Games and Learning: Lure of the Labyrinth, a Middle School Online Pre-algebra/literacy game - Watch the Video, Play the Game, and Follow Links to Related Resources

"Maryland Public Television (MPT) and MIT Education Arcade teamed up with FableVision to create Lure of the Labyrinth, an innovative gaming-meets-storytelling approach to improve math and literacy among middle-school students. Plunge into a shadowy, moster-filled factory on a mission to rescue your missing pet. Can you maneuver through math problems and find your beloved pet in time!?"

The Lure of the Labyrinth middle-school pre-algebra game is linked to state and national math standards and comes with good resources for teachers. On the For Educators page, teachers (and parents) can find information about how students can play the game, how it can be incorporated into the classroom setting, how to prepare the students for playing the game, how to use the game to support working in pairs and group, and more. Below is the introductory video:

Scot Osterweil and his team at MIT's Education Arcade, designed Lure of the Labyrinth. Scot is the research director of the Education Arcade, and has worked on software such as InspireData (Inspiration Software). He is the former Senior Designer at TERC, an R & D for math and science education.













RELATED


Klopfer, D., Osterweil,S., Groff, J., & Hass, J. (2009) The Instructional Power of Digital Games, Social Networking, Simulations, and How Teachers Can Leverage Them. Education Arcade, MIT (pdf)
Regarding barriers to adopting digital games, social networking, and simulation technologies in the school, the article reviews the work of Groff and Mouza:
"Groff and Mouza (2008) discuss six central factors, each with its own critical variables, that interact with one another to produce barriers to implementing technological innovations in the classroom: (a) Research & Policy factors, (b) District/School factors, (c) factors associated with the Teacher, (d) factors associated with the Technology- Enhanced Project, (e) factors associated with the Students, and (f) factors inherent to Technology itself.

Klopfer, E., Osterweil, S., Salen, K. (2009) Moving Learning Games Forward: Obstacles, Opportunities & Openess.  The Education Arcade, MIT (pdf)

Gee. J.P, & Levine, M.H. Welcome to Our Virtual Worlds (pdf) Educational Leadership, Literacy 2.0, March 2009, Vol. 66, (6).  ASCD
"The United States is witnessing a growing student engagement crisis. With dropout rates approaching 50 percent in many urban school districts (Swanson, 2008) and recent education surveys showing that students are overwhelmingly bored in school (Bridgeland, DiIulio, & Morison, 2006; Yazzie-Mintz, 2007), we clearly need to find new ways to motivate learners."


"A crucial first step in promoting student engagement is to rethink literacy for the 21st century. One path to this new learning equation comes, perhaps paradoxically, from popular culture. Many young people today play long and difficult video games that involve complex thinking and problem solving married to complex language. Although the most frequent criticism of video games is that many involve shooting and killing, a good many focus on other things. Civilization and Rise of Nations force players to think on a large scale about history, development across time, and civilizations. SimCity, The Sims, and, for very young children, Animal Crossing ask players to build and sustain cities and communities. Age of Mythology players regularly read and write about mythologies across the world, specifically from Greek, Egyptian, and Norse civilizations. Some gamers write strategy guides for the games they play—technical writing at its best—and share them over the Internet."


James Paul Gee is the author of a number of publications regarding games and learning. He is the author of Good Video Games and Good Learning: Collected Essays on Video Games, Learning, and Literacy.  He is the Mary Lou Fulton Presidential Professor of Literacy Studies at Arizona State University.

Klopfer, E. (2008) Augmented Learning Research and Design of Mobile Educational Games. MIT Press.

 
MIT STEP's Handheld Augmented Reality Simulations Site

Eric Klopfer is involved with MIT's StarLogo project. The newest version of StarLogo is StarLogo TNG.  StarLogo Tim is part of MIT's Scheller Teacher Education Program (STEP)
Here are some links found on the STEP website:
MyWorld: Next Generation Wireless Ubiquitous Simulation Games
PDA Participatory Simulations

Scot Osterweil (MIT) The Four Freedoms of Play

"Scot Osterweil, a pioneer in learning and game play, shares his thoughts on the concept of "The Four Freedoms of Play." Scot Osterweil works at MIT as the Education Arcade Research Director. Here Scot presents to the Harvard Business School in Cambridge, MA in a weekly education technology forum called BrainGain."

