2008-12: Media Grid Launches Library Technology Working Group (LIB.TWG) for Immersive Education.
The Media Grid this month launched the Library Technology Working Group
(LIB.TWG) to define, implement, evolve and maintain applications and
open standards related to the provision of library services associated
with Immersive Education. Participation in the Library TWG is open to
the public and members of the Immersive Education Initiative having
experience with real-world or digital libraries, or extensive experience
developing or using virtual worlds, simulators or video games. Access
to the Library TWG is available through the group charter at http://mediagrid.org/groups/technology/LIB.TWG/.
2008-11: Immersive Education Initiative Launches Asia Series of Events in Japan.
The Immersive Education Initiative today announced that it will launch its series of Immersive Education: ASIA events in Japan this month. Immersive Education Japan (iED Japan) begins with "Immersive Education Days at University of Aizu", which features two days of Immersive Education presentations, lectures, workshops and related events presented by faculty, teachers and researchers from around the world who are participating in the event in person and remotely using virtual worlds technology. During the event, which spans November 18th through the 20th, Immersive Education Initiative members from Boston College, University of Aizu, National University of Singapore, Keio University, Smithsonian Institution, Montana State University, Southeast Kansas Education Service Center at Greenbush, University of Essex and Sun Microsystems will give a series of presentations and demonstrations to provide attendees with an in-depth overview of Immersive Education, the Education Grid and related technologies.
2008-10: Open File Formats Technology Working Group (OFF.TWG) Launches.
The Media Grid Open File Formats Technology Working Group is responsible for defining, evolving and maintaining open, platform- neutral file formats that enable learning objects and experiences to be seamlessly deployed across Immersive Education technology platforms. Today's virtual worlds, simulators and learning games are essentially walled gardens; users are not able to interact with the same objects or experiences from different platforms, nor are users of one platform able to interact with users residing in another platform. The Open File Formats Technology Working Group is actively standardizing cross-platform content interchange by adopting and promoting open, platform neutral 3D/VR file formats that enable the promise of "create once, experience everywhere."
2008-08: Immersive Education Initiative Launches South America Series of Events.
The Immersive Education Initiative today launched its series of Immersive Education: South America events. Today's "Immersive Education Day at Fundación Universitaria Sanitas" event connects over 200 delegates attending the conference in Bogota, Colombia, with faculty, teachers and researchers from around the world who are participating in the event remotely using virtual worlds technology. During the event Immersive Education Initiative members from Boston College, Cornell University, Montana State University, Southeast Kansas Education Service Center at Greenbush, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), Media Communications Technology High School, and Sun Microsystems will give a series of presentations and demonstrations to provide attendees with an in-depth overview of Immersive Education.
2008-08: Newsweek International features Director of the Media Grid and Immersive Education Initiative.
Newsweek International's SPECIAL REPORT: THE EDUCATION RACE features Aaron E. Walsh, Director of the Media Grid and Immersive Education Initiative. The special report by Newsweek examines how technology and higher gas prices are driving a boom in online and education across the United States.
2008-06: Immersive Education Initiative Launches The Education Grid.
The Immersive Education Initiative today launched the Education Grid with an early preview of Sun Microsystems Laboratory's Project Wonderland virtual world servers ("nodes") hosted by Essex University (United Kingdom), University of Oregon, St. Paul College, New Media Consortium (NMC), Common Need, and Sun Microsystems. The Education Grid is a free public utility provided by the Immersive Education Initiative and its members. Starting today initiative members have early access to the Education Grid, where they can conduct classes and meetings within a growing collection of virtual worlds. Initiative members can also use the Education Grid to build custom virtual learning worlds, simulations, and learning games.
2008-06: Immersive Education Initiative Celebrates 1st Birthday in the Virtual World, Expands in the Real World.
The Immersive Education Initiative, in celebration of its first anniversary and a number of recent accomplishments, will throw a virtual 1st birthday party tonight for its members and the public as it looks forward to the year ahead. Immersive Education was conceived in 2005 as an application of the Media Grid. The corresponding initiative was officially launched one year ago today, with an open call to educators, students, and professionals who had experience using virtual learning environments or video game technologies. In the year since the initiative was started it has grown to more than 200 members from around the world.
2008-03: Immersive Education Initiative receives $1.2 Million STEM donation from the John C. Ford Program.
The Ford Program donates 67 STEM programs and associated learning materials and technologies to the Immersive Education Initiative under an Open Educational Resources (OER) Creative Commons license. The donation, valued at $1.2 Million USD, was developed with funding by the United States Department of Commerce, W.K. Kellogg Foundation, Dallas Foundation, COMP USA, EDS Foundation, Bank of America Foundation, Microsoft Corporation, Chase Bank and private investors. The donation provides the Immersive Education Initiative with a solid base of STEM programs from which a range of next-generation applied engineering immersive learning experiences will be developed.
2008- 02: eWEEK article: Sun Explains New Strategy for Education. Sun Microsystems has seen the future of education, and it can be viewed right there on a desktop monitor.
