Designing virtual humans for web-based learning processes

User-controlled focussing

Finally, a 3D player implemented on the Web 2.0 platform permits trainees to access a database of teaching modules to be stored on a web-accessible archive, to receive interactive help from other users online, or to offer help to others. These options may be regarded as the keystone in the core endeavour of this project: enabling students to acquire knowledge according to an unpaced mode of information processing, based on their individual needs. Provided with the option to decide with full autonomy which specific information is accessed, in what order and at what speed it is taken up, and to which depth of processing it is subjected, learners may dispense with details that are not of interest at the moment and instead

• focus directly on those details they deem important,
• view these details from various perspectives as they find helpful,
• zoom in on particularly interesting details and study them at a speed appropriate to the viewer.

This project is funded by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research and by the European Social Fund of the European Union.