The Virtual Playground
From EuroVR Knowledge Base
- Full name
- The Virtual Playground
- Acronym
- The Virtual Playground
- Website
- http://makebelieve.gr/mr/www/VP/
- Keywords
- Education
- Budget
- €
- Start date
- 2003
- End date
- 2005
Contents |
Partners
Funding Bodies
Contact
Maria Roussou <maria@makebelieve.gr>
Objectives
The Virtual Playground is a VE created for the purpose of evaluating conceptual learning in VR. The target users are children aged between 9 and 12 years. The children are asked to carry out tasks such as planning the layout of a virtual playground or modifying, resizing and placing its various elements. These tasks require solving mathematical fraction problems. The system is designed to provide intrinsic feedback to respond to the children's activity, including feedback on the rules of the task, communicated by semi-intelligent agents instead of a human observer. The goal was to evaluate the effect that the varying levels of interactivity have on the understanding of fractions.
Main Results
End Users
Evaluation Methodologies
The experimental methods include observation, interviews and pre- and post-test questionnaires, designed in collaboration with maths teachers, for different participant groups.
Publications
1. Roussou, M. (2006). Interactivity and Learning: Examining primary school childrens’ activity within virtual environments. PhD thesis, University College London, London, UK. [pdf 11Mb]
2. Roussou, M., Oliver, M., & Slater, M. (2007, forthcoming). An Evaluation Methodology for User Interaction in Virtual Environments for Learning. Cognition, Technology, and Work.
3. Roussou, M., Oliver, M., & Slater, M. (2006). The Virtual Playground: an Educational Virtual Reality Environment for Evaluating Interactivity and Conceptual Learning. Journal of Virtual Reality 10(3-4), Springer, pp. 227-240.
4. Roussou, M., & Slater, M. (2005, September 21-23). A Virtual Playground for the Study of the Role of Interactivity in Virtual Learning Environments. In Proc. of PRESENCE 2005: The 8th Annual International Workshop on Presence, London, UK, International Society for Presence Research, pp. 245-253.
5. Roussou, M. (2005). Can Interactivity in Virtual Environments Enable Conceptual Learning? In Proc. 7th Virtual Reality International Conference (VRIC), First International VR-Learning Seminar, Laval, France, pp. 57-64.
6. Roussou, M. (2004). Examining Young Learners’ Activity Within Interactive Virtual Environments. In Proc. 3rd International Conference for Interaction Design & Children, June 1-3, 2004. pp. 167-168.
7. Roussou, M. (2004). Interactivity and Conceptual Learning in Virtual Environments for Children. In ACM SIGCHI 2004 (CHI '04: Human Factors in Computing Systems) Extended Abstracts, April 24-29, 2004. pp. 1049-1050.
8. Roussou, M. (2004). The Role of Interactivity in the Formation of Informal Educational Experiences. In Proc. 2nd International Museology Conference, 28 June - 2 July, Mytilene, Greece. [in Greek].
9. Roussou, M. (2004). Learning by Doing and Learning through Play: An Exploration of Interactivity in Virtual Environments for Children. In ACM Journal of Computers in Entertainment, Volume 1, Issue 2: Educating Children Through Entertainment, ACM Press, New York, NY, USA.
Roussou, M. (2004). Examining Young Learners' Activity Within Interactive Virtual Environments: Exploratory Studies. Technical Report No. RN/04/08. London, UK: University College London, Department of Computer Science.
Application & Research Areas
