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lecture-and-practice units. The result indicates that
this form of teaching seems to perform equally well
as traditional academic teaching in terms of gaining
knowledge and skills on a technical level, with some
added value provided by the non-technical content
(e.g. storytelling theory) learned on the way together
with the training of soft skills through teamwork in a
project-oriented context. However, the expected
improvement of results, in particular for weaker
students, as a consequence of enhanced motivation,
could not be observed. Therefore, there is still much
potential for improvement. Probably the most
promising target is the improvement of the HyMN
story, which in its current state is not yet sufficient
as a learning platform for VE technology. It is,
however, one central element of the HyMN concept
to always remain open for modular expansion,
which is expected to take place in similar future
units. In this regard, we are currently working to
extend the present HyMN concept by means of two
immersive virtual environments (i.e. display systems
like CAVE™ (Cruz-Neira, 1993) or Immersion
Square (Hetmann et al., 2002)) that are connected
via the Internet. We strive to create a virtual
environment that can be explored together with
others. With this collaboration in an immersive 3d
environment we aim to foster collaborative learning
in groups, similar to how teenagers already solve
tasks in Massively Multiplayer Online Role-playing
Games like World of Warcraft, Lineage 2, Diablo 2,
etc.. With our approach we want students to
experience a topic, rather than routinely memorize
information.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Our thanks to the Fraunhofer Institute for Intelligent
Analysis and Information Systems (IAIS) and the
German Aerospace Center (DLR) for support in
interviews and excursions.
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