Int. J. Mobile Learning and Organisation, Vol. 2, No.

4, 2008

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Collaborating and learning a second language in a Wireless Virtual Reality Environment Miguel A. Garcia-Ruiz* and Arthur Edwards
College of Telematics, University of Colima, Ave., Universidad 333, Colima, 28040, Mexico Fax: +52(312) 316 1075 E-mail: mgarcia@ucol.mx E-mail: arted@ucol.mx *Corresponding author

Samir A. El-Seoud
Princess Sumaya University for Technology, P.O. Box 1438 Amman 11941, Jordan Fax: +962 6 534 7295 E-mail: selseoud@psut.edu.jo

Raul Aquino-Santos
College of Telematics, University of Colima, Ave., Universidad 333, Colima, 28040, Mexico Fax: +52(312) 316 1075 E-mail: aquinor@ucol.mx
Abstract: Virtual Reality (VR), a computer-generated 3D space that is multisensorial, interactive and engaging, is today one of the new frontiers in Computer-Assisted Language Learning (CALL). VR can be used to promote language learning and practice as it simulates reality, while offering a stimuli-rich environment for language students. The purpose of this paper is twofold: To provide an introduction to VR applications in CALL, and to describe the implementation of a Collaborative Virtual Reality Environment (CVRE) running on a wireless network, which is currently being assessed by Mexican Engineering students for listening comprehension practice of the English language. Keywords: CALL; computer-assisted language learning; VR; virtual reality; computer networks; CSCL; computer-supported collaborative learning. Reference to this paper should be made as follows: Garcia-Ruiz, M.A., Edwards, A., El-Seoud, S.A. and Aquino-Santos, R. (2008) Collaborating and learning a second language in a Wireless Virtual Reality Environment, Int. J. Mobile Learning and Organisation, Vol. 2, No. 4, pp.369377.

Copyright 2008 Inderscience Enterprises Ltd.

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Biographical notes: Miguel Angel Garcia-Ruiz graduated in Computer Systems Engineering and obtained his MSc in Computer Science from the University of Colima, Mexico. He received his PhD in Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence from Sussex University, England. At present, he is doing research on virtual reality in education. Arthur Edwards is a Senior Professor/Researcher at the College of Telematics of the University of Colima, where his primary interest is Computer Assisted Language Learning, multimedia applications, collaborative learning environments, educational information systems, virtual reality applications and wireless and mobile learning systems. Samir Abou El-Seoud received his BSc Degree in Physics, Electronics and Mathematics in 1967, his higher Diploma in Computing from Technical University of Darmstadt (TUD) /Germany in 1975 and his Doctor of Science from the same university (TUD) in 1979. He joined PSUT in 2004. His research interests include among others Parallel Algorithms, Numerical Scientific Computations, Computer Aided Learning, and Computational Fluid Mechanics. Raul Aquino-Santos holds a PhD from the Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering of the University of Sheffield, England. His current research interests include wireless and sensor networks and the implementation of Quality of Service for both online and wireless educational applications.

Introduction

At present, Virtual Reality (VR) technology offers the opportunity for students to immerse themselves in language learning contexts. VR can be defined as a technology that creates a computer-generated graphical space (also called a virtual environment), where users can interact while using various senses within a multimodal interface. A virtual environment can be defined as a graphical representation of a particular context that is rich and diverse in stimuli. One of the main features of VR is that it produces an effect in participants called immersion, where users feel as if they are actually there as they interact from inside the virtual environment (Burdea and Coiffet, 2003; Sherman and Craig, 2003). According to Dede et al. (2000), both immersion and multimodality in VR are important because students receive different stimuli within a virtual environment, which promote learning according to stimuli and constructionist theories. Early studies of Collaborative Virtual Reality Environments (CVREs) showed the potential of this technology to engage a group of students in meaningful learning tasks (Jackson et al., 1999). A collaborative (or multi-user) virtual reality environment (CVRE) is a shared virtual environment, where people can meet and communicate via chat, live, synchronous voice and gestures, and navigate (Burdea and Coiffet, 2003; Preece et al., 2002), which is based on Computer-Mediated Communication (CMC) theories. In the virtual environment, each person is represented as an avatar (the incarnation of a god in Hindu mythology), a graphical personification that represents a persons gestures, and navigates, and

