LUMO, by PO-Motion: Projection system for children that transforms kid's designs into interactive creations (Kickstarter)

I'd like to give a shout-out to Meghan Athavale, Curtis Wachs and the other interactive minds at PO-MO for their Kickstarter project.  LUMO is an interactive system that allows any room - not just a kid's room - to be transformed into an environment that encourages play, interaction, and creativity.

From what I know about PO-MO-s other creative projects, LUMO is deserving of financial backing. Although this is the company's first venture into a hardware solution, it looks promising.  If it can be produced on a larger scale, children - as well as kids at heart - will have a new opportunity use technology to create interactive mixed reality play-scapes, right in their homes.

Watch the video, and then head over to LUMO on Kickstarter and make your pledge!

"LUMO turns a kid's room into an interactive playground, encouraging movement and imaginative play in children of any age."


Screen shot of the creation tools for children to use when creating their LUMO interactive effects:

Credit: PO-MO

ABOUT PO-MO

The following information was taken from the Kickstarter website:

PO-MO Inc. creates interactive experiences for museums, retail environments and events.

They also offer SaaS platform Po-motion.com, a website which enables people all over the world to create their own interactive floor and wall installations.

In 2010, Meghan Athavale and her business partner Curtis Wachs decided to quit their day jobs and design interactive experiences for a living. They launched PO-MO Inc. in July 2010. Within a few months, Keith Otto and Matt Gillies joined PO-MO. Meghan and the PO-MO team launched Po-motion interactive floor and wall projection software as a beta in early 2011. In 2012, the full version of Po-motion was launched and Meghan won many awards at investment pitch contests, was one of 12 people chosen to participate in Tech Women Canada in Silicon Valley, and closed the year with an amazing advisory board, another member of the team (Joss Le Leannec) and a profitable, global company.

Meghan Athavale (CEO) and partner Curtis Wachs (CTO), along with Matt Gillies, Keith Otto, Jocelyne Le Leannec and Dave Kelly spend their days making, playing with, and dreaming of interactive surfaces.

RELATED

PO-MO Website
LUMOPlay
PO-MO interactive effects for special events and parties:
PO-MO Inc. interactive visuals for parties from PO-MO Inc. on Vimeo.

Learning to Teach through Mixed Reality: UCF's TeachLivE

Imagine this.  A mixed-reality environment designed to provide pre-service student teachers and teachers looking to improve their skills a chance to try out new strategies, without messing up with real kids!   TLE TeachLiveE™ was developed by researchers at the Synthetic Reality Lab located at the Institute for Simulation & Training at the University of Central Florida. It  looks like a great training tool for young college students who are planning to take on the challenge of a career in education.  

With modifications, the TeachLivE system looks like it would be a good tool for building skills of principals-in-training, as well as others who plan to work in the schools, such as  future school psychologists, school nurses, and school resource officers.

Below is a description of the system from the TeachLivE website, along with some videos and related links. 

(Be sure to watch the video of MILES, near the end of this post. MILES is a similar application designed to support the training of social workers and therapists, and features that could be used to enhance the TeachLiveE system.)

"TLE TeachLivE™ is a mixed-reality classroom with simulated students that provides teachers the opportunity to develop their pedagogical practice in a safe environment that doesn’t place real students at risk. This lab is currently the only one in the country using a mixed reality environment to prepare or retrain pre-service and in-service teachers. The use of TLE TeachLivE™ Lab has also been instrumental in developing transition skills for students with significant disabilities, providing immediate feedback through bug-in-ear technology to pre-service teachers, developing discreet trial skills in pre-service and in-service teachers, and preparing teachers in the use of STEM-related instructional strategies." -TeachLivE 

Virtual Reality Classroom Trains Teacher

"There is a child with ADHD, there is a child who is going to take out their cell phone, and do something with his cell phone right there for our pre-service teacher, if our preservice teacher is not paying attention to that child.  So what they've tried to do is actually program different types of children into each simulated avatar." -Dr. David Rock, Dean, School of Education, University of Mississippi. 




