I started this blog in 2006-- and I do plan to get into the routine of blogging more more frequently. I'd love to update the posts that were the most popular in the past, and add links and resources that reflect what is going on with interactive multimedia technology in 2016. So much has evolved since I started this blog! 2006: Virtual Reality & Convergence with Game Technology
Note: Some of the links are broken.
FYI:
I still write blog posts from time to time.
Here are links to the blog post I've written for NUITEQ® about collaborative interactive technologies:
Topic: Given the emergence of Child Computer Interaction and the ubiquitous application of interactive technology as an educational tool, there is a need to explore how next generation HCI will impact education in the future. Educators are depending on the interaction communities and to deliver technologies that will improve and adapt learning to an ever- changing world. In addition to novel UI concepts, the HCI community needs to examine how these concepts can be matched to contemporary paradigms in educational pedagogy. The classroom is a challenging environment for evaluation, thus new techniques need to be established to prove the value of new HCI interactions in the educational space. This workshop provides a forum to discuss key HCI issues facing next generation education.
We invite authors to present position papers about potential design challenges and perspectives on how the community should handle the next generation of HCI in education. Topics of interest include:
• Gestural input, multitouch, large displays, multi-display interaction, response systems
• Empirical methods, case studies, linking of HCI research with educational research methodology
•Usable systems to support learning and teaching: Ecology of learning, any where, anytime, (UX of cloud computing to support teaching and learning)
Submission: The deadline for workshop paper submissions is January 14, 2011. Interested researchers should submit a 4-page position paper in the ACM CHI adjunct proceedings style to the workshop management system. Acceptance notifications will be sent out February 20, 2011. The workshop will be held May 7 or May 8, 2011 in Vancouver, Canada. Please note that at least one author of an accepted position paper must register for the workshop and for one or more days of the CHI 2011conference.
Contact: Edward Tse, SMART Technologies, edwardtse@smarttech.com
WORKSHOP ORGANIZERS Edward Tse, SMART Technologiess Johannes Schöning, DFKI GmbH Yvonne Rogers, Pervasive Computing Laboratory, The Open University Jochen Huber, Technische Universität Darmstadt Max Mühlhäuser, Technische Universität Darmstadt Lynn Marentette, Union County Public Schools, Wolfe School Richard Beckwith, Intel
Topic: Given the emergence of Child Computer Interaction and the ubiquitous application of interactive technology as an educational tool, there is a need to explore how next generation HCI will impact education in the future. Educators are depending on the interaction communities and to deliver technologies that will improve and adapt learning to an ever- changing world. In addition to novel UI concepts, the HCI community needs to examine how these concepts can be matched to contemporary paradigms in educational pedagogy. The classroom is a challenging environment for evaluation, thus new techniques need to be established to prove the value of new HCI interactions in the educational space. This workshop provides a forum to discuss key HCI issues facing next generation education.
We invite authors to present position papers about potential design challenges and perspectives on how the community should handle the next generation of HCI in education. Topics of interest include:
• Gestural input, multitouch, large displays, multi-display interaction, response systems
• Empirical methods, case studies, linking of HCI research with educational research methodology
•Usable systems to support learning and teaching: Ecology of learning, any where, anytime, (UX of cloud computing to support teaching and learning)
Submission: The deadline for workshop paper submissions is January 14, 2011. Interested researchers should submit a 4-page position paper in the ACM CHI adjunct proceedings style to the workshop management system. Acceptance notifications will be sent out February 20, 2011. The workshop will be held May 7 or May 8, 2011 in Vancouver, Canada. Please note that at least one author of an accepted position paper must register for the workshop and for one or more days of the CHI 2011conference.
Contact: Edward Tse, SMART Technologies, edwardtse@smarttech.com
WORKSHOP ORGANIZERS Edward Tse, SMART Technologiess Johannes Schöning, DFKI GmbH Yvonne Rogers, Pervasive Computing Laboratory, The Open University Jochen Huber, Technische Universität Darmstadt Max Mühlhäuser, Technische Universität Darmstadt Lynn Marentette, Union County Public Schools, Wolfe School Richard Beckwith, Intel
Note: Skip's talk begins about 4 minutes into the presentation.
In this TEDx Talk video, Marilyn Flynn, Dean of the University of Southern California's School of Social Work, introduces Skip Rizzo, a research scientist and Co-Director of the VRPSYCH Lab at the USC Institute of Creative Technologies (ICT). Skip's research has focused on the use of virtual realty and related technologies for treatment and training purposes.
In this talk, Skip provides an overview of the interdisciplinary research taking place at the Institute of Creative Technologies (ICT). Skip goes on to explain the urgency of ICT's current work, focusing on the treatment of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder and other problems experienced by people who have sacrificed so much to serve our country in places of wars and conflicts such as Iraq and Afganistan. Neary one-third of our military personnel are significantly at-risk for developing PTSD or other debilitating conditions that will negatively affect their functioning upon returning home.
Skip goes on to show how the latest VR (Virtual Reality) related technologies and applications combine with with evidence-based intervention and treatment strategies to successfully treat PTSD. Recent research indicates that 75% of clients treated through 10 sessions of exposure therapy no longer exhibit clinical symptoms of the disorder. Given the numbers of people suffering from PTSD and related disorders, the potential for this treatment method holds promise.
