Collaborative Network-Based Virtual Reality: The Past, the Present, and the Future of the Virtual Solar System Project

Abstract

This paper and presentation describe an ongoing research and development effort to create a virtual reality environment in which students cohabitate, collaborate, and co-construct shared meanings of astronomical phenomena in an undergraduate introductory astronomy course. Initial versions of this environment addressed face-to-face and asynchronous methods of collaboration. The most recent iteration of our work incorporates the use of advanced networking technologies to enable synchronous collaboration between students in two primary collaborative learning activities: co-construction and cohabitation of virtual models of the solar system. Co-construction refers to multiple students working together to construct a common virtual model. Co-habitation refers to the ability to simultaneously experience the same virtual model from either common or multiple perspectives.