MUVES (Multi-User Virtual Environments): Museum-Related Multimedia and Virtual Environments for Teaching and Learning Science
(1)Graduate School of Education, Harvard University
(2)Computer Science Department, George Mason University
(3)Thoughtful Technologies
(4)Smithsonian Institute, National Museum of American History
Program Manager: Kevin Ruess
Graduate School of Education, George Mason University
Graphics Team: Jim X. Chen, Yonggao Yang, Xusheng Wang, and Zhiping Chen
This research project is creating and evaluating multi-user virtual environments (MUVEs) that use digitized museum resources to enhance middle school students' motivation and learning about science and its impacts on society. MUVEs enable multiple simultaneous participants to access virtual architectures configured for learning, to interact with digital artifacts, to represent themselves through graphical "avatars," to communicate both with other participants and with computer-based agents, and to enact collaborative activities of various types. The project's educational environments are extending current MUVE capabilities in order to study the science learning potential of interactive virtual museum exhibits and participatory historical situations in science units using the NSF-funded Multimedia and Thinking Skills (MMTS) program, an inquiry-centered curriculum engine. George Mason University's (GMU) Computer Graphics and Virtual Reality Labs, the Division of Information Technology and Society in the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History (NMAH), and pilot teachers from the Gunston Middle School in Arlington, Virginia are co-designing these MUVEs and implementing them in a variety of middle school settings. In particular, this project is studying how the design characteristics of these learning experiences affect students' motivation and educational outcomes, as well as the extent to which digitized museum can aid pupils' performance on assessments related to national science standards. This research also is examining both the process needed to successfully implement MMTS-based MUVEs in typical classroom settings and ways to enable strong learning outcomes across a wide range of individual student characteristics.
ScienceSpace: Virtual Reality for Learning Abstract Scientific Concepts
(Funded by NSF)
The purpose of Project ScienceSpace is to explore the strengths and limits of virtual reality (sensory immersion, 3-D representation) as a medium for science education. This project is a joint research venture among George Mason University, the University of Houston, and NASA's Johnson Space Center. Dr. Chris Dede from Harvard University is the project Co-Principal Investigator and Dr. R. Bowen Loftin of the University of Houston is the Principal investigator. Dr. Jim Chen and Mr Xusheng Wang have been funded on the project and are responsible for developing several major components for this project.