Novint Falcon Haptic Controller video -

My Novint Falcon haptic controller arrived the other day! What is a haptic controller? Watch the video...

( I purchased the controller to work on games for young people who are visually impaired.)

YouTube video: "Prometeus - The Media Revolution". Food for thought!

I learned about this YouTube video about new media and the future from Andrea Gaggioli, author of the Positive Technology Journal. Take a look!

Link to TechPsych blog post about the "Neuroscience of Joyful Education"

Take a look at my TechPsych blog post about an article written by Judy Willis - "The Neuroscience of Joyful Education". Here is an excerpt from Judy's article:

"...too many policymakers wrongly assume that students who are laughing, interacting in groups, or being creative with art, music, or dance are not doing real academic work. The result is that some teachers feel pressure to preside over more sedate classrooms with students on the same page in the same book, sitting in straight rows, facing straight ahead."

Judy Willis is the author of Research-Based Strategies to Ignite Student Learning: Insights from a Neurologist/Classroom Teacher (ASCD, 2006; http://shop.ascd.org/productdisplay.cfm?productid=107006) and Brain-Friendly Strategies for the Inclusion Classroom (ASCD, 2007; http://shop.ascd.org/productdisplay.cfm?productid=107040).

Judy's website: http://radteach.com/

Visual and Multimedia Literacy: 500 Years of Women Art

Here is an example of the importance of visual and multimedia literacy, I thought I'd share this YouTube video clip of paintings of women's faces as they morph from one to another, depicting the last 500 years of art. In just under three minutes, the viewer gets a deeper understanding of the concept.

Visual and Multimedia Literacy Revisited - Quotes

It has been about a year since I shared quotes about the importance of visual and multimedia literacy. Since many of my readers are responsible for putting together presentations about education, technology, and topics related to visual or multimedia literacy, I thought I'd link to my orignal post.

I'm putting together a short video for TeacherTube on the topic of multimedia literacy. My premise is that multimedia technology supports engaged learning and also provides educators with a means of accurately monitoring progress. While I am not 100% certain that the effective, appropriate use of multimedia technology in our high schools will help to combat our nation's 30% drop-out rate, I am pretty sure it will help, especially if students have access to on-line multimedia learning activities outside of school.

If you have any quotes that you'd like to share about the multimedia and visual literacy, let me know - even those of your own.

My hope is that this video will be useful for people who are interested in learning more about visual and multimedia literacy. Since it will be on TeacherTube, it will be available for anyone to use.

Direct link to the Rome Reborn 1.0 website

I did a little hunting and found the main website for Rome Reborn 1.0, at the Institute for Advanced Technology in the Humanities at the University of Virginia. Here is a blurb from the website about the history of Rome Reborn:

"From 1997 to 2007 the UCLA Cultural Virtual Reality Laboratory (CVRLab), the UCLA Experiential Technology Center (ECT), the Reverse Ingineering (INDACO) Lab at the Politecnico de Milano, and the Institute for Advanced Technology in the Humanities (IATH) of the University of Virginia collaborated on a project to crate a digital model of ancient Rome as it appeared in late antiquity...."

News video about Rome Reborn:





Links:
UCLA Cultural Virtual Reality Lab
UCLA Experiential Technology Center
Institute for Advanced Technology in the Humanities
Politecnico di Milano

Rome Reborn, Digital Rome: 3D animated history and archaeology

A recent article posted by Tracy Staedter on the Discovery News website highlights the Rome Reborn project. Rome Reborn is a 3-D re-creation of Rome as it stood in 320 A.D. The project has involved an interdisciplinary, international team of people, including computer scientists, artists, archaeologists, and historians from UCLA, the Politecnico di Milano (Italy), and the Institute for Advanced Technology in the Humanities at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville.

According to the article, Rome Reborn (Digital Rome) will be teaching tool as well as part of an on-line 3-D peer-reviewed journal, a place for researchers to publish and share their work on the project over time.

Here is a link to another detailed article on Ian Foster's blog about Rome Reborn/Digital Rome: http://ianfoster.typepad.com/blog/2007/06/digital_rome.html


On a related note, I am waiting in great anticipation for my Novint Falcon 3-D haptic game controller. Wouldn't it be great if we could provide people with visual impairments the chance to experience Rome Reborn in 3-D using the Novint Falcon? For more information, visit the Novint Falcon.

Preschool Playroom - teaching play skills through video modeling for preschoolers with autism

Have you heard of the NECC (New England Center for Children)?

NECC offers a video modeling program to help teach play skills to preschoolers with autism. The videos come with progress monitoring charts. Please post me a comment if you have worked with the NECC Preschool Playroom as a teacher, parent, or related service provider.

Realistic 3D technology for artists - from ID games

Here is a quick link to a video of John Carmack, from ID software, that highlights some of the latest 3D graphics technology for games.

Wouldn't it be nice if ID could put together a workshop for some art K-12 art teachers over the summer? I'd like to see more computers used for art creation in our schools. I think the students would, too.



Direct link to the full video stream from Apple: http://stream.qtv.apple.com/events/jun/d7625zs/m_99427722_650_ref.mov

Usabililty guidelines for touch screen or surface applications from SAP

Here is a link to usability design guidelines for touch-screen applications on the SAP design guild website, posted by Gerd Waloszek, of the Product Design Center.

Although these guidelines were written in 2000, they still hold true in 2007, especially now that larger touch-screen applications such as Microsoft Surface (Madrid) have recently been unveiled.


Touch Screen Design Guide