Disputation Mikhail Fominykh - Department of Computer and ...

2 Background
This chapter provides an overview of the state-of-the-art on the 3D CVE
technology, its use in education, design of environments, and support of learning
communities.
2.1 Computer-supported cooperative work and learning
Computer-supported cooperative work is a well-established and wide research
field that includes understanding of cooperative work and the design of computerbased
technologies for it (Fitzpatrick, 2003; Schmidt & Bannon, 1992). This field
adopted a number of theories, frameworks, and methods to deal with existing
challenges, including its application to different domains.
Collaboration by means of technology is an essential part of present-day education.
The community of teachers and learners puts into practice more and more
innovative tools and methods but still computer-supported cooperative learning is
a relatively new trend carrying both abundant opportunities and serious
challenges (Stahl, Koschmann, & Suthers, 2006).
Each particular technology that is applied in education has its own specifics. The
research work presented in this thesis is focused on one of such technologies – 3D
collaborative virtual environments.
2.2 3D collaborative virtual environments
This section provides an overview of the 3D CVE technology and its educational
use. A particular activity – collaborative work with 3D content is presented in
more detail, since it is the focus of this thesis.
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