Modelação de mundos virtuais 3D: análise comparativa e avaliação da qualidade de mundos virtuais
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2014-11-11
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A sociedade de hoje, vive imersa em tecnologia que utiliza para a comunicação, comércio, entretimento e educação. Em contexto escolar as tecnologias da informação e comunicação são usadas para o apoio ao processo de aprendizagem. Com elas têm-se procurado utilizar ambientes virtuais de aprendizagem colaborativa visando atender as necessidades educacionais e culturais dos indivíduos. Contudo, alguns destes ambientes são concebidos através de modelos que se concentram em determinadas fases do ciclo de vida de desenvolvimento, estão focados em questões de programação e/ou são projetados para uma tecnologia especifica. Outros apesar de serem projetados com modelos que cobrem todo o ciclo de vida, desde o início do projeto até ao seu final, não incorporam um processo de avaliação ao longo do seu ciclo de vida e não levam em conta a diferente natureza da interação e os diferentes desafios da usabilidade. Neste contexto, o objetivo deste trabalho de doutoramento é apresentar um modelo iterativo de desenvolvimento de ambientes virtuais colaborativos educacionais, aplicando métodos e técnicas da Engenharia de Software.
O modelo proposto é apoiado por um modelo de qualidade que permite o rastreamento quantitativo da qualidade da aplicação, em qualquer fase do seu ciclo de vida de desenvolvimento e pode contribuir para apoiar as equipas de programadores a organizar e estruturar o desenvolvimento das suas aplicações. Para a sua idealização, efetuou-se a revisão da literatura ao nível das metodologias e modelos de avaliação de ambientes virtuais colaborativos educacionais. Discutiram-se questões de como modelar os cenários e os objetos, a interação, a interface, a navegação, assim como definir os conteúdos didáticos, as teorias de aprendizagem e as estratégias de instrução. Outras questões também foram discutidas com o intuito de fundamentar os modelos propostos, tais como as metodologias que abrangem todas as fases de ciclo de desenvolvimento, quais as notações gráficas que utilizam, bem como, que critérios de qualidade a considerar para este tipo de ambientes. Esta revisão permitiu realizar uma análise comparativa entre as diferentes metodologias/modelos que melhor se adequam/adaptam ao desenvolvimento deste tipo de aplicações, contribuiu para o levantamento dos problemas associados ao atual desenvolvimento das aplicações e, ajudou a definir um conjunto de critérios e fatores de avaliação para os ambientes virtuais colaborativos para educação.
No trabalho de campo, que decorreu entre Março de 2012 e Maio de 2013, realizaram-se dois casos de estudos, utilizando-se a plataforma de opensource, OpenSim. A sua produção permitiu definir as atividades de aperfeiçoamento do processo de projeto e avaliação. No entanto, um dos casos de estudo foi apresentado ao utilizador final para avaliação, neste caso a alunos de uma turma do 5º ano da Escola EB 2/3 de Gondomar. Os resultados parecem mostrar que os ambientes virtuais colaborativos para fins educacionais quando disponibilizados no meio escolar contribuem para a satisfação dos alunos e proporcionam uma maior colaboração entre alunos, favorecendo o estreitamento da relação entre estes.
Today's society lives immersed in technology. Technology is used for communication, commerce, entertainment and education. In the school context information and communication technologies (ICTs) are used to support the learning process. There have been attempts to use those ICTs to foster virtual collaborative learning environments aiming to meet the individuals’ educational and cultural needs. However, some environments are designed using models which focus on particular phases of the development life cycle being focused on programming issues and/or designed for a specific technology. Others despite being designed with models covering the whole life cycle, since the beginning of the project to its end, do not embody an evaluation process throughout its lifecycle, do not take into account the different nature of the interaction and the different usability challenges. In this context, the aim of this PhD work is to present an iterative model for the development of educational collaborative virtual environments by applying software engineering methods and techniques. The proposed model is supported by a quality model which allows quantitative tracking of the quality of the application, in any phase of its life cycle development, and it can help to support teams of programmers to organize and structure the development of their applications. For its idealization, a state of the art concerning the models and methodologies for assessing educational collaborative virtual environments was researched. Issues such as how to model scenarios and objects, how to perceive interaction, or design the interface, how to model navigation as well as how to define the didactic contents, the learning theories and instructional strategies were discussed. Other issues were also discussed, including software development methodologies, what kind of graphical notations they use, and which quality criteria to consider for this type of environments, in order to substantiate the proposed model. This study allowed us to make a comparative analysis between the different methodologies/models which best fit/adapt to the development of such applications, contributed to the survey of the problems associated with the current development of applications and helped to define a set of criteria and evaluation factors for collaborative virtual environments for education. During the fieldwork, which took place between March 2012 and May 2013, we resorted to the development of two case studies, using the open source platform, OpenSim. Its conception allowed us to describe the development activities of the design process and evaluation. However, a case study was presented to the end users for evaluation, in this case a 5th grade class at the EB 2/3 school in Gondomar. The results seem to show that collaborative virtual environments for educational purposes when available at school can contribute for students satisfaction, and provide greater collaboration between them, also encouraging and strengthening the relationship they establish with each other.
Today's society lives immersed in technology. Technology is used for communication, commerce, entertainment and education. In the school context information and communication technologies (ICTs) are used to support the learning process. There have been attempts to use those ICTs to foster virtual collaborative learning environments aiming to meet the individuals’ educational and cultural needs. However, some environments are designed using models which focus on particular phases of the development life cycle being focused on programming issues and/or designed for a specific technology. Others despite being designed with models covering the whole life cycle, since the beginning of the project to its end, do not embody an evaluation process throughout its lifecycle, do not take into account the different nature of the interaction and the different usability challenges. In this context, the aim of this PhD work is to present an iterative model for the development of educational collaborative virtual environments by applying software engineering methods and techniques. The proposed model is supported by a quality model which allows quantitative tracking of the quality of the application, in any phase of its life cycle development, and it can help to support teams of programmers to organize and structure the development of their applications. For its idealization, a state of the art concerning the models and methodologies for assessing educational collaborative virtual environments was researched. Issues such as how to model scenarios and objects, how to perceive interaction, or design the interface, how to model navigation as well as how to define the didactic contents, the learning theories and instructional strategies were discussed. Other issues were also discussed, including software development methodologies, what kind of graphical notations they use, and which quality criteria to consider for this type of environments, in order to substantiate the proposed model. This study allowed us to make a comparative analysis between the different methodologies/models which best fit/adapt to the development of such applications, contributed to the survey of the problems associated with the current development of applications and helped to define a set of criteria and evaluation factors for collaborative virtual environments for education. During the fieldwork, which took place between March 2012 and May 2013, we resorted to the development of two case studies, using the open source platform, OpenSim. Its conception allowed us to describe the development activities of the design process and evaluation. However, a case study was presented to the end users for evaluation, in this case a 5th grade class at the EB 2/3 school in Gondomar. The results seem to show that collaborative virtual environments for educational purposes when available at school can contribute for students satisfaction, and provide greater collaboration between them, also encouraging and strengthening the relationship they establish with each other.
Descrição
Tese de Doutoramento em Informática
Palavras-chave
Ambientes virtuais , Mundos virtuais , Engenharia de software , Qualidade , Comunicação , Interação , Aprendizagem colaborativa