For the last several years internet became the communication medium up to affect human life style. Although most of information human requests are to be found on internet through WWW, they are limited to 2-dimensional. So it is needed that WWW should develop to be a medium for human accustomed to 3-dimensional environment inherently to communicate information more realistically and effectively.
The purposes of this thesis are to understand the characteristics and development direction of human communication, suggest the possibility of VRML as a communication medium on WWW and apply VRML to WWW-based education system.
At first, to define the background of VRML creation this study reviewed human communication, network environment, WWW and VR. Communication technology has been developed in the direction of toward the characteristics of human communication : using plural sense and interactivity. But spreading WWW as a communication medium tends to become a huge multimedia database which lays out, stores, retrieves, conveys information. So it is required that WWW should develop to be friendly to human.
Secondly the characteristics and application examples of VRML was reviewed. VRML or Virtual Reality Modeling Language is the file format for describing interactive 3-D virtual environment on internet. VRML as a communication medium on WWW could be characterized by integration of existing WWW resources, expansion of interactivity with user and multi-user participation. And examples of VRML application on internet are classified as follows : Fly through 3-D World, Information Visualization, Shared Model Inspection.
As a basic survey for case study the changes of education field in network age. New Technologies have been the important basis of revolution in education field. CAI(Computer-Aided Instruction) and distant-learning are the examples of the recent educational environment using computer and network. Although WWW and VR are also used as instructional medium, it still stays at the early stage.
In case study, WWW-based Earth-Science education system was developed and evaluated. VRML was used as a learning-contents communication medium in it. Through course analysis, the characteristic of Earth-Science course was found that it covers non-visual phenomena, abstract science knowledges, vast time space and concepts impossible for learners to experiment and experience. It is impossible to describe behaviors in space, 3-dimensional objects, inter-operation between objects and so on with existing 2-dimensional data. But, Multimedia Earth-Science data described by VRML enable learners to experience realistic and interactive contents in real-time. Through VRML data communicated through WWW existing 2-dimensional and abstract information can be communicated in the way of 3-dimensional concrete interactive data.
