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This method was used so far for the purpose of developing the skill to find a
way to solve a problem mainly through discussion, at the place of succession
of the technology. Noticing that PBL is usually supposed to be applied in a
face-to-face environment, there arise two new aspects to consider when we
aim at multicultural communication:
1. geographic constraint. There is a geographic limit on PBL in real
world due to the practical difficulty in gathering participants from
different countries.
2. linguistic constraint. In many cases we could not share the same
language even if we could gather participants from the foreign
countries.
To solve these problems, we construct PBL environment in cyberspace. We
adopt SecondLife 82 for developing platform and set up a classroom in cyberspace
as shown in figure 2.
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Figure 2. The classroom in cyberspace
In the classroom, we prepared a shared whiteboard and a screen for presentation.
For communication in the lack of common language, we also equipped a
text base multilingual chat system which adopts Language Grid 83 for multilanguage
translation. Using these tools, the learners perform learning activities
that include their interaction. Figure 3 shows the PBL environment system
architecture.
82
http://www.secondlife.com/.
83
See Reference 3.