Guided by the premise that the design of environments for learners must be guided by educational theory, the principle goal of NICE is to realize current theories of learning in the design of the virtual environment. This implementation encompasses a combination of the theoretical underpinnings mentioned in the previous chapter.
In order to put a number of important theoretical principles to work, we had to determine who would interact with the system and what ideas or skills we want our users to acquire. The subject matter chosen was a qualitative idea: ecological models and the control of different environmental factors. The interest was in studying the value of VR as a medium for conceptual learning of a subject matter rather than a training platform. The choice of a qualitative idea allows for better examination of conceptual learning, because it is not linked to symbols or other notation. Moreover, qualitative ideas are usually more abstract, requiring simplification in order for them to be understood, and their instruction can be compatible with a constructivist view of learning. The target group chosen was children. We were particularly interested in studying the behavior of children in virtual environments and their reactions towards networked participants represented by avatars. The choice of young users seemed to be the most appropriate for studying the effectiveness of virtual environments for teaching and cooperation.
One of our concerns before developing NICE regarded the uniqueness of the project in comparison to other learning projects in general, and other virtual reality projects in particular. What could NICE provide that other learning projects did not? The answer to this question was sought by identifying the value of VR for learning. What, besides the use of the specific CAVE technology, could make NICE a unique virtual reality application? The general consensus was to create an alternative to the VR applications developed for learning. The issue of a persistent project grounded on theory, that moved beyond the scientific visualization of a dataset (a common application of VR) was the starting point for NICE.
The principal objectives of NICE are outlined in the following points:
\item Learning from multiple perspectives which can be realized only in VR: engaging graphical representation, the change of time, the ability to manipulate objects that are bigger or smaller, or objects that do not exist.
\item Learning how to collaborate with other people. An important goal of the NICE environment is to provide a collaborative setting in which students can learn about role differentiation, social interaction, social interaction in ``silent'' networked worlds, and the notion of self in situations of telepresence. Learning, in this case, is through collaboration and can be particularly useful for communication-apprehensive children that do not thrive socially.
\item Learning by actively exploring and controlling environmental variables, as a way to better understand them. What happens to a plant if it is not watered or if it gets too much water? The learners should be able to actively observe the effects of their actions.
\item Taking the above a step further is programming by demonstration. An interest of the NICE project is to allow learners to specify the characteristics of the ecological model. The children can learn more about modeling when they have the ability to construct their own viable model. The notion of end-user authoring has been implemented in other learning projects \cite {Cypher93,Cypher95,Kahn96} but has never been explored in VR.
\item Exploring story structures. Alan Kay has coined the term ``active essay'' to describe a new form of narrative expression in which manipulable computational objects are embedded within text. A goal for NICE is to provide an interesting testbed for the exploration of active narrative, a persistent narrative with multiple threads that the child can create.
\item Creating a final product: the learner should be able to walk away with a program, a printout, a videotape, a map, etc.
Each of these goals has influenced the design of NICE in areas that will be described below. Additionally, a description is included of how some of these goals have been accomplished in the current implementation of NICE.