Universcity: Towards a Holistic Approach to Educational Virtual City Design
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1 Universcity: Towards a Holistic Approach to Educational Virtual City Design Mikhail Fominykh and Ekaterina Prasolova-Førland Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Norway Mikhail Morozov and Alexey Gerasimov Mari State Technical University, Russia Francesco Bellotti, Riccardo Berta, Saro Cardona and Alessandro De Gloria University of Genova, Italy International Conference on Virtual Systems and Multimedia (VSMM) Oct 20-23, 2010 COEX Seoul Korea
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In this paper, we seek to develop a holistic approach to educational virtual cities, introducing a concept of ‘Universcity’ as a framework for a wide range of social, cultural and educational activities, a city for students, researchers and other learners to live and work in. The metaphor of a city is widely used in the design of virtual worlds. However, a systematic approach to learning support in virtual cities is not fully developed yet. To fill the gap, we consider a city as a place for lifelong learning, with a broad spectrum of disciplines and areas of knowledge. We have investigated these aspects in the implementation of two projects where virtual reality was used for the contextualization of educational activities. Based on the experiences from these projects and related work, we propose an initial design of ‘Universcity’.
Transcript of Universcity: Towards a Holistic Approach to Educational Virtual City Design
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Universcity: Towards a Holistic Approach to Educational Virtual
City Design
Mikhail Fominykh and Ekaterina Prasolova-Førland Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Norway
Mikhail Morozov and Alexey GerasimovMari State Technical University, Russia
Francesco Bellotti, Riccardo Berta, Saro Cardona and Alessandro De Gloria
University of Genova, Italy
International Conference on Virtual Systems and Multimedia (VSMM)Oct 20-23, 2010 COEX Seoul Korea
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3D Virtual Cities
• Environments representing real or fictional cities and supporting:• cultural experiences• socializing• education and research• entertainment
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Contribution
• Contextualization of educational activities in 2 Virtual City projects
• City of Trondheim: – Ancient capital of Norway– Today: Norway’s ”technology” capital– Every 6th inhabitant is a student
• Concept of ‘Universcity’: virtual city as a place for lifelong learning, with a broad spectrum of disciplines, activities and resources
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Designing Virtual Cities for Culture and Education
Travel in Europe, Trondheim(TiE)
Virtual City of Yoshkar-Ola (VCYO)
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Serious Games for a Contextualized Exploration of History and Culture
TiE:• Culturally correct
experience and interactive real-time exploration
• Points-of-Interest and Style Areas (automatically generated)
• Contextualized mini-games, quests, quizzes
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Connecting Reality and Virtuality with Social Tools
VCYO:• Multi-user 3D virtual
world: city of Yoshkar-Ola including a building from Trondheim
• Social networks in a 3D virtual city: locals and visitors
• Comments, blogs, profiles, friend lists etc
7Virtual urbanHolistic
Educational
Holistic approach to an Educational Virtual City
Universcity
University
The Universe City
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Multilayer structure
• Integrating different aspects of city life, such as culture, society, education and entertainment
• City of Trondheim as an example of a ‘Universcity’
• Cultural layer• Social layer• Entertainment layer• Educational and research layer
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Multilayer structureCultural layer
• Supporting exploration of the cultural and historical aspects of the city
• Realistic environment and avatars for a sense of immersion
• Various places for learning and cultural development: museums, theatres etc
• Tourist facilities: virtual guides and tours
• Time layers
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Multilayer structureEntertainment layer
• Stimulating atmosphere around work and leisure activities
• Realistic reconstructions of landmarks and signature areas
• Integrated quizzes, quests and contextual games
• Location and mobile multi-user games that connect the entertainment layer to other layers
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Multilayer structureSocial layer
• Supporting the social fabric of the city • Communication support• Community support and awareness
mechanisms• Network of communities, organizations
and public offices with corresponding information and meeting places
• Possibilities for creating and sharing content, including 3D constructions
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Multilayer structureEducational and research layer
• Supporting educational and research activities and networks
• Extending beyond campuses and labs, connecting to the society/general public
• Contextualized resources• Virtual Campus• Creative Virtual Workshop• Virtual Research Arena
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Virtual CampusEducational and research layer
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Virtual CampusEducational and research layer
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Virtual CampusEducational and research layer
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Creative Virtual WorkshopEducational and research layer
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Creative Virtual WorkshopEducational and research layer
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Virtual Research ArenaEducational and research layer
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Virtual Research ArenaEducational and research layer
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Norwegian Science Week
• Demonstrating Virtual Research Arena to Trondheim inhabitants
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Conclusions and future work
• A holistic approach to educational virtual city design
• Concept of ‘Universcity’ – a general framework with hierarchical and multilayer structure
• Extending and refining the framework• Implementation of Trondheim as
’Universcity’ and subsequent evaluation
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Thank you!
Ekaterina Prasolova-Førland and Mikhail Fominykh
NTNU, Norway
E-mails:
Slides: TiE:
VCYO:
[email protected]@svt.ntnu.nohttp://slideshare.net/mfominykh/http://www.tieproject.eu/http://virtyola.ru/