Kurt Squire did his doctoral research on the use of Sid Meier's Civilization to teach social studies. Resources for how the game can be used in education can be found at the CivWorld website.  Kurt is the co-founder and current director of the Games + Learning + Society (GLS) website, University of Wisconsin-Madison. He also is an assistant professor.




There are an increasing number of universities offering coursework related to the design and development of games for learning and education.

Two Interesting Posts: Colin Mulvany - Will the touch tablet save professional journalism? & Michael Arrington -The End of Hand Crafted Content

Technology is changing our world, and in some fields, more so than others.  For professional newspaper journalists, things are pretty bleak, as web-based news content is stamping out much of what has been held dear to the heart in traditional press rooms. Newspaper companies are folding and great journalists have lost their jobs.

Is there hope for the future?

Journalists who have digital media skills are voicing their views about this phenomenon as the profession moves to reinvent itself.  There is much to discuss, since the number of folks with Smartphones and access to web-based news content on-the-go increases each day.

The first post I'm sharing was written by Colin Mulvany, who works as a multimedia producer at the Spokesman-Review in Spokane, Washington.  He began his career is a still photographer, but changed gears and transitioned to his present role creating content for his paper's on-line website.  

Colin Mulvany is the author of the Mastering Multimedia blog.  His blog post, Will the touch tablet save professional journalism?, provides an overview of changes in journalism and links to related on-line articles about the topic. What I liked about Mulvany's post is his vision of how the transition from newspaper to the digital world might play out in the near future. 

It all centers around the touch-tablet that is paired with the newspaper.  So how will this make money?   Mulvany has a few ideas.  One of his suggestions involves improving the navigation of newspaper websites, and providing content and layout that the reader can customize for interaction with the tablet.


The second article, The End of Hand Crafted Content,  written by Michael Arrington at Tech Crunch, points out how on-line news content is like "fast food", generated by blogs and aggregators.   Arrington discusses how the same content is written and refashioned and written, and the true creators of the content (real journalists!) are not often noted...or noticed.

Arrington provides good links on his post.  If you have time on your hands, take time to read it, and also browse through the numerous comments posted by readers. Although I rarely am inspired to comment on an on-line post, in this instance, I did so.  My comment is buried in there somewhere!


RELATED
Minority Report Scenes: 
3D ads at the mall, subway scene with USA-Today e-paper (updated with video in "real time")

http://www.youtube.com/user/mrcavalcanti

The holographic ads in the Minority Report mall scene begin at 0:28.  The subway scene with the USA Today 3-paper begins at 1:27.  (Mulvany has a similar video on his post.)


Holographic Ad at a Canadian Mall: "Living Poster"

http://www.youtube.com/user/smtire

Maybe the holograph guy in the mall could deliver the news or a weather report, along with a few Minority Report-like mall ads!

People-Centric Public Media, Public Media 2.0, & New Media: Considerations for Interactive, Collaborative Multimedia Content

I followed a link from an article written by Andy Oram, of the O'Reilly Radar and found some interesting information related to public media. The graphics and quotes below are from a publication, Public Media 2.0: Dynamic, Engaged Publics (pdf), written by people from the Center for Social Media at the School of Communication, American University.

Public Media 2.0: Dynamic, Engaged Publics    Full Report pdf

Center for Social Media,  School of Communication, American University



"Multi-platform, participatory, and digital, public media 2.0 will be an essential feature
of truly democratic public life from here on in. And it’ll be media both for and by the
public. The grassroots mobilization around the 2008 electoral campaign is just one
signal of how digital tools for making and sharing media open up new opportunities
for civic engagement.

But public media 2.0 won’t happen by accident, or for free. The same bottom-line logic
that runs media today will run tomorrow’s media as well. If we’re going to have media
for vibrant democratic culture, we have to plan for it, try it out, show people that it
matters, and build new constituencies to invest in it.

The first and crucial step is to embrace the participatory—the feature that has also been most disruptive of current media models. We also need standards and metrics to define truly meaningful participation in media for public life. And we need policies, initiatives, and sustainable financial models that can turn today’s assets and experiments into tomorrow’s tried-and-true public media.

Public media stakeholders, especially such trusted institutions as public broadcasting, need to take leadership in creating a true public investment in public media 2.0."

