"The Newseum -- a 250,000-square-foot museum of news -- offers visitors an experience that blends five centuries of news history with up-to-the-second technology and hands-on exhibits. Within its seven levels of galleries and theaters, the Newseum offers a unique environment that takes museum-goers behind the scens to experience how and why news is made."
"The Newseum is one of the most technologically advanced museums in the world. The Newseum ordered 100 miles of fiber-optic cable to link up-to-the-second technologies that include electronic signage and interactive kiosks, two broadcast studios, 15 theaters and a 40-by-22-foot high-resolution media screen."
Below are some examples of what visitors can experience at the Newseum, located in Washington, D.C.:
Bloomberg Internet, TV and Radio Gallery -Newseum Time Warner World News Gallery -Newseum
The New York Times --Ochs-Sulzberger Family Great Hall of News Surrounded by the flow of information -Newseum "Around, above and below, visitors to the Great Hall of News are surrounded by a continuous flow of news. Instant, breaking, historic news that is uncensored, diverse and free."
"In this 7,000-square-foot interactive gallery, visitors can select any of 48 interactive kiosks or experiences where they can immerse themselves in the many roles -photojournalist, editor, reporter, anchor — required to bring the news to the public. The gallery features eight “Be a TV Reporter” stations that allow visitors to choose from a variety of video backdrops, take their place in front of the screen, read their report from a TelePrompter and see themselves in action." -Newseum
NEWSEUM exhibits have an on-line component. Here are a few:
"The Technology Integration Matrix (TIM) illustrates how teachers can use technology to enhance learning for K-12 students. The TIM incorporates five interdependent characteristics of meaningful learning environments: active, constructive, goal directed (i.e., reflective), authentic, and collaborative (Jonassen, Howland, Moore, & Marra, 2003). The TIM associates five levels of technology integration (i.e., entry, adoption, adaptation, infusion, and transformation) with each of the five characteristics of meaningful learning environments. Together, the five levels of technology integration and the five characteristics of meaningful learning environments create a matrix of 25 cells...." Here is a list of the people behind the development of the 2010-11 Technology Integration Matrix, as listed on the TIM website. I will provide links to the team member's websites/blogs in the future. DEVELOPMENT TEAM Kate Kemker, Ph.D., Florida Department of Education Roy Winkelman, Ph.D., FCIT Director James Welsh, Project Manager Allison Papke, Coordinator, Lesson Plan Editor, and School Liason Roberto Herrera, Videographer and Video Editor Kyle Wahling, Videographer Francisco Flores, Video Editor James Basom Seaman, Web Design and Development J. Christine Harmes, Ph.D., Indicator Development Ryan Dial, Programming and Development
Special Thanks: Michael Sweeney, Florida Digital Educator Program C. Kris Mathews, Florida Digital Educator Program G. Gordon Worley, Florida Digital Educator Program Jeanine Gendron, Ph.D., Broward County Schools John Lien, Orange County Schools Dawn Howard, Manatee County Schools Don Manderson, Escambia County Kara Dawson, Ph.D., University of Florida Mijana Lockard, Lincoln Avenue Academy, Lakeland, FL Virginia Richard, School Technology Services, Polk County Trevor Honohan, Principal, Audubon Park Elementary Kristine Haller Nancy Kuznicki Jeanne Rogers Crystal Gasell David Schneider David Futch Alvin Olivo Sylvia Hernandez Maria Alves Lois Hooper Cheryl Woolwine Jennifer O’Dell Ana McMoran
The TIM was developed through the Enhancing Education Through Technology (EETT) program under Title II of NCLB.
I came across the Digging Into Data Challenge website today and thought it might be of interest to IMT readers. Below is a description of the project, a few related links, and an abbreviated list of links to a wide range of data repositories on the web.
ABOUT
"Welcome to the second round of the Digging into Data Challenge. During the first round, in 2009, nearly 90 international research teams competed in the challenge. Ultimately, eight remarkable projects were awarded grants."
"In 2011, the Digging into Data Challenge has returned for a second round, this time much larger, with sponsorship from eight international research funders, representing Canada, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, and the United States."
"What is the "challenge" we speak of? The idea behind the Digging into Data Challenge is to address how "big data" changes the research landscape for the humanities and social sciences. Now that we have massive databases of materials used by scholars in the humanities and social sciences -- ranging from digitized books, newspapers, and music to transactional data like web searches, sensor data or cell phone records -- what new, computationally-based research methods might we apply? As the world becomes increasingly digital, new techniques will be needed to search, analyze, and understand these everyday materials. Digging into Data challenges the research community to help create the new research infrastructure for 21st century scholarship."
