DESIGN:

PEDAGOGIC

MULTI-USER COLLABORATIVE VRML LEARNING ENVIRONMENT.

A Dream Building: a Diagram of a Mechanism of Learning

 

M. Phillips and V. Geroimenko

STAR (Science, Technology, Arts Research), University of Plymouth

This paper describes the development of an OnLine collaborative learning environment that integrates a variety of internet technologies, including RTC, video conferencing, and photo-realistic VR (QTVR and ‘RealVR’), within a multi-user VRML environment or MUSE (Multi User Simulation Environment). This VRML environment is designed to assist and support employees of the ‘New Media’ industries (including; digital TV, Interactive Media developers, electronic publishing, Information Architects, etc) enrolled on short courses run by the Interactive Media Group in the School of Computing, University of Plymouth. Aspects of the project also support the CAiiA-STAR integrated doctoral research platform. The project will ultimately deliver a number of OnLine VRML spaces/places and software tools that will allow participants to create their own ‘haptic’ learning sub-environments within the overall architecture of the project. The paper focuses on the design of the architectural ‘hub’ of the project, the ‘Panopticon’.

 

Keywords: Panopticon, Virtual Environments, VRML, MUSE, OnLine Learning.

Fig 1. The Panopticon with Avatars (VRML model).

 

"Niblungs below

bow to Alberich

I shall be watching

to see that you're working

day and night

You must be toiling,

sweating to serve

your invisible Lord

who can watch you unseen

and spy on his subjects

You are my slaves now and for ever"

(Wagner, Das Rheingold)

 

So reads the preface to Semple’s ‘Bentham’s Prison: A study of the Panopticon Penitentiary’. An ominous start to a book that describes Jeremy Bentham’s (1748-1832) ill-fated struggle to build the ‘Panopticon; or the Inspection House’ (circa 1791). An infamous structure that was never built in the lifetime of its creator, but has been manifest in many modern high security prisons, and re-framed to describe the architecture of internet surveillance. For the Panopticon was more than a plan for a building of brick and stone, it ‘is’ a fluid architecture that is realised in the mind of the surveyor and the surveyed. In the words of Foucault:

"But the Panopticon must not be understood as a dream building: it is the diagram of a mechanism of power reduced to its ideal form; its functioning, abstracted from any obstacle, resistance or friction, must be represented as a pure architectural and optical system: it is in fact a figure of political technology that may and must be detached from any specific use." (Foucault, 1975)

 

However, the focus on the negative interpretation of the Panopticon does not do justice to the utilitarian and humanist ambitions of its creator. One can imagine Bentham turning in his glass box in UCL. For he envisaged it having far wider humanitarian applications 'to all establishments whatsoever, in which, within a space not too large to be covered or commanded by buildings, a number of persons are meant to be kept under inspection' (Bentham, 1843), such as hospitals, schools, and possibly, OnLine learning.

Fig 2. Diagram of Panopticon Layers/Modules.

The ‘hub’ of the OnLine multi-user Learning Environment is inspired by and based on Bentham’s architecture for the Panopticon. Figure 2 is a diagram of the various sections of the VRML model, which provides access to all of the modules/courses available within the scheme. Each layer of the building houses a module. Access to the modules is provided through the ‘Core’ which runs up through the centre of the ‘building’. Here participants can register for a particular module, and have access to that layer of the building. The various sections or zones available (Figure 3) within each layer include: Library, Archive, Social MUD (all three run across levels/modules), RTC, Participants Spaces, FTP, Gallery, News, One to One Tutorial Space, and a MUSE Presentation Space. Each zone has the architecture of a historical ‘dream’ building (e.g., Barrels Hall, ‘The Adoration of the Magi’, Port Eliot) to underpin contextual practice.

Fig 3. Diagram of Panopticon Layers/Modules)

One of the advantages of such a VR place is that it focuses the organisation of a ‘course’ on issues of time rather than space. The allocation of studio space is less of a priority and the organisation of contact time becomes of prime importance. MUSE (Multi User Simulation Environment), Multi-user (shared, collaborative) VR is a 3D computer generated environment on the Internet where participants (represented as "avatars") can meet each other, walk around together and communicate using text, gesture, voice or preprogrammed "emotions" (e.g. "happy" or "sad") (Roehl, 1999). A Virtual Community on the Web (for instance, Active Worlds' Web site alone has around 500 different VR worlds) can be accessed using a medium powered PC with a modem connection. In this instance it is expected that the participants in the system will have access to reasonably fast ethernet or ISDN connections.

Currently the Panopticon environment is being built using a range of software tools (3D Studio Max, Strata 3D, Dreamweaver, Flash, etc), centered on Community Place from Sony. The Community Place is a suite of VRML 97 compliant products for building and viewing advanced multi-user 3D worlds on the Internet including: tools for viewing VRML97 worlds with Java-based behaviors and multi-user environments; tools for creating shared online worlds; a multi-user server that supports up to 100 simultaneous users; a tool for adding shared applications to a multi-user world; a tool for managing multiple 3D spaces.

In general, the Community Place package provides an advanced technological basis for achieving the objectives of the Panopticon project, and builds on existing experience developed on previous projects (Ahlsén, 1998). However, the Sony platform is limited by its single platform delivery. It is the ambition of the project to deliver on as many platforms as possible. Alternative Java and VRML models are currently being explored. Within this virtual environment the ‘fluid architecture’ of the ‘Panopticon’ becomes the perfect form to support a social learning interaction where the surveyors co-operatively survey themselves.

 

Notes:

Figure 1: The Panopticon with Avatars (VRML model), modelled by Glenn Kavenagh, (3D Studio Max).

Figure 2: Layered/Modular Diagram of the ‘Panopticon’, Mike Phillips, StrataStudio, Photoshop.

Zone dream buildings include: Barrels Hall in Ullenhall Warwikshire home to Lady in; ‘The Adoration of the Magi’ by Da Vinci; Port Eliot House, St Germans, Cornwall, home to Joseph of A'rimathéa, Circa 2 AD.

Information about the Community Place software including their evaluation versions is available from Sony's Virtual Society Web site at http://vs.spiw.com

References:

Ahlsén, E. & Geroimenko, V. (1998) Virtual Reality as a Communication Aid for Person with Aphasia. Proceedings of the 2nd European Conference on Disability, Virtual Reality and Associated Technologies. Skövde, Sweden, p 229-235 or The Realistic Virtual University Project by Vladimir Geroimenko (with some working prototypes) at http://www.ling.gu.se/ ~ vladimir/rvu_demos.htm

Bentham, J., Works, ed. Browning, IV, 1834, pp40 (The Bentham Collection University College London).

Foucault M. 1975. Discipline and Punish, The Birth of the Prison. Penguin Books 1991, pp 205

Semple, S. ‘Bentham's prison A study of the Panopticon Penitentiary’. Clarenden Press Oxford. Preface.

Roehl, B. (1999) Shared Worlds. VR News, 8(1), p 10-14 (most resent overview of multi-user VR technology).