Visualization in VR

"Education is not just about conventional school matters like curriculum or standards or testing. What we resolve to do in school only makes sense when considered in the broader context of what the society intends to accomplish through its educational investment in the young. How one conceives of education, we have finally come to recognize, is a function of how one conceives of culture and its aims, professed and otherwise.” (Jerome S. Bruner 1996: ix-x as cite in ifed.org)

Virtual reality environments provide learners with the possibility to take up multiple perspectives. This can represent a valuable support in developing awareness of the constructed nature of one’s own reality. The environment encourages learners to build their own knowledge worlds (which fit the theory of constructivism) as an exploratory approach to learning. Thus, a believed that constructivist theory provides a valid and reliable theory of learning in virtual environment and through virtual reality provides the perfect tool or technology to apply this theory in the “real world”. (Mantovani, 2003; Winn 1993)

Virtual reality facilitates new kinds of learning experience that are highly perceptual in nature, and which enable students to be immersed within a phenomenon visually, auditory and haptically (Fállman et al.1999). Virtual reality experiences designed for a single user fit perfectly as fundamental theory for learning in virtual environments, since virtual reality can simulate a real world, users may learn while placed in the context where they should apply that learning. (Sánchez et al. n.d.)

Information can be provided in a variety of ways, including through technologies such as virtual reality. In this study, students had the opportunity to both create and experience a virtual environment; both examples of experiential learning. In the virtual world, the knowledge construction process is made concrete by providing the student the ability to create and experience their own representations, or to manipulate the representations of others in a meaningful fashion. Though this capability is not always limited to virtual reality, the level of personal and shared interaction achievable with this technology makes it a compelling means for displaying and interacting with information. This ability is especially valuable when students interact, physically and directly, with objects and processes that are not accessible to the senses in the real world. From this standpoint, we can explore how the creation and experience of virtual environments may provide one means of meaning-making for the student.

The main and unique advantage of virtual reality is its ability to facilitate a learning scenario that is safe, inexpensive and explorative. (Heinich et al, 2002). This learning environment enables students to study and explore the learning objects in experiential setting. The presence of three dimensional objects in the virtual reality environment will facilitate the students to engage spatial intelligence or skill in the learning process.

A number of educational virtual reality applications have been used in learning courses such as physics, algebra, physiology, colour science and systems for exploring cultural heritage objects (Taven & Naeve, 2002). However, most of these projects used full immersive virtual reality which is prohibitively expensive and technically challenged. Of late, desktop virtual reality applications in learning and training have gained prominence and the possibility of affordable networked virtual environment has become a reality due to the increase of network bandwidth.

A desktop virtual reality (d-VR) normally uses a conventional monitor to display of the world at a lesser cost compared to the full immersive virtual environment systems. The desktop virtual reality enables users to navigate, rotate, visualize and walk inside the three dimensional environments. Users are able to access and interact with virtual objects representing useful information and educational materials anywhere in the world through higher speed internet connectivity.

Recently, several projects have been carried out involving the application of desktop virtual reality as educational tools in mathematics learning. One fine example is the CyberMath project at the Royal Institute of Technology that utilized desktop virtual reality technology to build an avatar-based shared virtual environment for mathematics learning to explain advanced mathematical concepts (Gustav and Naeve, 2002). Similar adoption of virtual reality system has been employed at the Eafit University, Colombia to develop a multi-variant calculus teaching tools for advanced mathematics (Alvarez et. al, 2003).

There are also studies by Witmer et al. (1996) and Arthur et al. (1997) that found that learners can develop spatial knowledge through exploring virtual environments. Kaufmann et al. (2000) concludes that students’ spatial abilities can be improved by virtual reality through proper use of contents and instructions. Song et al. (2000) reported that middle school students who spent part of their geometry class time exploring 3-D solids were significantly more successful at solving geometry problems that required visualization than peers taught geometry by verbal explanation. However, the benefits of virtual reality experiences are often limited to very specific skills for example; students taught by a virtual reality approach were not any more effective at solving geometry problems that did not require visualization.


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Subject: Congratulations - your paper was accepted for SCSC08 in Edinburgh

Your paper has been accepted for presentation at the SCSC08 conference in Edinburgh, Scotland, June 16 - 19, in the Graphics track.

I will be sending out individual letters to your shortly, giving you your track information. We do not have specific time slots yet - but the papers will be presented on all days of the conference, through Thursday afternoon. Please make your travel arrangements accordingly.

Namun apakan daya.. aku pun tidak attend conference ini walaupun conference ini bagus untuk menambahkan ilmu.. aku dah tak research pasal visualization in VR lagi.. sayang kan.. namun itulah ketentuan Allah buat aku..

Sekadar mengimbas semula ilmu dan pengetahuan tentang visualization yang telah aku study selama hampir 2 tahun.. rasa sayang kerana literature review aku sepanjang hampir 22 muka surat itu (artikel di atas adalah sebahagian darinya) telah siap ditulis dan disemak.. mungkin rezekiku di masa akan datang pula.. Allah maha mengetahui..