RELATED
A good overview of the use of virtual worlds and environments for learning.At 7:44, Stephen Bronack, of Learn NC, provides an overview of TeachLivE at TEDX Greenville. TeachLivE is in place at Clemson University in S.C.
 


MILES: Motivation Interviewing Learning Environment and Simulation (MILES) was created by researchers at the USC Institute of Creative Technologies and uses the power of a game engine to create the main character.  MILES is used at the USC School of Social Work to help future therapist develop their therapist/client interactive skills to provide treatment for service members, veterans, or family members of people impacted by the military, and is used by group of students in social work graduate courses in a way that tracks learning progress and informs classroom discussion.

TeachLivE Website
TeachLivE program at UCF attracts interest from Sesame Street Creators
Amanda Palmiera, Central Florida Future, 7/21/13
My World Has Been Rocked: Educator reviews 'TeachLive', a virtual teaching environment
Brian Greenberg, edSurge 6/24/13
UM Uses Student Avatars for Teacher Training
Andrew Mark Abernathy, Ole Miss News 3/18/13
SLU using avatars, virtual classrooms as teaching tools
The Times-Picayune, 4/9/13

TeachLivE publications:
Elford, M., Carter, R., & Aronin, S. (2013). Virtual reality check: Teachers use bug-in-ear coaching to practice feedback techniques with student avatars. JSD, 34(1), 40–43.

Hayes, A. T., Straub, C. L., Dieker, L. A., Hughes, C. E., & Hynes, M. C. (2013). Ludic Learning: Exploration of TLE TeachLivETM and Effective Teacher Training. Int. J. Gaming Comput. Mediat. Simul., 5(2), 20-33. doi: 10.4018/jgcms.2013040102

Andreasen, J. B. & Haciomeroglu, E. S. (2009). Teacher training in virtual environments. Paper presented at the annual meeting of the North American Chapter of the International Group for the Psychology of Mathematics Education, Atlanta, GA. 

USC Develops Virtual Tool to Train Child Interviewers
Evy Jacobson, USC Gould School Of Law, 5/14/13
Emergent Leader Immersive Training Environment
USC Institute for Creative Technologies

SOMEWHAT RELATED
Blend My Learning 
NewSchools Venture Fund

ACO VIRTUAL: Interactive virtual chamber orchestra, with 3D musicians

The Australian Chamber Orchestra has unveiled ACO VIRTUAL, an installation that provides music-lovers the opportunity to experience what it is like to be surrounded by thirteen performing musicians, with the opportunity to control what you choose what is heard. The installation was created in collaboration with Mod Productions, an interactive multimedia company.

This promises to become a fantastic music education and performance tool!  To get a better understanding of ACO VIRTUAL, view the following video clips:

ACO VIRTUAL Trailer


"Each instrumentalist was filmed at Fox Studios, ACO artistic director and lead violin Richard Tognetti said, using the same "bullet-time" camera equipment used to shoot The Matrix, in both 2D and 3D. Visitors can enjoy the full stereoscopic experience with provided 3D glasses." -CNET

ACO Virtual Launch of Touring Installation

ACO VIRTUAL launch at MCA from Mod Productions on Vimeo.


CNET Interview: Building an Interactive Virtual Chamber Orchestra



How they did it:

The experience is controlled by a touch-pad app:

Credit: Will Huxley, ACO VIRTUAL

RELATED
Building an Interactive Virtual Chamber OrchestraAustralian Chamber Orchestra
Michelle Starr, CNET Australia, 9/26/13

ACO VIRTUAL

Mod Productions

Mod Productions Blog

Mod Productions ACO VIRTUAL

ACO VIRTUAL:  Play With the Band (pdf)

(Information for exhibitors)

ACO VIRTUAL iPhone App

Librarians as Data Scientists: Data Science for All

Librarians as Data Scientists: Data Science for All

"The ability to take data - to be able to understand it, to process it, to extract value from it, to visualize it, to communicate it - that's going to be a hugely important skill in the next decades. " - Hal Varian, McKinsey Quarterly

I came across the above quote from the Data Scientist Training for Librarians website.  It provides the motivation for librarians - and others- to consider learning more about data science - a field that applies to just about every field of study in some way, as well as most professions.