Action Agendas
"Public media institutions and makers need to develop a participatory national network and platform; to cross cultural, social, economic, ethnic, and political divides; to collaborate; and to learn from others’ examples, including their mistakes.

• Policymakers need to create structures and funding to support national coordination of public media networks and funding for production, curation, and archiving; to use universal design principles in communications infrastructure policy and universal service values in constructing and supporting infrastructure; to support lifelong education that helps everyone be media makers; and to build grassroots participation into public policy processes using social media tools.

• Funders can invest in media projects that build democratic publics; in norms setting, standardization of reliability tools, and impact metrics; and in experiments in media making, media organizations, and media tools, especially among disenfranchised communities."
Some key points from the article:
Five fundamental ways that people's media habits are changing - The Five Media Habits:
Choice
Conversation
Curation
Creation
Collaboration
Trends with possibilities for public media 2.0:
Ubiquitous video (choice, creation, collaboration)
Powerful databases (curation, creation)
Social networks as public forums (conversation, collaboration)
Locative media (choice, creation)
Distributed distribution (choice, curation)
Hackable platforms (creation, collaboration, curation)
Accessible metrics (creation, curation)
Cloud content (choice, creation)
Pervasive gaming (choice, collaboration)

RELATED
Eight Public Media 2.0 Projects That Are Doing it Right
Jessica Clark, Mediashift, 10/6/09
("MediaShift tracks how new media -- from weblogs to podcasts to citizen journalism -- are changing society and culture.")
The intersection of media literacy and public media 2.0
Katie Donnelly, Public Media 2.0, 10/16/09
VoiceThread "VoiceThread is a powerful new way to talk about and share your images, documents, and videos"

I'll update this post with some of my thoughts/reflections about Public Media 2.0 and interactive multimedia content development.

The Vodafone Symphonia- A Symphony of Phones, Via Henry Jenkins, author of "The Wow Climax: Tracing the Emotional Impact of Popular Culture"

I learned about the Vodafone Symphonia video through Henry Jenkins. If you haven't heard of him by now, and you've found your way to this post, you should!


Henry Jenkins co-founded the Comparative Media Studies Program at MIT, and now is the Provost's Professor of Communications, Journalism, and Cinematic Art at the University of Southern California.


Be sure to read Henry's recent blog post, Strange Overtures: Vodafone, Tchaikovsky, Ernie Kovacs and the "Wowness" of New Media, focuses on how joyful it is to receive a delightful gifts, such as the VodaFone video,  and how this sent to him by a former student. In this post, he relates this experience to some of his thoughts from his recent book, The Wow Climax: Tracing the Emotional Impact of Popular Culture.


I came across the link to the video through Facebook, since Henry decided to circulate the video. (I'm really Henry Jenkin's FAN.)


FYI: Today, 11/6/09, 12:00 PM - 1:00 PM, Henry is participating in a free webinar, "Moving from "Sticky" to Spreadable": The Antidote to "Viral Marketing" and the Broadcast Mentality". 


VodaFone Symphonia



The Making of the Vodafone Symphonia


The Making of the Vodafone Symphonia Part II


RELATED
Vodafone's Symphonia Website
(You can download the full track of the Symphonia and the 53 ringtones)

Eric Sailers' "Bling Your Blog" Presentation: How to spice up a blog with Web 2.0 widgets and interactive things

Eric Sailers is a speech-language pathologist and assistive technology specialist in the La Mesa-Spring Valley School District in San Diago, CA. He's ahead of the pack when it comes to embracing emerging collaborative and interactive technologies in education. Eric recently shared his presentation, "Bling Your Blog" on SlideShare. The presentation is an overview of how to incorporate Web 2.0 technology into blogging.

Bling Your Blog

View more presentations from Eric Sailers.

Below are links to a few things discussed in the presentation:
Animoto


Glogster: "Poster Yourself"
Interactive Calendar Poster by a Glogster


Voicethread (Collaborative digital storytelling.  The Ed. VoiceThread is a secure K-12 network.)


Web 2.0 Guru (Web 2.0 Resources for 21st Century Instruction)


100 Awesome, Free Web Tools for Elementary Teachers

Eric Sailers' Blog


(Cross posted on the TechPsych blog.)

Interactive Motion Graphics Showreel from Filmview Services - great content!