"Applicants will form international teams from at least two of the participating countries. Winning teams will receive grants from two or more of the funding agencies and, two years later, will be invited to show off their work at a special conference sponsored by the eight funders."
Be sure to visit the Digging Into Data Challenge data repository page. Each repository is annotated in detail and includes links and in some cases, APIs. The page is updated regularly, and at the time of this post, was updated on May 26, 2011. For your convenience, here's the abbreviated version of the Digging Into Data Challenge list of repositories:
Just a thought.... I'd be interested in learning if any of the researchers involved in the Digging Into Data Challenge plan to work on an interactive, multidimensional, multimedia timeline to support collaborative data sharing and analysis.
I promised my colleagues at Wolfe School that I'd share something new and cool upon my return from a recent CHI 2011* conference.
StoryVisit was one of the "take-aways" I brought back. StoryVisitis a web-based application developed to promote interaction between grandparents (or parents) and children who are remotely located. It is available on-line for free as part of a collaborative project between researchers from the Nokia Research Center, the Sesame Workshop, the University of Arkansas, and the MIT Media Lab
As soon as I saw the StoryVisit demonstration, I knew that the concept had potential to be useful to promote literacy and social communication among students with special needs, such as those who have autism spectrum disorders. (My story of how I tweaked StoryVisit for use with students is located near the end of this post.) Credit: Nokia Research
One of the good features of the StoryVisit website is that it supports dialogic reading between the adult and child, by providing a Sesame Street character embedded in the story to help guide the process.
According to Grover J. Whitehurst, this method can support language development in young children. In dialogic reading, the adult who reads with a child helps the child take a more active role in the process by following what is known as "PEER": Prompting the child to talk about the story, evaluating the child's response, expanding the response by rephrasing and elaborating on what the child has said, and repeating the prompt to assess what the child has learned or grasped from the story. This can include a discussion about the pictures that accompany the story, and questions that guide the child to think about the relationships between the characters, or prompts that help the child make predictions and draw inferences.
To get an understanding of the StoryVisit application, first take a look at how it works with adults and children - below are two related videos and an abstract from the StoryVisit presentation at CHI 2011 and a couple of related videos:
Here is short preview:
Abstract "StoryVisit allows children and long-distance adults to experience a sense of togetherness by reading children's story books together over a distance. StoryVisit combines video conferencing and connected books: remote grown-up and child readers can see and hear each other, and can also see and control the same e-book. We report on research with 61 families - over 200 users including parents, children and long-distance readers - who used StoryVisit in their homes with a long-distance reader for at least one reading session. In addition, we report qualitative findings regarding nineteen of the families who participated in telephone interviews and four families who were monitored and interviewed by researchers at home. Results show that connected e-book video chat sessions last about five times as long as the typical video chats reported in previous research on families with young children. Moreover, the addition of an animated character increased session lengths by another 50%. StoryVisit usage peaked for families with three year olds, showing that sustained distance interactions with very young children are possible if communication technologies incorporate joint activities that engage children and adults."
Here's how I tweaked Storyvisit to work in a school setting:
On my first morning back at Wolfe, I decided to use StoryVisit with two high school-level students who have autism and cognitive delays. My goal was to familiarize the students with Storyvisit so they could use it to read stories to younger elementary-level students with autism who are in a self-contained classroom. I went to the Storyvisit website and registered Wolfe school as the "Wolfe family", using some of the teacher's email addresses as "family members".
During my session with the two young men, I placed them far apart in a large therapy room where my office is located. Each student used earphones, since I was aware that there might be an audio feedback problem (which will be fixed, according to the Storyvisit folks). Since the two students were not too far apart, I simply ran back and forth between them to make sure things were going OK and prompt them if needed.
I coached one student to play the role of the reader (grandparent) and the other to play the role of a younger child. We got this accomplished successfully within our 1/2 hour session, an amazing feat, given the nature of the students' disabilities. They especially liked the video conferencing part, something that they've done at school in the past. They communicated with each other better through this medium than in person, as the required less prompting.
The two young men were so excited about this process that after they returned to class, they suggested to their teacher that they wanted to practice with the application with their classmates. They wanted to use Storyvisit to read to the younger students as soon as possible.
The teacher, without much prior knowledge about the application, was able to set it up quickly. She used the application during her morning group reading activity, displaying the Storyvisit website on a SMARTBoard. She was impressed with the "Block Party" story - especially the great recipes included at the end of the story.
The teacher mentioned that the recipes could be used to create snacks for a "block party" between the two classes after the StoryBook session. The students could use the recipes to create shopping lists for a community outing to a local supermarket, and then prepared during Activities of Daily Living class (the classroom is equipped with a kitchen.)
