A Collaborative Learning System for Sharing 3D Models: 3D Model Co-learning Space

In the recent years, due to the prevalence of 3D printers, there have been many applications of 3D printing developed for education such as creating custom-made teaching aids or student art work. Although there are web sites hosting 3D models created by students and allowing them to share and search in the database, these systems usually lack functions of collaborative learning. On the other hand, most learning management systems do not provide functions needed for sharing and viewing 3D models. In this work, we aim to design a system called 3D Model Co-learning Space (3D MCLS), dedicated to collaborative learning allowing students to share 3D models as well as performing blind peer assessment. The system allows a user to store, share, display, and discuss 3D models and allows a teacher to manage a group of students in a flexible way. More specifically, the system can automatically create a thumbnail by computing an optimized view of an uploaded 3D model. It uses tags to organize models into groups according to their attributes or teams in a class for easier access through search. In addition, it can provide blind assignments of peer review and compare the results with self-assessment. We have implemented such a system and conducted a pilot study to obtain a preliminary evaluation on the usability of the system.