Here is a showreel from Filmview Services that simulates how tech-usability in an interactive gesture/touch world should be!



Here is a quote from the Filmview Services blog:


What Are Screen Graphics?

"...So it works out more cost effective for the films to actually have someone put the graphics on the screens for real. It also greatly enhances the performance of the actors. You only have to watch any of the Star Wars Eps 1-3 to see how wooden acting is when you don’t actually know what is in front of you. Actors love to be able push buttons and bang touch screens during their scenes. Having to actually do it in a certain order can stretch their capabilities mind you, and I am pretty gob smacked at how absolutely computer illiterate some of them are. Don’t they use email?


Anyway, due to this diminished ability to hit and bang things in any certain order, it is our job to make it impossible to mess things up. That’s why they are all genius typers. We make it so they can type any old thing and the letters still come out the way they are meant to each time. We also put little locking codes into our programming so they can’t accidentally escape the graphic mid job. It’s amazing how many of them can type the Esc button when they are meant to be spelling LOGIN."

Thanks, Tim!

SOMEWHAT RELATED
Coincidentally,  when I was visiting the NUI-Group forums this morning, I came across a link to Jakob Nielsen's "Usability in the Movies -- Top 10 Bloopers", which are worth taking a look at. I've posted the list, but you'll need to go to Nielson's web page to read the descriptions. You'll smile.

1. The Hero Can Immediately Use Any UI
2. Time Travelers Can Use Current Designs
3. The 3D UI
4. Integration is Easy, Data Interoperates
5. Access Denied/Access Granted
6. Big Fonts
7. Star Trek's Talking Computer
8. Remote Manipulators (Waldo Controls)
9. You've Got Mail is Always Good News
10."This is Unix, It's Easy"

The Visual Autopsy Table : Interactive Health Science

Interactive Virtual Autopsy Table


The Virtual Autopsy Table from NorrköpingsVisualiseringscenter on Vimeo.


Virtual Autopsies from NorrköpingsVisualiseringscenter on Vimeo.




How it works: Information from a true case, from the Virtual Autopsy Table website.

"A living patient was treated for cerebral hemorrhaging. X-rays sent through the body during computed tomography grow weaker according to the density of the tissue through which they pass. By assigning density values with varying degrees of transparency and identifying colors, a sort of palette can be created by the computer to use in the imaging process. It becomes possible, for example, to remove clothing, skin or blood vessels. In this case the patient has been operated for a ruptured aneurysm in a small brain vessel. A metal clips has been added that can be seen in the image.
"

RELATED

The Norrkopings Visualization Center
"The installation is financed within the framework of the Visualization program and developed by Norrköping Vi sualization Center in cooperation with CMIV (Center for Medical Image Science and Visualization)."

Shift Happens Revisited: Do You Know 4.0 - Convergence and Social Media, by Xplane and the Economist

"This is another official update to the original "Shift Happens" video. This completely new Fall 2009 version includes facts and stats focusing on the changing media landscape, including convergence and technology, and was developed in partnership with The Economist. For more information, or to join the conversation, please visit http://mediaconvergence.economist.com and http://shifthappens.wikispaces.com."

More later.

Interactive Digital Art/Music at the Gray Area Foundation for the Arts

This video gives some background about the Gray Area Foundation for the Arts, and also provides a glimpse of some interesting interfaces and interaction.


forward/slash: The Gray Area Foundation for the Arts Story from GAFFTA on Vimeo.


"Gray Area Foundation for the Arts (GAFFTA) is a San Francisco-based nonprofit dedicated to building social consciousness through digital culture. Guided by the principles of openness, collaboration, and resource sharing, our programs promote creativity at the intersection of art, design, sound, and technology. By making digital culture accessible, substantive and inspiring, we aim to help realize the greatest power of technology: to bring us closer, faster. For more information and how you can be a part of our vision, please visit gaffta.org"

Thanks to Seth Sandler for the link!

(This is a cross-post.)

Tom Barrett, a teacher, demonstrates Durham University's SynergyNet Multi-touch Networked Tables

"It is about how children can work together and communicate and how the multi-touch technology can facilitate this."




In this video, Tom Barrett demonstrates multi-touch networked tables, which were designed to be part of an immersive classroom environment. The multi-touch tables are the result of a collaboration between the Technology Enhanced Learning research group at Durham University and colleagues from the Education and Psychology departments.