Credit: Dirk Tiede/DST4L

Librarians are in a good position to become early embracers of data science, as they are interested in information, understand a wide range of scholarly (and not-so scholarly) topics, and serve as the human interface bridging people and ideas. Wearing many hats, they provide resources for people from all walks of life, in community libraries, schools, universities, government, industry, and research centers.  With the power of today's computers and software tools, they have the potential to play an important role in the way we discover, curate, understand, and communicate knowledge. 

Chris Erdmann, the head librarian of the John G. Wolbach Library at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, in collaboration with like-minded others, organized the first Data Scientist Training for Librarians (DST4L) course. The first round of the course included a number of noted speakers from a variety of disciplines, and covered a number of topics, as summarized  by Jennifer Prentice (Simmons Graduate School of Library and Information Science Tech Lab) on the course website.

The second DST4L course was opened to all librarians, with a solid list of topics outlined on the syllabus.   The course started with a 2-hour introduction to the course last July, captured in the video below: 



I'd like to share that Chris Erdmann is a member of the Seamless Astronomy Group, a multi-disciplinary collaboration of astronomers, computer scientists, librarians, visualization specialists, and information scientists.  The aim of this group is to research and develop systems that "seamlessly integrate scientific data and literature, the semantic interlinking and annotation of scientific resources, the study of the impact of social media and networking sites on scientific dissemination, and the analysis and visualization of astronomical data and research communities".  

As I looked at the info-graphic posted on the Seamless Astronomy website (below), it occurred to me that this conceptualization could apply to a number of disciplines.  I look forward to learning more about the tools, methods, and processes that this group generates!

Credit: Seamless Astronomy Group

One of the projects that interests me is the WorldWide Telescope, a collaboration between Microsoft Research and the Seamless Astronomy group. The WorldWide Telescope is a visualization software that enables people to explore data and high resolution images stored in the "cloud" through a web browser or computer application. According to Chris Endermann, a student project exploring the use of the new Oculus Rift virtual reality headset with the WorldWide Telescope is in the works.   

RELATED AND SOMEWHAT RELATED

Data Scientist Training for Librarians 
Data Scientist Training For Librarians Course Details

Data Science: What's in it for the New Librarian?
jmstanto, Information Space, 7/16/12

Cracking the Code: Librarians Acquiring Essential Coding Skills Matt Enis, The Digital Shift, 3/6/13 (Links to tutorials)

OpenRefine: Data Scientist Trainings for Librarians Presentation (SlideShare) 
Tom Morris, 3/28/13

Librarians Are Becoming Big Data Experts
John Edwards, BigData Republic, 8/9/13

Code {4}lib Issue 21

Prototyping as a Process for Improved User Experience with Library and Archives Websites
Shaun Ellis, Maureen Callahan, code{4}lib Journal, Issue 18, 10/3/12

Crafting Linked Open Data for Cultural Heritage:  Mapping and Curating Tools for the Linked Jazz Project M. Cristina Pattuelli, Matt Miller, Leanora Lange, Sean Fitzell, Carolyn Li-Madeo, code{4}lib Journal, 7/15/13

Collaborative Librarianship News

Confederation of Open Access Repositories

Public Libraries Add Multimedia Learning to Digital Mission
Nora Fleming, Education Week, 9/15/13

Life of an emerging technologies librarian in the health sciences (must-read)
Patricia F. Anderson, UMSI Monthly, 1/2013


Data and Coding for Journalists

Although journalists aren't librarians, the profession has expanded to include data journalism, a growing field fueled by the visual nature of the web and the increase in popularity of mobile devices in the form of smart phones and tablets. Books and newspapers are still with us, but technology has changed the way journalists do their jobs

I'm not sure if the journalists and librarians are collaborating with each other as they venture into coding and data analysis.   If not, they should!  The links below would be of interest to librarians, journalists, and other knowledge junkies.


Video: Journalism in the Age of Data

Journalism in the Age of Data from Geoff McGhee on Vimeo.

