate lecture recordings into learning management systems [ To provide another example, there are some mash-ups between virtual worlds and other platforms, like for 3D visualization of large data sets [
All these solutions suffer from limited extensibility and complex maintenance due to their dependence from tools and technologies.
An abstract specification of educational presentation systems helps to identify related components and methods, for example, using an object-oriented model [ Basic features of a learning platform can be identified and invoked from various external sources [ A generic middleware [
Usually, these solutions follow an approach of fundamental platform decomposition for a later flexible recombination of modules. Here, object-, service-, or peer-to-peer-based architectures come into play. However, this is hard to realize with existing tools and infrastructures.
Considering state-of-the-art design principles and sustainability of developments, a systematic integration is desirable. Services have proven to be a valid mechanism for enhancement of existing platforms [
Distributed application scenarios consist of a high number of tools, platforms, and infrastructures. Especially, network-based environments are characterized by a high degree of heterogeneity and dynamics, which requires a systematic approach for conception and implementation of a well-suited architectural model. Otherwise, performance, scalability, and long-term sustainability cannot be guaranteed. Recent developments often show an unstructured aggregation of dedicated point-to-point connection between specific systems—though the theory of distributed systems offers a pool of general models for different requirements and conditions of the application scenario [
Selection of an appropriate model comes along with a systematic analysis of the application scenario, usually with the help of formal models for actors, use cases, components, and processes. Depending on the nature of the application, this can be achieved, for instance, with graphical modelling techniques [
We chose the broker model for systematic interconnection of different interaction spaces mainly because of its high degree of heterogeneity, agility, scalability, and transparency. Therewith, we dynamically redirect interactions between different locations (represented as media and control services) without predefined knowledge on any site. Figure
A Service-Oriented Architecture transparently interconnects different service providers and consumers (here: for telelecturing) without requiring the clients to have specific knowledge on given infrastructure and protocols.
This architecture unifies the interaction between different types of providers, consumers, and services, as all steps described above are based on abstract service descriptions and platform-independent communication. Consumer and provider are just required to implement a minimal service interface. Thus, existing infrastructures and tools do not need to be redesigned.
In an educational application scenario, there are some additional points that allow or even require the use of SOA. First of all, there are a number of established network addresses that are known to all clients and servers (like learning platforms); they can be used as brokers. Moreover, the content of a lecture typically is not security relevant, which simplifies the implementation and practical use of a prototype. (Nevertheless, a cross-institutional scenario requires basic services for authentication and accounting.) Another aspect is the large number of potential users and services that demands a scalability and agility impossibly provided by conventional models (like point-to-point connection of clients and servers). Finally, a strong requirement in educational scenarios is the acceptance and effective learning outcome by the users, not only those with a less technical background, which requires an intuitive and satisfying client-side interface. Here, the bow is drawn back to the desired tangibility and somatic, sensual perception of rich interaction spheres, which we tried to transfer from physical to virtual environments.
Beyond simple brokerage, our service-based middleware offers some unique features which we would like to point out here. Moreover, Finally,
That is why we called this central instance not only a broker, but a University Service Bus—indicating that there are complex functions performed by the middleware on behalf of the other system components (and finally of the users themselves).
From the users’ point of view, there are three levels to deal with a digital system [ They may stay They may They may
In general, the degree of intensity is rising from level to level. As a specialty of virtual 3D worlds, navigation, and interaction are similar to our actions in reality and thus are perceived to be more simple, natural, and intensive [ distribution of previous lectures (in terms of a slide show or video) for passive, asynchronous reception, similar to a PodCast [ synchronous transmission of video data and moves of an avatar, similar to a virtual video conference [ additional discussions and/or reflections among students or with the tutor [
As far as we know, existing scenarios are restricted to a single virtual world up to now. In principle, a connection to other environments (virtual or physical) is possible, too. We built an infrastructure that fulfills all of the above-mentioned tasks. Primarily, ongoing face-to-face lectures are provided as a service and can thus be invoked by any platform in real-time. For Second Life, this is realized by presenting the slides and annotations of the lecturer on the virtual canvas, and by mapping the lecturer’s voice to the avatar in the virtual world. Also, additional sounds can be mapped to the virtual lecture hall. Secondarily, all lectures are recorded and stored in an archive. In case that there is no ongoing live event, these recordings can be accessed from Second Life, too. For the users, there is no difference to be seen between this asynchronous playback and a live transmission except missing features for interaction. These interactions are the third field of our developments. We support a transparent, personal communication between users in the virtual world and onsite. Again, all these features are not limited to a special lab on the campus or to Second Life as virtual counterpart. The broker architecture allows for a highly flexible and dynamic deployment/invocation of services no matter from their origin and the targeted platform. The only prerequisition is a registration of the event at the broker, carried out by the lecturer prior to the presentation.