Tom is a teacher and edublogger. Like me, he has a passion for multi-touch technology. He has been fortunate to have the chance to work with a SMARTTable in his classroom, and also compare the SMARTTable experience with the tables at Durham University, which were not from SMART Technologies.

Tom was one of the first teachers to have the opportunity to try out the SMART Table in his classroom. He was a bit disappointed with the outcome. Even so, he believes that multi-touch technology will be important in education in the future.

From Tom's point of view, there is a need to have more in-depth content for the SMART Table, even at the earlier grades. The following quotes are taken from Tom's "SMART Table in my Classroom- My Conclusions" blog post:

"In my opinion there are three things that contribute to this: poor content; poor creation software and a straight jacketed approach to multi-touch functionality...There seems to be too much residual SMART Notebook thinking and not enough innovative software design. Maybe the product has preceded the necessary thinking behind it all."

"The one shining ray of light that emerges from amidst this all is the Media application. I have posted videos of some of my children working with this program in the past. It remains the only application that offers teachers and children an open environment to learn, and couples it with a unique interface with media. When you use this application you actually feel like you are using something innovative, multi-touch, gestural driven. As a teacher there is the capacity to use rich content of your choice (video) and then layer on top questions that engage the children in a much deeper way"

RELATED

Flickr Group: Multi-touch Interactive Desk: Applications and Gesture Ideas

(Note: I have plenty of ideas for content and software design for multi-touch tables in education, and also cognitive and educational assessment. I'm only missing a table or two!)

I learned that Twitter was hacked, just after I blogged about privacy & security & emerging technologies..

After reading a few things about emerging technologies and concerns about privacy and security, I posted the following to my Technology-Supported Human-World Interaction blog.

Pervasive Computing, DOOH, Intelligent Buildings, Programmable Nano Sensors, Privacy & Security & Ethics.. hmmm

Right after that, I learned that Twitter was hacked. Here is the TechCrunch article:

In Our Inbox: Hundreds Of Confidential Twitter Documents

"Here’s a dilemma: The guy (”Hacker Croll”) who claims to have accessed hundreds of confidential corporate and personal documents of Twitter and Twitter employees, is releasing those documents publicly and sent them to us earlier today. The zip file contained 310 documents, ranging from executive meeting notes, partner agreements and financial projections to the meal preferences, calendars and phone logs of various Twitter employee".

I think issues related to privacy, security, ethics, and emerging/social technologies need to be discussed more extensively among academicians, industry leaders, students, and the general public. We don't know what we don't know.

Keeping up with technology: Journal for Computing Teachers latest articles.

The Journal for Computing Teachers (JTC) is an online publication of the Special Interest Group for Computing Teachers, which is part of the International Society for Technology in Education. Although most of the articles focus on K-12 education, I think they would be helpful to community college and university instructors as well, particularly those who might be graduate students charged with teaching introductory computing classes for the first time.

For your convenience, I've posted the links to the most recent JTC articles in PDF format below:

JTC Spring 2009

Peer Reviewed

Factors Influencing Technology Integration in the Classroom
Lynette Molstad Gorder, Dakota State University

Declining participation in computing education: An Australia Perspective on the “Gender and IT” Problem
Julianne Lynch, Deakin University

Designing a Computer-supported Project-based Learning Environment for High School Students: A Case Study
Quek Choon Lang, National Institute of Education, Nanyang Technologies University

Trends, Tribes and Territories in Computer Science Education Research
Justus Randolph, Walden University
George Julnes, University of Baltimore
Erkki Sutinen, University of Joensuu

The Connection of Digital Media with Curricular Goals - Innovative Use of Digital Media Portfolios and Cultural Content in Standards-based German Project
Peter Schultz, Kennesaw State University

The Current State of Computer Science in U.S. High Schools: A Report from Two National Surveys
Judith Gal-Ezer, The Open University of Israel
Chris Stephenson, Computer Science Teachers Association

An Empirical Investigation of Visual Computer Programming Language Effects on HBCU Students’ Problem-Solving Capabilities
Mike Unuakhalu, Kentucky State University

From the Field (editor reviewed)

Analysis Techniques for an Online Class
Erlan Burk, Park University

Women and Computing
Barbara Ericson, Georgia Institute of Technology

Knowing the Flow: How Flowcharting Can Help Visualize Software Application Development
Joe Frantiska, Fitchburg State College

To End Reading Failure in America’s Schools
Bob Lemire, Lexia Learning Systems, Inc.

