E-LETTER - IEEE Communications Society

IEEE COMSOC MMTC E-Letterstudents drag and drop the numbered 3D objectsinto different baskets in order to make the sumequal in each basket (Figure 1 & 2). Studentspick the appropriate atoms from the Periodictable and put bonds between them to constructmolecules (Figure 3). By manipulating andvisualizing the molecules in 3D space, studentscan understand the molecular structures better.Figure 1: A 3D Math item: beforedistributing the numbered objectsFigure 2: A 3D Math item: afterdistributing the numberedobjectsFigure 3: Construct aninteractive 3D moleculesFigure 4: An interactive 3Deducation game to test a Physictopic – Moment.Figure 5: 3D video – Augmentedreality combining real and virtualcharacters.Figure 6: Interactive 3Dcontent on a cell phone.Figure 7: Stereoscopic view of alung implemented forvisualization using red-blueglasses.Figure 8: Animated 3Dcharacter driven by music.Figure 9: 3D contentmanipulated on a multi-touchdisplay.Research studies find that interactive 3Dcontent can induce student engagement andimprove learning performance [12]. Interactive3D content can also be used to test differentcognitive skills, such as music [14]. Moreover,3D online content can support adaptive testingand effective student modeling, enablingstudents to work at their own pace and obtainpersonal guidance depending on their learningabilities. A student’s skill level can be evaluatedusing Item Response Theory (IRT) [19]. Otherbenefits associated with interactive 3D contentincludes: Automatic estimation of the difficultylevel of a question item using a ParametersBased Model [15], and scoring partial marksusing a Graph Edit Algorithm [40].There is a major concern relating toproviding interactive 3D online content ineducation. While multiple choice questions canbe easily created using a standard template, thehttp://www.comsoc.org/~mmc/ 26/41 Vol.4, No.7, August 2009