3D AutoSysLab Prototype - A Social, Immersive and Mixed Reality Approach for Collaborative Learning Environments

Recent evolutions of social networks, virtual environments, Web technologies and 3D virtual worlds motivate the adoption of new technologies in education, opening successive innovative possibilities. These technologies (or tools) can be employed in distance education scenarios, or can also enhance traditional learning-teaching (blended or hybrid learning scenario). It is known and a wide advocated issue that laboratory practice is essential to technical education, foremost in engineering. In order to develop a feasible implementation to this research area, a prototype was developed, called 3DAutoSysLab, in which a metaverse is used as social collaborative interface, experiments (real or simulated) are linked to virtual objects, learning objects are displayed as interactive medias, and guiding/feedback are supported via an autonomous tutoring system based on user's interaction data mining. This prototype is under test, but preliminary applied results indicate great acceptance and increase of motivation of students