Picture This: Students find their Voice through Digital Storytelling
Lauren Cummins, Youngstown State University
Regina Rees, Youngstown State University
Kelly Bancroft, Youngstown State University

Announcements

Information Age Education Newsletter

Publish Post

Dave Moursund

JCT Editorial Review Board

More from Hewlett Packard: a TouchSmart Notebook!

The new HP TouchSmart tx2 Notebook is duo-touch, with a swivel display. You can use a stylus or your fingertips to interact with the screen. The price listed on the site is $1,149.99, but it s a bit more expensive if you order "the works".




According to the HP website, some models of the notebook come with a built-in fingerprint reader to assist with log-on or lock-up functions. It includes integrated Altec Lansing stereo speakers and supports multimedia entertainment applications. The screen is 12.1", with an HP BrightView LED display. It is capable of playing HD content.

Watch the video:
http://h30440.www3.hp.com/campaigns/tx2/demo/Model.html

Explore the features in the interactive presentation.
http://h30440.www3.hp.com/campaigns/tx2/demo/Model.html


Read the WSJ Market Watch article:


"The enhanced HP MediaSmart digital entertainment software suite on the tx2 allows users to more naturally select, organize and manipulate digital files such as photos, music, video and web content by simply touching the screen.

"Breezing through websites and enjoying photos or video at the tap, whisk or flick of a finger is an entirely new way to enjoy digital content on a notebook PC," said Ted Clark, senior vice president and general manager, Notebook Global Business Unit, Personal Systems Group, HP. "With the introduction of the TouchSmart tx2, HP is providing users an easier, more natural way to interact with their PCs, and furthering touch innovation." "

The notebook uses capacitive touch technology, and supports gestures such as "pinch, rotate, arc, flick, pres and drag, and single & double tap."

For more information, see Hugo Jobling's recent post on the TrustedReviews website.
The touch-screen in HP's products are from NextWindow. NextWindow now has drivers that will work with the upcoming Windows 7, which will allow for multi-touch applications.

FYI: Video clip of HP's TouchSmart single-touch interaction, from July 2008:


From Andy Vandervells' Trusted Reviews post, "Hands On with the HP TouchSmart"

Emerging Technologies: SHiFT 08 Conference - Sensor Networks and Data for the Open Internet of Things

This is a cross post from the Technology-Supported Human-World Interaction blog:

I first learned about the "Internet of Things" nearly two years ago when I was taking a Ubicomp class. Since that time, things have sped quickly along in the research arena, but I don't think most folks are aware of how this technological transformation will impact our daily lives.

The videoclip below is from David Orban's presentation at SHiFT 08, "Why We Need to Listen to our Things":



Orban discusses how we currently spend much of our time taking care of our mobile devices, but as the magnitude of devices increasing, it is difficult to manage things as we have in the past. There is just too much data...There is a need for obtaining information from sensor networks. "We must derive deep knowledge of the environment from these sensors." In the video clip, Orban goes on to discuss the various challenges in this field:

• Signal to Noise problem.
• Signal to Signal problem.
• Management of the sheer volume of data that is generated, or will be generated - how data is filtered and analysed.
• Dependability - managing spime systems and sensor networks of tens of billions of elements.
• Aggregation of data to derive second order knowledge.
• New phenomena will surprise us in the future, we will learn more about our environment, and listen to our planet more clearly.

Video by Wide Tag Inc.
October 2008



Related:

SHifT 08 was held in Lisbon, Portugal on October 15-17. The focus of this year's conference was Transient Technologies, "in the sense that technology is breaking up with it's digital boundaries and it's becoming a vital part of a lot of the things we do and interact with in our daily lives."

The themes of SHiFT 08 included user experience, mobile computing, sustainability, the social web, web design, open technologies, digital media, artificial intelligence, spimes, and knowledge & innovation.

Lazybrains 3D game: Another Brain-Computer Interface!

