This paper describes and discusses the NICE project, an immersive learning environment for children implemented in the CAVE and related multi-user virtual reality (VR) technologies. The NICE project provides an engaging setting where children construct and cultivate simple virtual ecosystems, collaborate via networks with other remotely-located children, and create stories from their interactions in the real and virtual world. The NICE project is an effort to build Narrative-based, Immersive, Constructionist/Collaborative Environments for children. Developed at the Interactive Computing Environments Laboratory (ICE) and the Electronic Visualization Laboratory (EVL) of the University of Illinois at Chicago, NICE aims to create a virtual learning environment that is based on current educational theories of contructionism, narrative, and collaboration, while fostering creativity within a motivating and engaging context. NICE is an outgrowth of two previously designed systems, CALVIN and the Graphical StoryWriter. CALVIN (Collaborative Architectural Layout Via Immersive Navigation) is a networked collaborative environment for designing architectural spaces (Leigh and Johnson, 1996). The Graphical Storywriter (Steiner and Moher, 1994) is a shared workspace, where young children can develop and create structurally complete stories. Extracting and building on elements from these previous works, we have created a prototype learning environment for young children which presents simplified ecological models of various ecosystems within a fantasy setting. The software is primarily designed to run in the CAVE, a multi-person, room-sized virtual reality system developed at EVL. It is, however, capable of supporting a number of different VR platforms, including simpler graphics workstations. The CAVE is a 10 x 10 x 10 ft. room constructed of three translucent walls (Cruz-Neira et al., 1993). High resolution stereoscopic
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