Immersive Learning for Math using DimensionU Games - new "Play, Learn and Earn" with an allowance component

Take a look at the latest development to DimensionU's interactive math games! Parents can track their children's progress and translate it into an allowance. Students who play the 3D multi-player games show significant improvement in their math skills.


Take a look at the videos below, and check out the website.


DimensionU's National Scholarship Tournament:


RELATED
DimensionU YouTube Channel
DimensionU Website
DimensionU for educators

Off-topic: "Communication technology for human-dog interaction" and "The secret life of my dog: design and evaluation of paw tracker concept"...and my dog.

I was reading an article about interactive mobile video and along the way came across a couple of articles about "human-dog interaction" (see references and links below).  Maybe the research will lead to a solution regarding my dog, Tilly.  She does not want me to read or do anything related to technology!

Tilly's a quirky dog who always drops her chew toys on my lap when I am using my iPad or iPhone.  She likes to drop her bone on my iPad, too.

If I am doing something on my laptop, she will close it with her nose or paw.  If she doesn't close it, she will try to put her whole head on the keyboard. The following picture was taken while I was trying to write this post:

If I can find the time, I enjoy reading technical journals, but Tilly doesn't like it one bit. Here she's trying to take an issue of Pervasive and Ubiquitous Computing from me!

She chewed up the latest issue of IEEE Spectrum before I could read it:


In the picture below, she's chewing a chew-stick and making sure I don't get anywhere near my short stack of Communications of the ACM journals.  You can tell by her expression that she is probably thinking that the journals might make a tasty snack!



Tilly has NEVER chewed up a fashion or home decor magazine, and she NEVER bothers me when I am cooking or doing household chores.  


Articles:

Paasovaara, S., Paldanius, M., Saarinen, P., Häkkilä, J.,  and Väänänen-Vainio-Mattila, K.  The secret life of my dog: design and evaluation of paw tracker concept.  In Proceedings of Mobile HCI. 2011, 231-240.


Paldanius, M., Kärkkäinen, T., Väänänen-Vainio-Mattila, K., Juhlin, O.,  and Häkkilä, J.  Communication technology for human-dog interaction: exploration of dog owners' experiences and expectations.  In Proceedings of CHI. 2011, 2641-2650. 

You Know You've Secretly Wanted to Learn To Code! (Info, links, video!)

You know you've secretly wanted to learn to code. Just do it! 


"Make your New Year's resolution learning to code.Sign up on Code Year to get a new interactive programming lesson sent to you each week and you'll be building apps and web sites before you know it." -Code Year  http://codeyear.com/


BTW, coding skills are needed beyond the world of apps and websites. Take a look at some of the posts and links on this blog - your imagination just might be sparked!  If you already know how to code, why not commit to learning something new?  


COMMENT:  There is much more to coding than what you'll learn through Code Academy's Code Year process. If you are serious about learning more about coding, computer science, and software systems, take an introductory course at your local community college or university extension program,  preferably with a friend. Ask the instructor if some of the assignments can be done through the "paired programming" technique.  It is more fun and social than the traditional way of coding!


Of all the textbooks, videos, and coding/programming self-help books I've come across, the series that has made the most sense to me is the brain-friendly "Head First" publications from O'Reilly.  It explains things well for beginners. Although it contains text and code, there are many pictures, diagrams, and humorous visual representation of basic concepts that are much more engaging than traditional "learn-to-code" tomes.


It is not too late to learn to code! 
There are so many great resources available to us now, in 2012, there is no excuse to ignore your inner geek.  If some (or all) of your hair is grey, why do crossword puzzles or Sudoku when you can be creative with code?


I took my first programming class about 8 years ago, when my youngest daughter was in high school.  It was daunting at first, because the textbook was dry, the programming labs were tedious, and some of my mostly-male classmates already knew how to code.  In my case, I was motivated to learn to code because I wanted to create games at the time, and this got me over the hump.  I soon learned that coding is both a science and an art, and learning to code opens up a whole new way of thinking. (See the video of Jeanette Wing's presentation about computational thinking, at the end of this post.)


RELATED
Why your 2012 New Year's Resolution Should Be Learning to Code
Sarah J., SPOTLIGHT on Digital Media and Learning Blog 1/9/12
PLAYBACK:  Pedagogy, Coding and Teaching Kids to Think Deeply
Sarah J., SPOTLIGHT on Digital Media and Learning 1/13/12
Center for Computational Thinking
Computational Thinking (pdf) (Jeannette Wing)
Code Academy
http://codeyear.com/
Head First Labs
Coding4Fun
Coding4Fun Blog
Coding4Fun KinectToolkit
Kinect for Windows SDK
CSTA:  ACM K-12 Computer Science Model Curriculum, 2nd Edition
CS Model Curriculum, 2nd Edition (pdf)
Jeanette M. Wing's Vision: "Computational thinking will be a fundamental skill used by everyone in the world by the middle of the 21st Century"
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For 2012, my goal is to brush up on my previously learned coding skills and learn a few new ones related to the Kinect. I also want to become comfortable with HTML5.

Quick Post: Interactive 3D Plug-in for SMARTBoard (Video) Notebook

Quick Post: Screen grab of Samsung Galaxy Note and Tab from stream, via CNET live blog

CNET CES Live Blog

Samsung Series 9

"Kinect-based Telepresence with Room Sized 3D Capture and Life Sized Display", Includes Behind-the Scene "how-to" (UNC Chapel Hill)

Jim Spadaccini, of Open Exhibits, recently told me about a project that involves the real-time, interactive 3-D capture of people in a room.  As the viewer moves around the screens, the depth-detecting feature of the Kinect is harnessed to set the stage for a realistic telepresence experience.  


Take the time to view the video, which contains some interesting views of how the system works:





Thanks, Jim, for the link!

RELATED/SOMEWHAT RELATED
Kinect Real-Time Room Telepresence
Kinecthacks, 1/3/12
From the project's website:

Maimone, A. and H. Fuchs. "A First Look at a Telepresence System with Room-Sized Real-Time 3D Capture and Large Tracked Display." The 21st International Conference on Artificial Reality and Telexistence (ICAT) (Osaka, Japan, November 28-30, 2011) [paper] [video]

Maimone, A. and H. Fuchs. "Encumbrance-free Telepresence System with Real-time 3D Capture and Display using Commodity Depth Cameras." The IEEE International Symposium on Mixed and Augmented Reality (ISMAR) 2011 (Basel, Switzerland, October 26-29, 2011) [paper] [video]

Open Exhibits