5 research outputs found
Supporting learning activities in virtual worlds: methods, tools and evaluation
2011 - 2012Continuing advances and reduced costs in computational power, graphics and network bandwidth let 3D immersive multiâuser Virtual Worlds (VWs) become increasingly accessible while offering an improved and engaging quality of experience.
Excited at the prospects of engaging their Net Generation, students and educators worldwide are attempting to exploit the affordances of threeâdimensional (3D) VWs. Environments such as Second Life (SL) are increasingly used in education, often for their flexibility in facilitating studentâdirected, selfâpaced learning and their communication features.
Research on the educational value of VWs has revealed their potential as learning platforms. However, further studies are always needed in order to assess their effectiveness, satisfactorily and social engagement, not only in the general didactic use of the environment, but also for each specific learning subjects, activities and modality.
A major question in using VWs in education is finding appropriate valueâadded educational applications.
The main challenge is to determine learning approaches in which learning in a VW presents added value with respect to traditional education, and to effectively utilize the third dimension to avoid using the environment simply as a communication platform.
In addition, the educational VW activities become more and more sophisticated, starting from the early ones based only on information displaying and teaching resources to simulated laboratory and scenarios. The more complex the learning activities are, the more the challenge of guiding students during their learning trajectories increases and there is the need of providing them with appropriate support and guidance.
The main contributions of this thesis are summarized as follows: (i) we propose an appropriate valueâadded educational application that supports individual learning activities effectively exploiting the third dimension. In particular, we adopt a VW to support the learning of engineering practices based on technical drawing. The proposed system called VirtualHOP trains the students in the way of learningâbyâdoing methodology to build the required 3D objects; (ii) we enhance an helping system with the avatar appearance and AI for helping the exploration of environments and fruition of distance didactic activities in SL; (iii) we empirically evaluate the didactic value and the user perceptions concerning both the learning setting and the avatarâbased virtual assistant. The results demonstrate the usefulness of both the didactic experiences offered in SL and a positive attitude of the learners in terms of enjoyment and easeâofâuse. [edited by author]XI n.s
Virtual Reality
At present, the virtual reality has impact on information organization and management and even changes design principle of information systems, which will make it adapt to application requirements. The book aims to provide a broader perspective of virtual reality on development and application. First part of the book is named as "virtual reality visualization and vision" and includes new developments in virtual reality visualization of 3D scenarios, virtual reality and vision, high fidelity immersive virtual reality included tracking, rendering and display subsystems. The second part named as "virtual reality in robot technology" brings forth applications of virtual reality in remote rehabilitation robot-based rehabilitation evaluation method and multi-legged robot adaptive walking in unstructured terrains. The third part, named as "industrial and construction applications" is about the product design, space industry, building information modeling, construction and maintenance by virtual reality, and so on. And the last part, which is named as "culture and life of human" describes applications of culture life and multimedia-technology
New HCI techniques for better living through technology
In the Human Computer Interaction community, researchers work on many
projects that investigate the efficacy of new technologies for better living,
but unlike other research fields, these researchers must have an approach
that is typically multi-disciplinary.
Technology is always developing thus improving our lives in many ways
like education, health and communication. This due to the fact that it is
supposed to make life easier.
This dissertation explores three main aspects: the first is learning with
new technologies, the second is the improvement of real life by using innovative
devices while the third is the usage of mobile devices in combination
with image processing algorithms and computer graphics techniques.
We firstly describe the progress on the state of the art and related work
that have been necessary to implement such tools on commodity hardware
and deploy them in both mobile and desktop settings.
We propose the usage of different technologies in different settings, comparing
these solutions for enhancing the interaction experience by introducing
virtual/augmented reality tools for supporting this kind of activities.
We also applied well-known gamification techniques coming from different
mobile applications for demonstrating how users can be entertained and
motivated in their working out.
We describe our design and prototype of several integrated systems created
to improve the educational process, to enhance the shopping experience,
to provide new experiences for travellers and even to improve fitness
and wellness activities.
Finally, we discuss our findings and frame them in the broader context
of better living thanks to technology, drawing the lessons learnt from each
work while also proposing relative future work
Interactive Spaces Natural interfaces supporting gestures and manipulations in interactive spaces
This doctoral dissertation focuses on the development of interactive spaces through the use of
natural interfaces based on gestures and manipulative actions. In the real world people use their
senses to perceive the external environment and they use manipulations and gestures to
explore the world around them, communicate and interact with other individuals. From this
perspective the use of natural interfaces that exploit the human sensorial and explorative
abilities helps filling the gap between physical and digital world.
In the first part of this thesis we describe the work made for improving interfaces and devices for
tangible, multi touch and free hand interactions. The idea is to design devices able to work also
in uncontrolled environments, and in situations where control is mostly of the physical type
where even the less experienced users can express their manipulative exploration and gesture
communication abilities.
We also analyze how it can be possible to mix these techniques to create an interactive space,
specifically designed for teamwork where the natural interfaces are distributed in order to
encourage collaboration.
We then give some examples of how these interactive scenarios can host various types of
applications facilitating, for instance, the exploration of 3D models, the enjoyment of multimedia
contents and social interaction.
Finally we discuss our results and put them in a wider context, focusing our attention particularly
on how the proposed interfaces actually improve peopleâs lives and activities and the interactive
spaces become a place of aggregation where we can pursue objectives that are both personal
and shared with others
Interactive Spaces Natural interfaces supporting gestures and manipulations in interactive spaces
This doctoral dissertation focuses on the development of interactive spaces through the use of
natural interfaces based on gestures and manipulative actions. In the real world people use their
senses to perceive the external environment and they use manipulations and gestures to
explore the world around them, communicate and interact with other individuals. From this
perspective the use of natural interfaces that exploit the human sensorial and explorative
abilities helps filling the gap between physical and digital world.
In the first part of this thesis we describe the work made for improving interfaces and devices for
tangible, multi touch and free hand interactions. The idea is to design devices able to work also
in uncontrolled environments, and in situations where control is mostly of the physical type
where even the less experienced users can express their manipulative exploration and gesture
communication abilities.
We also analyze how it can be possible to mix these techniques to create an interactive space,
specifically designed for teamwork where the natural interfaces are distributed in order to
encourage collaboration.
We then give some examples of how these interactive scenarios can host various types of
applications facilitating, for instance, the exploration of 3D models, the enjoyment of multimedia
contents and social interaction.
Finally we discuss our results and put them in a wider context, focusing our attention particularly
on how the proposed interfaces actually improve peopleâs lives and activities and the interactive
spaces become a place of aggregation where we can pursue objectives that are both personal
and shared with others