Desktop Virtual Reality And Its Application In Network Education Research

With the rapid development of Internet. web-based education is playing an increasingly important role in China's education system. Under the condition that the number of people receiving education is rising continuously and traditional education system encounters the shortage of educational resources, web-based education is to be further developed. Studying mainly by the interface of computer monitor in web-based education, learners place a high requirement for the quality of three dimensions, interaction, real time and reality of knowledge for which visualization is required. The disadvantages of traditional three-dimension animation and video, such as large file size, low-level interaction and non-real time, urge web-based education to find new way out.Desktop virtual reality noted for its high quality in three-dimension modeling, freedom interaction and low-level requirement for hardware and software configure is favored by web-based education, which qualifies itself as an important media technology for knowledge visualization. However, desktop virtual reality is still in the development for maturity, and some pivotal technologies are yet to be solved. These resulted in the characteristics of ambiguous concept, technology threshold, wide and miscellaneous scope in applying desktop virtual reality in web-based education. In China, although some scholars and researchers have carried out remarkable researches in this field, various problems arose from applying this new media technology in web-based education lead to the need for further research.This thesis explores the application of desktop virtual reality in web-based education from the perspectives of theory, technology and practice. First, the implication of desktop virtual reality in web-based education is discussed following the analysis of the definition and history of virtual reality. Second, the comprehension of virtual cognition and the relationship between desktop virtual reality and three major learning theories in web-based education are analyzed. Third, nine principles are put forward, which can be used as a refer standard to select desktop virtual reality for web-based education, sequentially two technologies are selected and their development trend is predicted. Fourth, after bringing forward five types of application of desktop virtual reality in web-based education, a VRML-based case is developed to investigate how desktop virtual reality influences study. In the end, the research conclusion is given and the further research is envisioned.