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transmits the live, and real-time voice. The sounds and events activated in the virtual environment can also be shared. In the context of VR, a Wireless Virtual Reality Environment (WVRE) is defined as a mobile application of a collaborative virtual environment. A CVRE resides in a computer server and can be accessed by a mobile computer, such as a laptop or Personal Digital Assistant (PDA), using a wireless Local Area Network (LAN) or Wide Area Network (WAN), depending on the network protocols and equipment configuration. Literature reports successful research and applications on Computer-Supported Collaborative Learning (CSCL) in the context of foreign language learning (Dlaska, 2002; Hudson and Bruckman, 1999; Zurita and Nussbaum, 2004), but very little has been done on CVREs, in part, because until recently, personal computers and their graphics video cards and network infrastructure were not fast, powerful, or efficient enough to support CVREs. A number of collaborative virtual reality software applications have been developed in various research centres and commercially around the world. One of them is Distributed Interactive Virtual Environments (DIVE), an open source software for displaying VR environments developed at the Swedish Institute of Computer Science (Carlsson and Hagssan, 1993). DIVE is versatile and has been used in a variety of operating systems, including IRIX, Linux, and Windows, among others. Through DIVE, users can share a virtual environment using a LAN or the internet. DIVE has a 3D graphical interface where a virtual environment is shown. In DIVE, users can communicate with each other by microphone (Voice over IP, or VoIP) or text messages. To ease identification, each participant is represented by an avatar, a personification or cartoon-like representation of the users participating in the virtual environment. It is also possible to hear almost real-life 3D (spatial) sounds in DIVE, and even the participants voices in real time. In addition, avatars can be programmed to communicate with gestures, an important element in non-verbal communication. DIVE can work as a stand alone program, or it can be distributed as a virtual environment over a network, using a multicast protocol. It is necessary, however, to install a DIVE server and a proxy to work as the carrier of the peer-to-peer communications between computers that share the virtual environment over the network. DIVE has been used at the University of Colima, Mexico, for various research projects related to collaborative virtual environments. For instance, a CVRE was created to show bone foot trauma to a pilot group of medical students (Cervantes-Medina and Garcia-Ruiz, 2004). Participants in the study communicated using their own voices over IP (VoIP) and text messages using a chat window, both of which are provided by DIVE. The results of this research showed that CVRE helped students overcome language barriers, in the sense that the CVRE facilitated their oral and written clinical diagnosis about bone injury simulation that they had to clinically diagnose in the virtual environment.

Development

Having outlined some of the technological and educational theories and aspects of CVREs, we are currently researching whether CVREs applied to CALL on a wireless network using a multicast algorithm can be effectively used to assist the listening

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comprehension of students practising foreign language. We believe that fully immersive VR applications using expensive equipment in traditional VR laboratories can successfully be modified to meet the demands of computer laboratories and traditional classroom settings, using semi-immersive VR. To test our research questions, we created a CVRE that represents a small and typical town called Realtown, which includes an entire city of virtual buildings, including a supermarket, schools, a pharmacy, a bank, etc. Realtown contains background sounds and can be played through hi-fi headphones or speakers to help increase realism. Some of these sounds include traffic noise, children playing, sirens, and other common environmental noises. What makes Realtown interesting is that students simultaneously perceive and interpret three different stimuli to help them incorporate their knowledge: visual, auditory and kinaesthetic. Realtown runs on a DIVE server, which in this study is a Dell Poweredge 1800 computer with two 3.2 GHz processors running in parallel and 2 gigabytes of RAM, using a Ubuntu Linux operating system that is connected to the internet. Three 3 GHz laptops with Windows XP and 512 Mb of memory were wireless connected through a LAN, based on a Linksys wireless router model BEFW11S4, with a data transfer rate of 11 Mbps, connected to the internet. For our tests, the router was placed in the same room as the laptops at a distance of 8 m. Interestingly, the set-up used in this research operates across operating systems as the server functioned with Linux and the laptops used Windows. Figure 1 depicts a basic WVRE configuration running locally. The laptops are running a DIVE. In this configuration, the laptop on the right works both as a server and a peer (participant) of the collaborative virtual environment. Both laptops (peers) share the same virtual environment, and both peers update all the interactions and navigations made by each participant, respectively. Each participant is represented as an avatar that can be easily identified in DIVE as each avatar has a different colour and the students name or nickname written over the avatars head. The router, or access point, shown between the laptops, controls the network traffic via wireless, thus connecting the laptops via their wireless network cards. Interestingly, preliminary results show that the Realtown CVRE can be accessed synchronously among peers working with the routers network signal. This aspect is interesting and can have a particular relevance in rural settings that have no access to traditional or wireless internet infrastructure. We are currently conducting usability studies (Dumas and Redish, 1999) to measure efficiency, efficacy, and user satisfaction of the Realtown CVRE, and assess collaborative learning aspects related to student interaction. Additionally, the hardware needed to run the CVRE is being studied, particularly from a multicast peer-to-peer perspective, where the actual set-up is comprised of laptops and a server. One of the first tests conducted in this project was carried out by Hernandez-Diaz and Yanez-Garcia (2007).

