MacArthur Foundation Digital Media and Learning Competition

The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation and the HASTAC Initiative is accepting applications through October 15, 2007. The two awards:

Innovation Awards

$250,000.00 and $100,000.00

"Innovation Awards will go to pioneers who are exploring new digital models of learning that build upon and enhance the informal, networked, and collaborative styles today, especially but not only among youth. These projects will demonstrate new modes of learning in many environments."

Knowledge-Networking Awards
$30.000.00-$75,000.00

"Knowledge-Networking Awards will go to creative and dedicated communicators. Not every digital inventor/developer is a skillful knowledge-networker. How can good ideas be circulated widely, taking full advantage of the Web's potential for collaborative thinking, where many can contribute, shape, and share?"

3D Collaborative Applications for Interactive Displays and Whiteboards: Croquet, EduSim

EduSim is an application for use on interactive whiteboards and displays, created using Croquet.

According to Julian Lombardi, Duke University's Assistant Vice President of Academic Services and Technology Support and Senior Research Scholar with the Information Science + Information Studies, "Croquet is a powerful new open source software development environment for creating and deploying deeply collaborative multi-user online applications on multiple operating systems and devices. Derived from Squeak, it features a peer-based network architecture that supports communication, collaboration, resource sharing, and synchronous computation between multiple users on multiple devices. Using Croquet, software developers can create and link powerful and highly collaborative cross-platform multi-user 2D and 3D applications and simulations - making possible the distributed deployment of very large scale, richly featured and interlinked virtual environments."

EduSim "How To" Videoclips

EduSim Videos
Croquet Screenshots

Related Information
The Cambridge Handbook of Multimedia Learning, edited by Richard E. Mayer, provides a good framework to support the importance of learning and interacting with multimedia.

According to information from the book, "Multimedia learning is defined as learning from words (e.g., spoken or printed text) and pictures (e.g., illustrations, photos, maps, graphs, animation, or video)... Multimedia environments included on-line instructional presentations, interactive lessons, e-courses, simulation games, virtual reality, and computer-supported in-class presentations...The Cambridge Handbook of Multimedia Learning seeks to establish what works (i.e., to determine which features of a multimedia lesson affect learning), to explain how it works (i.e., to ground research in cognitive theory), and to consider when and where it works (i.e., to explore the implications of research for practice)".

About: Ubiquitous Computing- Grandpa and grandkids use a webcam and Skype across the miles; "EMR: The Movie".

A close relative was recently in the hospital that offered free WiFi. The youngest grandchild, my niece, brought out her flute and played Grandpa a tune.



The instant access to the Internet made it possible to quickly look up medical information as the doctors spoke, which made it easier to ask informed questions later on.

To make the time go faster during the 9 hour wait in the emergency room, YouTube comedy clips from old Johnny Carson shows really helped. All of the laughing during an otherwise somber situation caused a bit of a stir among the medical staff, other patients, and their families.

Why not put a few Wi-Fi enabled displays around the emergency room?

A new hospital near Grand Rapids, Michigan, has taken this concept a step further. The hospital will be offer patients Internet access from wide-screen displays in their rooms:

"Each room is private, with windows, and offers a foldout couch for overnight guests, individual temperature and lighting adjustments and a 37-inch TV screen that can show any of 30 recently released movies. The video component also provides Internet access and a portal to view a person's electronically stored medical records, even results from tests taken just the day before."

UPDATE (3/29/09)
Information about the hospital, Metro Health:
"Just what the doctor ordered": Metro Health puts video over IP network to educate and entertain its patients

"Because the entertainment system is IP based, Optimal installers were able to connect it to the hospital’s HL7 network, a nationally accepted protocol that allows health systems to talk to each other. By connecting the IP network to the HL7, the system can access all patient records, entertainment, educational videos, even admissions information."

Coincidentally, I found this link in one of my "Google Alerts" messages about electronic medical records, titled "EMR: The Movie".

The author of the post discussed how EMR - Electronic Medical Records - have the potential of providing a snapshot of the patient's medical history. He went on to muse about how EMR should be depicted as a movie- which I think is a good idea.

At least the record system should use a combination of text, icons, video-clips, and interactive 3D medical imaging. Of course, this would have to be displayed on a touch screen display such as a NextWindow Human Touch or Microsoft Surface.....

Detailed post about NextWindow on the Future-Making Serious Games Blog

Elaine Alhadeff's has an extensive post about the various uses for NextWindow touch-screen displays on her Future-Making Serious Games blog. Take a look!

Nintendo Wii - Link to John Kirriemuir's "First Impressions"

I've been sharing a Wii with my daughter since December, 2006, and have meant to share my impressions of this innovative game system. Even my mother, who is in her 70's, has played it.

John Kirriemuir's extensive post, "Nintendo Wii: First Impressions", describes the Wii system in detail, with a set of pictures of happy players that span in age across the generations. John links to other Wii resources, and concludes that in the future, the Wii will become a focus of research among academicians from a variety of disciplines.

What I love best about the Wii is flopping down on the sofa, spinning the Wii Globe, and reading the electronic newspaper articles across my wide-screen TV. The fonts can be increased easily via the WiiMote, so those of you of a certain age won't need to remember your reading glasses to stay informed.

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