The warm-up discussion
In the beginning of the workshop we had a one hour discussion on
"what is a Virtual Environment". The purpose of this discussion was
to introduce participants and to produce a "brain-stormed" list of statements for
further use. This is what we came up with, i.e. has been written
on a flip chart. (So this is NOT a discussion transcript, but simply
a transcription of what was written on a few big sheets of paper
in chronological order and only slightly edited):
A VE is:
- Imaginary space
- Real space
- Virtual World vs. Virtual Construct.
- What does the "world metaphor mean" ?
- Simulate the "real" world"
- Concrete into Abstract
- Unlimited Scope
[Then people felt that we should rather discuss "What can we use a VE For?".
Here are in(out)puts:]
- Museums (Live yourself into history)
- Learning
- Motivation from Immersion
- Communication
- Collaboration
- Immersion
- Learning by Doing
- Making mistakes
- Role playing
[Of course discussion then went more general again:]
- Dynamic
- Persistence
- Groups
- Adaptation by users not just by system
- Creating our environment
- Communication PLUS interaction
- Communication + creation = collaboration
- [Next somebody walked up to the flip chart and drew a graphic.
It had 2 axis: x=many-many/broadcast and y=sync/async. VE's were
are large circle somewhat in the middle....]
- Usability
- Presentation of VE: graphical vs. text
- MOO as a Concept, [not a System to be discussed in detail here]
- VEs are about PEOPLE
- Evolution through user participation
- Object orientation
- Sharing Objects across Moos ? Global Moos ?
- User Desires --> Interface --> Architecture [3 different levels]
- Basic Action used differently by different people
- Evolution
- User Extensibility
- Creation only necessary sometimes [what does that mean?]
- The knowledge level [an allusion to Alan Newells distinction of knowledge
content and implementation]
- Describe and Create
- Easier with Text than with graphics
- Tools for Personalization
- User representation and avatars
- VE is a space with an underlying goal
- User evolve too
- Give access at text -> hypertext -> 3D graphics
- Multimodal Interaction
- Systems tend to be designed for one
- Metaphors change across modes
- Different Cultures
- Underlying Goal
- Evolution of VE (by users)
- Evolution of Community
up to workshop page
D.K.S.