I came across an article about the BCI (Brain-Computer Interface) 3D game, Lazybrains, on the Wired website today. "Brain Scanners, Fingercams Take Computer Interfaces Beyond Multitouch"

LazyBrains was a Digital Media Senior Project of Aaron Bohenick, James Borden, Sachary Brooks, Kenneth Oum, and Jordan Santell, students at Drexel University.

Here is a video:

Game Teaser


Description of the BCI, a fNIR:

• "The Functional Near-Infrared Imaging Device (fNIR) is a technology that was developed at the University of Pennsylvania, but is currently being used by the Drexel University biomedical department. The device shines infrared light into the user's forehead, and records the amount of light that gets transmitted back. The change in the amount of light can be used to deduce information about the amount of oxygen in the blood. When the user concentrates, their frontal lobe needs more oxygen and this change can be detected by the device."

For more information, see the Voxel6 website.


Here is a link to a post about a similar BCI system:
Emotive System's Neural Game Controller Headset: Human-Computer Interface of the Future?

It will be interesting to see how this technology unfolds. In my opinion, it will be quite useful for cognitive rehabilitation, as well as providing access to games for people who have significant physical limitations.

Link to post: Assisting young people with autism spectrum disorders through the use of digital media

If you have an interest in digital media and interventions for young people with autism disorders, take a look at my recent TechPsych post:.

Cognitive Bursts; Sense of Self: Assisting young people with autism spectrum disorders through the use of digital media.

Two Links: Urban Screens, Urban Interfaces, Digital Media, and the Arts in Social-Public Spaces; Edward Tufte is a Smart Guy

Here are two links that I think you'll find interesting:

My post on the TSHWI blog, reflecting on interdisciplinary research and topics related to ubiquitous computing and large interactive displays in public spaces:

Urban Screens, Urban Interfaces, Digital Media, and the Arts in Social-Public Spaces


Bill Mackenty's reflections about workshop he attended that was led by Edward Tufte, known for his insights about the presentation of information graphics:

Edward Tufte is a Smart Guy

Revisiting promising projects: Dynamo, an application for sharing information on large interactive displays in public spaces

(from project website)
I've come across numerous interesting applications developed by university researchers that I haven't seen come to market. Part of the problem, I think, is that most of the world isn't yet ready for these innovations. Things seem to be changing a bit, so I thought I'd highlight some promising projects from the recent past that warrant revisiting.

Dynamo is a "communal, multi-user surface for sharing and exchanging digital media", according to information from the project's website.

"The idea is for it to be installed in public community centers, like cafes, bars, libraries and other places where people get together and share experiences, but usually only have lightweight technology on them - like mp3 players and digital cameras. Dynamo allows people to plug-in these personal devices via USB2, and place files onto the wall by drag and drop (e.g. music, photos, videos, office docs or live web-pages) via it's multi-user UI."

The project was a joint effort between the Mixed Reality Lab at Nottingham University and the Interact Lab at Sussex University.


Article: Dynamo: A public interactive surface supporting the cooperative sharing and exchange of media

Related links:
Dynamo
Dynamo-Interact Lab

More touch screen "surface" display musings...

I had my first chance to use an interactive touch-screen SmartBoard, by Smart Technologies in 2002-03. Since I work mostly with kids and teens, I wondered why large-display touch screen technology wasn't more widespread, since there are so many free, interactive websites that provide pretty engaging activities for users.

One of the things I learned was that large-display touch-screen technology is in the preschool stage. There are problems with screen responsiveness, screen resolution, durability, and input.

In recent years, the idea of a touch screen has evolved to table-tops and drafting boards, embedded within wireless systems that allow for interoperability with mobile devices and remote applications.

Great technology exists, but no-one has pulled all the components together in a way that can easily scale for the people who would benefit from this sort of technology the most - people who spend most of day time teaching, learning, or both. I had a great experience using a NextWindow Human Touch large-screen display for some of my projects last semester. It was difficult for me to track one down, but once I got my hands on it, I liked it, even though it did not have multi-touch capabilities.

One laptop for each child? That was a good idea for the late 1990's and early 2000's. One high-quality, affordable, large touch-screen display or table for each classroom would be more effective.

One touch-screen display/table for every 4-6 students would be better. Is there anyone out there who is up for the challenge?

Next Post: Updated links to interactive multimedia websites appropriate for large touch screen surfaces.

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.