Understanding Virtual Reality

APPENDIX A

NICE, An Educational Experience

NICE provides persistent virtual worlds in which children can interact with virtual ecosystems, creating a story from their actions. NICE benefits from the ability for virtual reality worlds to contain building blocks with characteristics not possible with physical toys or other learning tools.

Interaction is enhanced by bringing multiple groups of children into the same virtual world using networked collaborative technologies. Each group can see where the other groups are by observing the avatars that represent each group (FIGURE A-1). A single avatar represents the location in the virtual world for each group stationed at a single VR display, typically a projection-based display such as the CAVE