The added value a virtual world provides in contrast to conventional face-to-face teaching is not only to copy a classroom or lab setting and to broadcast a lecture in the Web. Of course, this scenario is important especially for inexperienced users—teachers as well as students—in order to orientate themselves. The advantage is the almost unlimited
Another important point is
We had to consider the interfaces of existing systems in order to develop our framework, namely, the media equipment and control centre in our lab and the virtual world. The challenge was to interconnect these worlds using the SOA without touching regular operation of these systems.
The media control centre
Second Life is a complex
Moreover, we intended to integrate mobile devices of onsite students (cell phones) in order to enable personal communication with virtual participants. Here, we had to bridge heterogeneity on network and service level (Bluetooth and its services on the phones, and IP and Web Services in the Internet). We developed a so called general purpose access Point (GPAP) to tackle this problem; this core element of our infrastructure lies outside the focus of this paper.
The design of a Second Life interface to an SOA covers three major aspects. First of all, the overall appearance must be appealing and—for better acceptance—without an explicit reference to E-learning. Associations with an object or region from real-life create curiosity and may lead to a better identification. They are feasible to express local affiliations in virtual worlds that are assembled from a diversity of different countries and regions. For this reason, we decided to model two famous landmarks at the beach of Rostock Warnemünde: the historic lighthouse and the so called “Teepott” with its remarkable roof (Figure
The lighthouse and “Teepott” have been transferred from real-life (as a nautical and touristical landmark) to our virtual site in Second Life (as a learning and communication space).
The second aspect concerns the interior of the buildings. It should reflect the purpose of buildings and elements and should encourage an (inter)active participation. We modelled a virtual media lab with table, several chairs and a canvas to build an open learning and communication environment (Figure
The main equipment of the media lab as well as additional elements for room decoration and interaction is modelled in Second Life, after all providing a much more attractive atmosphere than the original lab.
Additionally, all internal functions must be distinguishable and intuitionally controllable. The service-based communication with other environments should occur seamlessly. We use an access model that is based on the Second Life group model: Registered members of our group are considered as trustable avatars and are allowed to control the virtual and real equipment. They can also authorize other avatars for specific events or lectures. Guest avatars can only consume content and communicate with other students or the lecturer by text and voice chat.
From the many functions the virtual environment can fulfill we would like to explain four in more detail: controlling media equipment in the onsite lab from the virtual world, playing archived lectures in the virtual world, participating in ongoing lectures from the virtual world, communicating with other students across both worlds.
The
As an additional 3D element that attracts the user’s attention a keyboard encapsulates interaction with invisible objects and non-3D, dialogue-based interaction (e.g., for controlling the technical equipment of the real-life media-lab).
The main use case the system was designed for is streaming of lecture recordings, which can take place live and ondemand.
An enhanced use case is
There are also some possibilities for interactivity, to a limited extent. First, the Second Life (text or audio) chat will directly reach onsite participants if the virtual world is projected onsite. Audio messages can be handled in the same way as requests to speak by the audience onsite. But, we experienced that text messages can produce a high cognitive load for lecturers who have to be aware that there may appear comments or questions behind their back on the screen. Second, interactions with the students onsite need to find a way to the virtual world. We experimented with two mechanisms: The camera and microphone can be switched from the lecturer to the audience, which results in some delay of the lecture, and it is better handled by an additional technician than by the lecturer. Alternatively, the lecturer may simply repeat any question of the audience in order to transmit it to the virtual world. This does not require much effort. Nevertheless, we found these interaction possibilities insufficient.
That is why we additionally developed an innovative
The cross-platform message exchange bridges between a mobile phone (Bluetooth) and the Second Life chat functions (Ethernet and Web Services). Students make use of their personal phone or corresponding virtual devices.
The prototypical solution of the presented system was developed in a course on Web 2.0 and Second Life. For the students, this was associated with a wide range of actions that took place in the physical as well as the virtual environment: listening to introductory talks, preparing and giving their own talks on advanced topics, discussing these topics, extending the conception, implementing the virtual environment itself, testing and presenting the results of their work. We evaluated the infrastructure in three subsequent master courses with all together 25 students and different lecturers; two with traditional instruction and one with a game-based setting [
The frequency of using the service-based dissemination of lectures did continuously rise during the tests (compared to traditional linking of material in an E-learning platform) though students initially signalled no willingness to make use of these mechanisms. Comparing different transmission techniques, streaming was recognized as appropriate especially for participating and frequent reworking of a lecture, while download was considered as helpful mostly for targeted revision of lectures prior to exams.