To see how the elementary-level students would respond to the Storyvisit website, I visited the classroom and demonstrated the Block Party book to the students using a SMARTboard. I used "Grandparent" mode, without the webcam, since I was with the students. As I went through the story, the teacher mentioned that the webcam feature would be ideal for including students who use sign language in Storyvisit activities. (She happens to be the mother of daughters who have hearing impairments.)
SOMEWHAT RELATED Since the Storyvisit activity was so positive with my students, I decided to dig a little deeper. I use video quite a bit with students with autism spectrum disorders, and work with students to establish joint-attention skills and behaviors. My hunch is that this is an area that warrants further exploration, especially for children and teens with autism spectrum disorders, their classmates, peers, and families.
The Co-Viewing Connection: "A blog for grown-ups about using media and technology with kids" The New Coviewing: "Promoting Children's Learning Through Joint Media Engagement"
Why this is important: My grandson, "reading" at 6 months old:
My mom and my grandson reading together:
*"The ACM Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems is the premier international conference of human-computer interaction. CHI 2011 focuses on leveraging our diversity and connecting people, cultures, technologies, experiences, and ideas."
I just discovered edublogger Bill Ferriter's blog, "The Tempered Radical" today. He is a fellow North Carolinian who is part of the Teacher Leaders Network. He teaches 6th grade science at a middle school.
49th International Symposium, Seminar, and Exhibition was held at the L.A. Convention Center in Los Angeles, California during the week of May 15-20, 2011. Display Week is one of a number of conferences of the Society for Information Display (SID), a group of professionals in all of the technical and business disciplines that relate to display research, design, manufacturing, applications, marketing, and sales.
I'm sad to say, I was not able to attend the conference.
In case you missed Display Week, or if you are curious to learn more about it, take a few moments to look over the conference website, and if it interests you, plan to attend the 50th next year. I hope to be there!
2011 Keynote Speakers: Phil “Captain 3D” McNally, Stereoscopic Supervisor, DreamWorks Animation
“How My 3D Hobby Became My 3D Career”
Yasuhiro Koike, Professor at Keio University and Director of the Keio Photonics Research Institute “Overwhelmingly Realistic Face-to-Face Communications: Photonic Polymer Technology”
Shuji Nakamura, Professor in the Materials Department at the University of Santa Barbara “Nitride-Based LEDs and Laser Diodes: Current Status, Bright Prospects!”
Douglas Trumbull, Trumbull Ventures LLC Note: Douglas Trumbull's multimedia website is awesome. It provides a visually pleasing overview of many of his special effects work, and more.
For more information, take a look at the Display Week 2011 program (pdf).
Information from the Display Week website: "Display Week, the Society for Information Display’s Symposium, Seminar, and Exhibition, is the essential yearly meeting for everyone involved in the technology, business, and application of cutting-edge displays. It is also the top North American exhibit venue for display industry products and services."
"Each year, engineers, manufacturers, researchers, and numerous others involved in the electronic-information-display industry gather at Display Week for access to a huge range of display-related technologies and applications. These include high-definition flat-panel displays, OLEDs, flexible displays, plastic electronics, large-area projection systems, and much more. This is the place to learn about the state of the art of image processing, systems software and display processor hardware, human factors and applied vision, and exciting new application areas such as 3-D and electronic cinema, touch and interactivity, solid-state lighting, and green technologies...As the must-see event for the worldwide electronic-information-display industry, Display Week is host to hundreds of exhibitors and thousands of attendees each year."
Bill Buxton is a researcher at Microsoft who focuses on Human-Computer Interaction and is known for his work in user experience design and natural user interfaces such as multi-touch surfaces. His talk at the recent CHI 2011 conference, held in Vancouver, Canada, was an overview of the Buxton Collection, an on-line historical archive of interactive input devices spanning over the past 35 years.
It was interesting to note that at the time of the presentation, the Vancouver Conference Center, where the conference was taking place, was having serious problems with the network/internet connections, and as a consequence, Buxton was not able to demonstrate the on-line version of his collection as planned.
Not to worry. The physical version of the Buxton's archive was on display during the conference, along with Buxton, who was happy to tell the story behind every device and gadget in the archive, with much enthusiasm. The slideshow below provides a glimpse of the Bill Buxton archive displayed at CHI 2011:
My Buxton Collection Slideshow, CHI 2011, Vancouver, Canada
Buxton's archive of gadgets comes with a rich history, accumulated over the years. Much of this history, until now, has resided in Buxton's head. Holding and touching the items in the archive while listening to Buxton's passionate stories about each one, was unlike anything I had ever experienced. His archive is a labor of love, and the interactive, on-line version of the Buxton Collection is his way of sharing his knowledge with the world.
