Building a Virtual Classroom: The Construction Process

This paper explores the process of designing and building a virtual classroom using a 3D environment building tool. This is part of a larger project to create a virtual education environment to facilitate the communications interactions present in the teacher student matrix, while investigating the role of these interactions in the learning process. There are many initiatives to enable virtual education through connection to online classrooms. For these to work effectively there needs to be more than readily accessible published material taking advantage of the speedy delivery afforded by the internet. The traditional campus facilitates many different types of communication. The classroom and computer laboratory, the cafeteria, the corridors, the libraries and study rooms all provide opportunities for communication interaction between students, between students and teachers, and between teachers. There are many opportunities for casual and formal communications. Research investigating engagement associated with on-line gaming environments highlights the potential for these environments to be used for other purposes. Work in the field of knowledge management and knowledge representation highlights the role of discussion and interaction in the dissemination and acquisition of knowledge, emerging from intranet and virtual workgroup research. This work is applicable to online education and forms the basis for a new type of online education environment facilitating multiple interaction layers for the participants to create a compelling online learning environment.