Interactive 3D Web-Based Environments for Online Learning: Case Studies, Technologies and Challenges

Interactive simulations and virtual environments can play a significant role in facilitating learning through engagement, immediate feedback and by providing real-world contexts. Interactive 3D interfaces have a significant impact on the user interface usability and interactivity. We present several case-studies that have evolved from actual teaching observations and have been implemented using undergraduate and graduate student research teams. The development of such simulators poses multidisciplinary research challenges and has the advantage of bringing together a diverse group of people with complementary expertise. We present case studies covering engineering, medical sciences, physics and chemistry.