During his talk, Buxton pointed out that in computer science programs, students are not required to have much exposure to the "history of ideas" in the field. Huge chunks of work are often ignored in the literature, and in some cases, the wheel is unknowingly reinvented, and this is something that must be addressed within the CHI community, according to Buxton.
On Engineering and Design: An Open LetterMicrosoft Research Principal Scientist Bill Buxton calls for engineers and user experience designers to learn to appreciate one another
I had the opportunity to attend the presentation session of humanaquarium: Exploring audience, participation, and interaction at CHI 2011, and also experience humanaquarium's compelling interactive performance along with a crowd of CHI 2011 attendees. It was one of my favorite events.
What I liked about humanaquarium is that it is a good example of how music, the arts, and technology are converging, on many levels. It is encouraging to know that this sort of interdisciplinary, creative collaboration is evident at a number of university research centers. humanaquarium was developed with the support of Culture Lab, Newcastle University (UK), the Advanced Man-Machine Interface Laboratory, University of Alberta, Edmonton, Canada, and the Alberta Foundation for the Arts.
According to the abstract for the CHI 2011 paper, "humanaquarium is a movable performance space designed to explore the dialogical relationship between artist and audience. Two musicians perform inside the cube-shaped box, collaborating with participants to co-create an aesthetic audio-visual experience. The front wall of the humanaquarium is a touch-sensitive FTIR window. MaxMSP is used to translate the locations of touches on the window into control data, manipulating the tracking of software synthesizers and audio effects generated in Ableton Live, and influencing a Jitter visualization projected upon the rear wall of the cube."
To learn more about humanaquarium and catch a glimpse of the performance, take a look at the following video clips. The first video clip was produced by Nick Barber, who was covering the CHI 2011 conference for IDG News Services. (Nick is also the host and co-producer of World Tech Update.) I produced the second video clip.
Johannes Shoening has posted some great videos, pictures, and links about ACM-CHI 2011, a conference that recently took place in Vancouver, Canada. Johannes is the author of the Perspectivevoxel blog, where he shares information about interactive and emerging technologies.
Howard Rheingold was the opening keynote speaker at the ACM-CHI 2011 conference on May 9th, in Vancouver, Canada. In his delightful talk, Rheingold discussed his exploration of social media and social media literacies in teaching and learning, drawing upon his experience teaching university courses. According to Rheingold, these literacies include mindful infotention; participation; collaboration, and critical consumption, or in his words, crap detection.
In traditional classrooms, students are given a number of reading assignments, and then called upon to respond to the instructor's questions, demonstrating that they "did the reading". From Rheingold's perspective, this is off-track, as cold-calling students isn't the way to foster "thinking, reflection, inquiry, and the ability to contribute to a broader conversation."
Rheingold suggests that it is a myth that "tech-savvy" digital natives know how to use technology for learning and connecting with others effectively, drawing from his recent experience teaching university students. Rheingold believes that the goal of learning is not to get the right answer, but to learn strategies such as inquiry, exploration, and collaboration. Learning is not limited to the classroom walls, but takes place (within a network of other co-learners, linked to one another, and also linked to the wealth of resources that are available on-line.
In this way, a "culture of conversation" is built that extends well beyond the classroom, and takes place after the official class period has ended. Technology is not the solution- it is a tool that when harnessed thoughtfully, can support co-learning activities in a variety and combination of ways. This process, Rheingold stresses, can facilitate engaged learning, and amplify intelligence.
If you are interested in exploring the wisdom of Rheingold, take some time to soak in the videos below, as well as the links to resources provided at the end of this post.
As early as the mid-1990's, Howard was clear that the future of technology would be visual and multimedia, and that technology would improve access to a wealth of information as well as provide opportunities for increasing connections between people. Rheingold is known for his 2002 book, SmartMobs: The Next Social Revolution- Transforming Cultures and Communities in the Age of Instant Access. He has taught courses such as Digital Journalismat Stanford University and Virtual Community/Social Mediaat the University of California, Berkeley, and his approach to teaching breaks the traditional mold, given the comments from his former students.
Since most people don't have the means to attend Stanford or Berkeley, Rheingold recently established Rheingold U, an on-line learning community offering courses that run about 5 weeks, through live sessions and the use of forums, blogs, wikis, mindmaps, and social bookmarks.
If you are unfamiliar with the acronyms, ACM stands for the Association for Computing Machinery, and is known as the world's largest educational and scientific computing society, with over 108,000 members. Within the ACM are a number of special interest groups, known as SIGs. SIG-CHI is an interdisciplinary group of practitioners, industry researchers, students, and academicians who represent fields of design, engineering, management, and user experience. All members of SIG-CHI are interested in topics related to Computer-Human Interaction in some way. Communities featured at the CHI-2011 conference are Child-Computer Interaction; Games and Entertainment; Health; and Sustainability.