As Figure
Student ratings for the quality of integrating onsite lectures into a learning platform (left) and a virtual world (right) showed relevant points for further improvement of our systems.
After all, we asked the students if they would make use of such offers during their studies, again. Regarding lecture streaming in the traditional learning platform 75% said yes and 25% perhaps. Regarding lecture streaming in Second Life, 50% said yes, 25% said perhaps, and 25% said no. Our conclusion is that using the virtual world rather makes sense in highly interactive settings like project-based or game-based learning.
In an initial inquiry, we asked the students for their
Our subjective observations from a In the first phase lasting a few weeks, the natural instinct of participants to play around in the virtual world dominated their behaviour. To a certain extent this also affected the instructors. For instance, many students experimented with the optical appearance of their avatar, widely exceeding limits given in real-life by biology, culture, or personal concerns. Some even acted in a more aggressive way, for example, tried to change, remove, or destroy virtual objects. This was encouraged by the prototypical nature of the technical realization as well as their feeling to be unobserved resulting from a lack of organizational structure in the new environment compared to traditional classroom or lab settings. In a second phase that lasted till the end of the course, we saw a significantly increased productivity of the students. They started to build up a team rather than a number of individuals, surely as a result of successful interaction and cooperation. Their identification with the project (visible, for instance, in dedicated logo shirts they designed and exchanged) seemed to be much higher in the virtual than in the physical environment, which we explain with the given potential to personally act out. Here, the innovative interaction sphere is a major benefit to exploit the students’ individuality and creativity. Finally, even a third phase taking place after finishing the course was identified. Students continued to work and play with the system even beyond their official schedule. The team kept meeting physically as well as virtually, further refining the system, and there existed a strong interest to continue work in consecutive courses or projects which we are familiar only from other “tangible” projects, for example, mobile robots or field trips.
From our subjective perspective, the average
Our conclusion is that tangibility—no matter if physical or virtual—helps to foster
We feel that these findings from our experiments as well as from educational research in general confirm the efficacy of our system. However, the contribution of our work is rather technical, a systematical approach to interconnect not only different tools, but also different teaching/learning settings which were isolated before.
The service-based linking of face-to-face learning scenarios and different virtual learning environments described in this paper goes far beyond previous approaches. Connections between Second Life and traditional E-learning platforms already exist, but they are restricted to cross references or a common database. There are no systematic approaches to combine synchronous and asynchronous learning processes of both paradigms.
The presented system achieves a flexible and systematic coupling of platforms and tools of computer-aided teaching and learning in classrooms and virtual worlds. It consequently makes use of a service-oriented architecture (SOA). An intermediate service layer between the different environments contains all services that are provided by the specific platforms. Each environment is furthermore able to consume services available in this layer. For the first time, learner and lecturer can shape the specific learning and teaching processes in an ad hoc manner beyond predefined phases (Blended Learning) or environments (decoupled face-to-face and virtual learning processes). The individual arrangement can be modified during the lecture. In addition, the emerged independency allows a unification of synchronous and asynchronous learning and teaching scenarios. This can be easily realized across different educational providers. An interference of administrative areas of responsibility is not longer required thanks to the transparent encapsulation in an SOA.
Besides several courses at the University of Rostock, we also used the developed system for events like virtual online conferences or for remote (i.e., distributed) defence of students’ theses, to name just two examples.
Nevertheless, the prototype can be extended at several points. A service-based feedback channel from the virtual learning environment into the presence learning environment does not yet exist. Although currently not required (clients and browser satisfactorily perform this task) it is desirable with regards to higher flexibility. A direct integration of SOA mechanisms into virtual worlds like Second Life would also increase the flexibility of the developed system, just like an extension of virtual environments to further data formats (e.g., PDF or Flash).
Furthermore, the interaction between teachers and learners can be designed more intuitionally. This is feasible by a fusion of the presented approach with principles and technologies of self organization and pervasive computing [
Finally, an advanced state of the system will allow us to transfer the scenario from Master to Bachelor courses (in order to attract more students and thus to gain a broader statistical base). We are confident that the service-based interconnection of virtual 3D worlds and real-life locations is an excellent interaction concept for different E-learning communities.
After all, the most obvious benefit of virtual worlds (to freely create and modify a 3D environment, for example, for
The authors are thankful to the German Research Foundation (DFG) for partially supporting this work within the Research Training Group “Multimodal Smart Appliance Ensembles for Mobile Applications”.