Coding for the Future: The Rise of Hacker Journalism
Maryanne Reed, Media Shift, 5/2/13
The above post includes a number of video and audio clips on the topic, plus a number of links, such as the following:

• The Census Bureau
• Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services
• Sunlight Foundation
• National Institute on Money in State Politics

Data scraping tool for non-coding journalists launches     (Import.io)
Sarah Marshall, Journalism.Co.Uk, 9/9/13

Data Journalism Handbook: A Five Minute Field Guide
Data Journalism Handbook Chapter:  Getting Data

ODDS AND ENDS
A little history about the idea of seamlessness in computing:
The Computer for the 21st Century
Mark Weiser, Scientific American, September 1991 (online draft)


My thoughts on the need for data/information visualization not long after the world-wide financial crisis:
Reflections: Need for Interactive Infoviz for the Financial Biz, Business Leaders, Government Officials, Educators and the Rest of US... 
Lynn Marentette, Interactive Multimedia Technology, 2/1/09



Since I'm a school psychologist (in my day job), I thought I'd slip this in: 
Why every (psychology) student should learn to code 
Matt Wall, Computing for Psychologists, 1/13/13
Many of Matt Wall's links would be of interest to anyone thinking about learning more about technology, data analysis, and related coding.

Narcolepsy Awareness Infographic, FDA's Public Meeting

One of my daughters was diagnosed with narcolepsy during her senior year of high school. It is one of those "hidden" diseases that doesn't get much attention. The good news is that as a result of advocate Julie Flygare and others, the FDA has chosen narcolepsy as the focus of a public meeting on September 24. 2013, to learn more about the disease, straight from the people who are challenged by it every day. 

This initiative is part of the Patient-Focused Drug Development initiative. "For each disease area, the Agency will conduct a public meeting to discuss the disease and its impact on patients' daily lives, the types of treatment benefit that matter most to patients, and patients' perspectives on the adequacy of the available therapies. These meetings will include participation of FDA review divisions, the relevant patient community, and other interested stakeholders.

For additional information see the Unite Narcolepsy website.  If you have narcolepsy or are close to someone who has it, you can complete an on-line survey to provide input to the FDA on the impact of this disease.

Eye Tribe Eye Tracker Dev Kit, $99; Open Source ITU Gaze Tracker Grows Up!

The Eye Tribe Eye Tracker developer kit is available for pre-order for $99.00. The kit comes with an SDK with C++, C#, and Java, full source code included.  

I've been waiting for a while to see this happen! 

The Eye Tribe Eye Tracker is an outgrowth of the work of a group of researchers at the IT University of Copenhagen.  At the time, it was known as the open-source ITU Gaze Tracker. 
I came across it a few years ago in a NUI-Group forum, and later wrote a post about it when the 2.0 version was released. 

Although the Eye Tribe Tracker was originally developed to meet the needs of people with disabilities who could not access computers, it was found to have potential for a number of other uses that were not really possible before the spread of mobile technologies such as touch-screen tablets and smart phones. 

To get a better understanding of eye-gaze/tracking technology, take a look at the following videos and follow the related links.



Below is a demonstration of the gaze UI on an Android smartphone:


Here is another look at this technology running on a Windows 8 Tablet:





RELATED
The Eye Tribe (website)
Eye Tribe starts taking pre-orders for $99 Windows eye tracker
Senseye will let you control your mobile phone with your eyes
Martin Bryant, The Next Web, 12/2/11
Open-source Eye-tracking: The ITU Gaze Tracker 2.0 Beta Via Martin Tull, NUI-Group Member
Lynn Marentette, Interactive Multimedia Technology, 11/1/10
ITU GazeGroup
Gaze Tracker Development
GazeGroup Forum
Martin Tall


RELATED VIDEOS
Eye Tribe was formally known as Senseye. Below is an earlier video that shows how it worked with a web-cam on a mobile device:



Open-Source ITU Gaze Tracker

ITU Gaze Tracker from ITUcph on Vimeo.


Earlier Videos of the ITU Gaze Tracker:
Technical Demonstration 




Seeking Sustainable Innovation