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Figure 1

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Two laptops accessing the wireless CVRE (Realtown) (see online version for colours)

Preliminary usability study to evaluate navigation

A limited usability study of the CVRE has been carried out to assess navigation issues in the virtual environment. This is important because in order to have an easy-to-use VR interface in a virtual town, users need to seamlessly walk through the virtual streets, without cumbersome input devices that affect navigation negatively and create distractions. A conventional mouse, a keyboard, a computer game joystick, and a wireless mouse were evaluated for navigating in CVRE to see which device proved to be the most satisfactory for navigation.

3.1 Method
The Think Aloud Protocol usability method (Preece et al., 1994) was used for this study. This usability method permits a user to explore a particular computer interface and receive qualitative data about its use. In this method, the user is asked to say out loudly what he or she is thinking and doing when selecting or conducting any specific activity (task) in the interface. Qualitative interview comments were recorded on paper for further analysis.

3.2 Materials
A wireless laptop, part of the CVRE described in this paper, was used for this study. A wireless trackball mouse and a Genius MaxFigther F31U computer game joystick (shown in Figure 2) were also used. A piece of software for emulating the joystick to work as the computer mouse was also used (Joymouse, http://www.soft32.com/ download_9201.html). This software allowed users to navigate with the joystick within the CVRE.

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Joystick used in the pilot usability test (see online version for colours)

3.3 Participants
Participants in this study were four Telematics Engineering undergraduates of the University of Colima, Mexico (three males and one female), with an age averaging 21 years. Only one male had extensive experience in playing videogames, particularly in using game joysticks.

3.4 Procedure
Each participant was informed about the purpose of the test, how DIVE might be applied to CVRE, and how to navigate in DIVE using a mouse, keyboard arrows or a joystick. The participants main task was to navigate around a virtual house using the keyboard arrows, the mouse, and the joystick separately, one device at a time. Participants had unlimited time to do the tests. Figure 3 shows a participant testing the joystick in the wireless laptop. Participants verbal comments were recorded on paper. Figure 4 depicts another participant holding the wireless mouse.
Figure 3 A participant using the joystick for navigating in the CVRE (see online version for colours)

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Figure 4 A participant testing the wireless mouse (see online version for colours)

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3.5 Results of the preliminary study

According to qualitative data of participants verbal comments and experimenters observations, the keyboard arrow keys were the easiest to use for navigating in the CVRE. All participants felt comfortable using them. However, they reported they could make more precise turns with the mouse than with any other device. The wireless mouse showed the poorest performance. Participants commented that they were tired after a few minutes, as they had to hold the wireless mouse in the air without support. The wireless mouse also proved to be overly sensible, which made the students uncomfortable with realising turns within Realtown. In addition, difficulty was that most of the participants had to hold the wireless mouse using both hands. The comments about the joystick were better than the wireless mouse, but not as positive as using the direction keys. As expected, the participant with greatest previous experience with videogames and joysticks proved to be the most skilful regardless of the navigation input device used. All participants reported feeling motivated when using the CVRE, declaring they considered it much like a videogame. This is particularly significant since playing game lowers anxiety, which has been negatively correlated to language learning (MacIntyre and Gardner, 1991).

Conclusion

There are currently insufficient materials for developing and practising listening comprehension, and most of the materials available today do not reflect technological advancements. Because communication is primarily bilateral or multilateral in nature, we hypothesise that VR can function to teach languages in a collaborative manner. Collaborative learning along with visual, auditory and kinaesthetic stimuli serve to contextualise language within a specific context. Because language results from the linguistic function and purpose of communication that is contextually specific, the

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collaborative nature or Realtown provides both relevance and reality in a low-anxiety setting. The potential for the growth of Realtown CVRE is substantial. At present, users only navigate the streets to get from one place to another, as the objective of Realtown is to provide listening comprehension practice and a collaborative platform where users can negotiate meaning. In future, users will be able to enter any of the 40 buildings and interact with intelligent agents, which will provide greater opportunities to actually produce language. One particular area that may prove promising is using CVREs such as Realtown in the area of conflict resolution. Because conflicts often result from different cultural backgrounds that participants bring into any relationship, and because different and sometimes conflicting backgrounds are manifested through verbal interaction, CVREs can potentially be used to help users gain greater insight into how language and culture interact to create conflict, as well as better recognise personal, cultural and organisational detonators of conflict, and learn how to better mitigate and amicably resolve differences. Collaborative online simulations, trainers, and other similar platforms can potentially help persons better interact at both linguistic and cultural levels.

Acknowledgements
This research is supported by a grant from the National Council of Science and Technology of Mexico (CONACYT), grant no. Colima-2008-C01-83651 (FOMIX Project). The authors would like to thank Marga Franco i Casamitjana and Carme Anguera Iglesias of the Lifelong Learning Department, Open University of Catalonia, Spain for their valuable assessment with regard to conflict resolution in distance education, as well as Miguel Hernandez and Karla Yanez, students of Telematics Engineering Department of the University of Colima, Mexico, for their support.

References
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