Cross Post: "knann's" blogmark links to interactive websites

This is also posted on the TechPsych blog:

"knann" has posted several bookmarks on Blogmarks about interactive websites and applications for education, including some that look appropriate for interactive whiteboards and displays.

Blogmarks provides screen-shots of bookmarked web-pages that are helpful in locating information quickly.

Click on any of the above screenshots to discover some of the links on knann's Blogmarks.

Microsoft's Photosynth: Immersive Learning Possibilties

I just came across an interesting article in the on-line MIT Technology Review, written by Jeffery MacIntyre, about Photosynth, developed by Microsoft's Live Labs:

Microsoft's Shiny New Toy: Photosynth is an application that's still a work in progress. It is dazzling, but what is it for?

I think that the PhotoSynth application would be very useful in education settings - K-12 and also at the university level. More classrooms now have interactive whiteboards that connect to the Web, providing a broader range of possibilities for educators to create engaging, immersive learning experience for their students. Young people would have the opportunity to experience virtual field trips and collaborate with students around the world. An application such as PhotoSynth, coupled with an information/data visualization component, would be quite useful in high school and university classrooms.

From the TechReview Article:


"You are here: Photosynth, an application in development at Microsoft’s Live Labs, offers an immersive way to view photos of a given thing or place. The software has not yet been released, but Microsoft is demonstrating it online with photo collections such as this one of Venice’s St. Mark’s Square." Credit: Courtesy of Microsoft Live Labs

Below are links from the TechReview article:

"Watch Photosynth stitch photos together." "View images from Photosynth and see how it works."

From Microsoft's Website: "Photosynth takes a large collection of photos of a place or object, analyzes them for similarities, and displays them in a reconstructed 3-Dimensional space." "With Photosynth you can: walk or fly through a scene to see photos from any angle; seamlessly zoom in or out of a photograph even if it's gigapixels in size; see where pictures were taken in relation to one another; find similar photos to the one you’re currently viewing; explore a custom tour or see where you’ve been; or send a collection to a friend."

If any readers have thoughts about the use of PhotoSynth in educational settings or situations, please leave a comment!

Microsoft's PhotoSynth website

Online Multimedia Library from LEARN NC and UNC Chapel Hill for K-12 and higher

Learn N.C. has a wealth of on-line resources for educators, students, and parents. I particularly like the on-line multimedia library. Below are links to resources for the following topics, obtained through the "tag cloud" on the multimedia library site.

Here are the direct links:
4-H clubs Agra American Indians American Indian towns Angkor animals archaeology architecture artAsia Bali Bangkok beaches birds boat Buddhism Cambodia carvings children Colombia colonialcostumes deities demons drawings Ecuador Emerald Buddha Temple excavations families farming fishing flowers food forests geography girls grass Green 'N' Growing Hanoi Hanuman Hinduism history houses illustrations India Indonesia Jaipur Jodhpur John White Khmer kings labor
landforms landscapes maps markets men's work Mexico monkeys monuments mountains murals musicMysore national parks Nepal North Carolina Occaneechi paintings palaces performance RamaRamayana Ravana religion rice rivers rural life salt marshes sandstone Sita snakes Southeast Asiatechnology temples Thailand theaters tourism
transportation trees turkey Ubud urban life Utah Vietnam Vietnam War Virginia water women women's work

LEARN NC is led by a number of knowledgable staff and consultants.

The website is worth exploring for a while!

Take a wlook

FireFly Game for Microsoft Surface: Demo by Carbonated Games; A look at a Multi-touch from Next Window

Watch the video clip to see more about Firefly game that was developed by Carbonated Games to take advantage of Microsoft's multi-touch enabled Surface table computer system. The game is in demo form only.For more information, see the article from Gaming Today.

For those of you who need multi-touch before you can get your hands on the Surface, you might be interested in NextWindow's multi-touch display, recently demonstrated at an expo:



Here are links to touch-screen project prototypes I worked on for HCI and Ubicomp classes I took in 2007:
poetry picture share photo-globe explorer

Link to post: Reflecting about Interaction-Updated

If you are interested in interaction and technology, I've updated my "Reflecting about Interaction" posts on my TSHWI (Technology-Supported Human-world Interaction) blog. I've embedded a couple of video clips that show how body movements interact with music applications. One is an interactive music wall, and the other is a staircase that senses people's movements and plays music and sounds as they move.

You might also be interested in my latest post about Johnny Chung Lee and his Wii hacks. "I wish I could be Johnny Chung Lee for a Day!"

Mind Habits Update

I previously had a demo of one of the interactive games from MindHabits on this blog, but it no longer is available. The newer MindHabits on-line demo includes several games.

From the MindHabits website:

"Montreal-based MindHabits develops science-based videogames designed to help players reduce stress and build self-confidence. Founded on social intelligence research by Dr. Mark Baldwin at McGill University, these stress busting, confidence boosting games use simple, fun-to-play exercises that help players develop and maintain a more positive state of mind."

MindHabits allows you to adjust the faces that you see on the screen:

"Click the “Game Options” button and try moving the “neighbourhood” slider back and forth until you find a mix of faces that matches where you live as closely as possible."

Here is a screen shot of one of the MindHabits games:

The MindHabits games are evidenced-based:

Stephane D. Dandeneau, Mark W. Baldwin, Jodene R. Baccus, and Maya Sakellaropoulo, Jens C. Pruessner (2007), Cutting Stress Off at the Pass: Reducing Vigilance and Responsiveness to Social Threat by Manipulation of Attention (pdf) Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 2007, Vol. 93, No. 4, 651–666 American Psychological Association 0022-3514/07/$12.00 DOI: 10.1037/0022-3514.93.4.651