HCI Research at the Electronic Visualization Laboratory Tom Moher, Andy Johnson, Tom DeFanti, Maxine Brown, Dan Sandin, Jason Leigh, Bob Kenyon Electronic Visualization Laboratory University of Illinois at Chicago Chicago, IL 60607 USA +1 312 996 3002 moher@uic.edu ABSTRACT This overview describes research in four areas of human- computer interaction at the UIC Electronic Visualization Laboratory: tele-immersive learning environments, collaborative tele-operation, teleconferencing, and video avatars. Keywords Virtual reality, tele-immersion, interactive learning environments, video avatars, remote collaboration, presence INTRODUCTION The Electronic Visualization Laboratory was founded in 1973 by Tom DeFanti and Dan Sandin to support research in computer graphics and electronic arts. Over the past 25 years, the laboratory has expanded its scope to include such areas as virtual reality, human-computer interaction, communication, and networking. EVL is probably best known as the birthplace of the CAVE™. In recent years, the focus of work at EVL has centered on remote immersive collaboration technologies and applications. TELE-IMMERSIVE LEARNING ENVIRONMENTS Our work in this area has focused on immersive environments supporting children’s conceptual learning in science and mathematics. We are investigating the potential value of advanced visualization technologies to support learning programs in regular elementary school settings. Toward this end, EVL has established a partnership with Lincoln elementary school in Oak Park, Illinois, and has installed an ImmersaDesk™ there to support instruction and research; to our knowledge, it is the first elementary school in the world with permanently installed virtual reality facility. We have previously reported on two of our research projects. The NICE project focused on exploratory, tele- immersive learning in a virtual garden [1,2]. NICE offers a persistent simulation in which children may plant and harvest vegetables, remove weeds, observe the effects of rainfall and sunlight, and interact with one another (often in unanticipated ways.) NICE was demonstrated at Supercomputing ’97, with users from ten sites on three continents playing together in the garden. In the Round Earth project, tightly structured distributed collaboration was used to test a pedagogical strategy supporting conceptual change in children’s conceptions of the Earth’s shape [3,4,5]. By placing second grade students on a simulated small-diameter asteroid, we were able to help teach children understand concepts such as the relativity of “up” and “down,” the continuity of a spherical surface, and the self-occluding nature of a globe, without invoking their prior confidence in the flatness of the Earth’s surface. Current work centers on the design of VR-based environments which support the early stages of scientific inquiry: exploration, observation, and data collection. In the Correlations project, children collaboratively plan, execute, and report on an investigation of conditional co- occurrence of vegetation in a simulated world. In the Temple World, children develop and justify reconstructions of an ancient temple from component ruins and clues contained in simulated contemporaneous manuscripts. Children’s facility in developing non-egocentric perspectives are investigated in the Piaget project. We are also investigating the use of tele-immersion as a vehicle for the design of tightly coupled collaborative learning interventions. LEAVE BLANK THE LAST 2.5 cm (1”) OF THE LEFT COLUMN ON THE FIRST PAGE FOR THE COPYRIGHT NOTICE.