Virtual learning environments

SUBMITTED: June 2003
REVISED: December 2003
PUBLISHED: July 2004
EDITOR: Christiansson P

Yehuda E. Kalay, PhD
Department of Architecture, University of California, Berkeley
email: kalay@socrates.berkeley.edu

SUMMARY: Cyberspace, an information space created through ubiquitously networked computers, has been transformed from fiction to fact in the past decade thanks to the advent of the World Wide Web. Although it can only be experienced through the mediation of computers, it is quickly becoming an alternative stage for everyday economic, cultural, and other human activities. As such, there is a potential and a need to design it according to architectural principles, rather than the prevailing document (page) metaphor. This need is most evident in learning environments, which rely on social and contextual attributes as much as they rely on content. This paper describes the underlying theory and our efforts to develop such virtual learning environments, and the software that allows users to access and inhabit them.

KEYWORDS: cyberspace, virtual places, learning, virtual presence, remote learning, architectural design

FULL TEXT: file.pdf (526,499 bytes)

CITATION:

Kalay Y E (2004) Virtual learning environments, ITcon Vol. 9, Special Issue ICT Supported Learning in Architecture and Civil Engineering , pg. 195-207, http://www.itcon.org/2004/13