Skip points out that one problem many veterans or their loved ones experience is that they are not aware that effective treatment is available. Additionally, there are few therapists who are trained in the use of VR as a therapeutic tool. By working with USC's School of Social Work, this may no longer be the case in the future. Therapist can learn ways to provide effective evidence-based treatment through interacting with a "virtual human" application that uses an "intelligent" character that simulates the conversational exchanges that are likely to occur during treatment sessions. Additionally, the research behind this effort has resulted in the creation of an on-line system that includes virtual guides that can provide support and guidance to people suffering from PSTD in order to get them to engage in the treatment they require.
Here is information from the Institute of Creative Technologies regarding Skip Rizzo's TEDx USC Talk: Skip Rizzo's TEDx USC Talk Now Online "ICT’s Skip Rizzo spoke at this year’s TEDx USC conference and was introduced by Dean Marilyn Flynn of the USC School of Social Work. Video of their talk is now available for viewing on the TEDx Talk’s Channel on YouTube...Of the more than 1.6 million men and women deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan, nearly one-third are expected to return with disabling combat stress disorders that may affect some for a lifetime if left untreated.
Through and unlikely marriage of social work and cutting edge technology, the USC Institute for Creative Technologies and the USC School of Social Work are revolutionizing the training methods for a new generation of mental health professionals, shifting the way clinicians learn to interact with their patients."
Introduction: Marilyn Flynn, Dean, USC School of Social Work
Virtual Reality Demonstration: Albert “Skip” Rizzo, Research Scientist, USC Institute for Creative Technologies
The SensoramaLab at Aalborg University Esbjerg is involved in a variety of research activities focusing on interactive systems, including virtual reality, for use in rehabilitation.
Rich White is an educational technologist for Greenbush County, Kansas, has been working with the 3D interactive virtual world, EduSim, for quite a while. He's taking EduSim to the next level.
"The concept is one of an enclosed virtual learning space - with surrounded projection of the virtual learning world the students are exploring - similar to the StarLab Concept (with a rectangular configuration). along the lines of a CAVE - however simpler, mobile, and relatively in-expensive by comparison." The project is at the beginning prototype stage.
Below is a demo of the virtual world as it is projected on two screens that are placed next to each other at a right angle, with the center of the virtual-world view positioned where the two screens meet:
This might be a great way of reaching students who have autism!
More about EduSim:
EduSim, for those of you haven't seen my previous posts on the topic, is a multi-user 3D interactive environment used in classrooms with interactive whiteboards:
Wikipedia entry: "Edusim is a Cave Automatic Virtual Environment based concept of lesson driven 3D virtual worlds on the classroom interactive whiteboard or classroom interactive surface. The Edusim concept is demonstrated by the Edusim free and open source multi-user 3DOpen Cobalt virtual world platform and authoring tool kit modified for the classroom interactive whiteboard or surface. The Edusim application is a modified edition of the open source Open Cobalt Project and relies heavily on the affordances of direct manipulation of 3D virtual learning models and Constructionist Learning Principles." History of Edusim: "The Edusim project began in September 2007 at the Greenbush Education Service Center in Southeast Kansas as an effort to bring an engaging 3D experience to the classroom interactive whiteboard. Pilot groups were established with 6th and 7th grade middle school students throughout Southeast Kansas to observe how students would be engaged through the software, and how the user interface would need to be augmented to account for the affordances of the whiteboard, and the usability of the students."
Here is a virtual world in Edusim in COBALT, showing how a drag and drop function is used for in-world VNC application sharing:
The Cobalt 3D metaverse browser has been modified for multi-touch interaction by some of the members of RENCI, a collaborative venture of Duke University and several other North Carolina universities. The video below is Dr. Xunlei Wu, demonstrating how gesture and touch is used to manipulate items and navigate through two Cobalt virtual worlds:
Some of the members of RENCI built a multi-touch table in addition to the collaborative multi-touch wall. For more information:
The Funky Forest was created by Emily Gobeille and Theodore Watson for the 2007 CineKid festival in the Netherlands, using OpenFrameworks, an open-source application used for multimedia and multi-touch applications. Take a look at the video and pictures of the children interacting with this technology!
"It “is a wild and crazy ecosystem where you manage the resources to influence the environment around you. Streams of water flowing on the floor can be diverted to make the different parts of the forest grow. If a tree does not receive enough water it withers away but by pressing your body into the forest you create new trees based on your shape and character. As you explore and play you discover that your environment is inhabited by sonic life forms who depend on a thriving ecosystem to survive.”
The trees and creatures in the installation look really beautiful; just abstract enough to make it look like a strange magical forest, but the processes of our real ecosystems are still recognisable. A really wonderful project. And it sure looks like a lot of fun!" -Tanja, from the TakeBigBites blog
Elaine Alhadeff's Future-Making Serious Games blog has a wealth of interesting information for people interested in how interactive multimedia technology can impact the present- and the future. Take the time to visit her blog and take a look!
Here is a slice from one of her latest posts:
Via: daytaOhio - Barco and daytaOhio Equipped Collaborative Visualization Complex at Wright State’s Joshi Research Center "Barco, a leading global provider of visual display systems, has partnered with daytaOhio to implement the industry’s most advanced virtual collaboration and visualization complex at Wright State University’s Joshi Research Center. "
It is exciting to learn about the growth in collaborative visualization! The businessmen below seem to be enjoying the experience:
For more interesting ideas, look at Eliane's archived posts about serious games.
Take a look at my post on the TechPsych blog about virtual reality field trips. Imagine what a virtual field trip would be like on a large touch-screen display!
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...."
