G. McArdle, T. Monahan, and M. Bertolotto (Ireland)
Collaborative Learning Environment(CLE), Virtual Real ity, e-Learning, Communication, m-Learning.
Over the last decade, e-learning has become an established medium for delivering distance learning courses. Early sys tems merely allowed students to access course material, but as their popularity grew these systems were augmented to provide features for tutors to monitor students’ progress and deal with many administrative tasks. While these web based learning systems have much to offer both students and teachers, many of them lack two key components of conventional classroom based teaching, namely motivation for students and collaboration. Collaborative Learning En vironments (CLEs) are a new kind of e-learning solution which have emerged to address these issues. CLEs are multi-user web-based Collaborative Virtual Environments (CVEs), which allow students to interact with each other. Many now provide a simulated 3D environment in which users are immersed. This paper describes CLEV-R (Col laborative Learning Environment with Virtual Reality), an innovative and new type of CLE. In particular, we discuss some of the technical issues which were addressed during development and provide a concrete example of a user ses sion. As the prevalence of mobile learning increases, this paper also describes efforts in creating a mobile CLE, al lowing students to collaborate while on the move using their Personal Digital Assistants (PDA).
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