Scott McNealy, Sun's chairman of the board, explained his take on this topic Feb. 28 at Sun's annual education summit here at the Westin St. Francis. Some 1,000 school district, K-12, college and university IT administrators were on hand at the Worldwide Education and Research Conference to hear about the latest in technology for the classroom. McNealy described an intriguing initiative with which Sun has become involved, called immersive education.
2008-01: Virtual Worlds News interview
Media Grid to Take Education Across the Virtual World—and the XO. Media Grid recently announced its plans to roll out a cross-platform, immersive world for education for academics, students, and trainers everywhere. After experimenting with VRML, the Unreal Engine, and other tools since 2001, the organization realized that it needed to begin looking beyond simply one platform. It formed the Immersive Education Initiative and looked for options.
Immersive Education Initiative announces Education Grid and Platform Ecosystem at Boston Summit [PDF Format]
During the 2008 Boston Digital Media Summit last week the Immersive Education Initiative announced the Education Grid and corresponding Platform Ecosystem. Based upon open source technologies and open standards, the Education Grid and Platform Ecosystem will provide educators with a comprehensive end-to-end infrastructure for a new generation of virtual world learning environments, interactive learning games, and simulations.
Daily Hampshire Gazette front page article: Educators Find Engaging Tool in Virtual 'Immersive' Learning.
It's one thing to read about the International Space Station; it's another to dock a spaceship in its port. Immersive Education, a new and free library of online educational games and 3-D programs, wants to give students the opportunity to experience what they learn in school - virtually. Fly a spaceship, play the role of Israel's prime minister, walk through an Egyptian tomb, hangout in a Paris cafe and order a baguette in French - it's all achievable through Immersive Education.
Immersive Education the focus of 2008 Boston Summit
On January 12th and 13th educators, researchers, administrators and students from Boston College, Boston Public Schools, Amherst College, Federation of American Scientists, MIT Media Lab, Harvard University, Duke University, United States Department of Education, New Media Consortium (NMC), Johnson & Wales University, NASA, Sun Microsystems, Synthespian Studios, and Computerworld will give a series of presentations, panel discussions and workshops that provide an in-depth overview of Immersive Education.
Chronicle of Higher Education article: Immersive Education Submerges Students in Online Worlds Made for Learning.
Students at Boston College stumbled across a jackal in the underground chambers of an ancient Egyptian tomb in early December. One student explained that the animal was the god Anubis, who helped transport dead bodies to the underworld. In reality, the students never left the Boston area. Their trip was showcased at a conference at Harvard University this month devoted to Immersive Education, a multimillion-dollar project to build virtual-reality software exclusively for education within commercial and nonprofit fantasy spaces like Second Life.
Educating Virtual Worlds (podcast).
"Maybe there is a chance to get real world value out of virtual worlds" concludes eWEEK Chief Technology Analyst Jim Rapoza. In this Tech Rising podcast, eWEEK Chief Technology Analyst Jim Rapoza talks to Media Grid Director Aaron E. Walsh about virtual worlds and the Media Grid's efforts to build an open platform that uses multiple virtual worlds as a collaborative meeting space, providing what they refer to as immersive education.
Chronicle of Higher Education Immersive Education article: Project to Build Virtual Learning Platform Within Popular Online Worlds Wins Financial Support.
Virtual-reality software that researchers are developing exclusively for educational uses will be supported by funds from the Federation of American Scientists and the Kauffman Foundation, a group that promotes entrepreneurship, a Boston College instructor announced at a gathering on Saturday [Dec 8, 2007] at Harvard University.
Immersive Education Day at Harvard University: Presenting the Past, Present and Future of Immersive Education.
On December 8th 2007 from 2-5pm EST Harvard University's Interactive Media Group will host a half-day Immersive Education event that is open to the public and free to attend. Educators, researchers and administrators from Harvard University, Boston College, MIT Media Lab, Amherst College and the United States Department of Education will give a series of presentations and demonstrations to provide attendees with an overview of Immersive Education and how virtual world and game-based learning technologies are used in and out of the classroom today. Immersive Education Day at Harvard is a precursor to the Immersive Education event at Boston's Digital Media Summit in January, 2008. 1) Read more about event, 2) See the HARVARD POSTER, and 3) WATCH VIDEOS FROM TH
E EVENT
Immersive Education co-Chair Dr. John Carfora receives Distinguished Service Award from the National Council of University Research Administrators (NCURA).
Immersive Education co-Chair Dr. John Carfora this week received a Distinguished Service Award from the National Council of University Research Administrators (NCURA) for his "sustained and distinctive contributions to the organization." The award was presented to Carfora at NCURA’s 49th Annual Meeting during a special recognition luncheon on November 5.
Immersive Education and Media Grid receive national award as "...innovative, promising technologies which hold the potential to significantly affect society in the near future."
Computerworld names Aaron E. Walsh, Director of the Media Grid and Immersive Education Initiative, to list of "40 Innovative IT People to Watch, Under the Age of 40." The announcement was made in conjunction with the 40th anniversary of Computerworld, the premier source of news and analysis for the information technology industry.
Media Grid call for participation: Immersive Education and Virtual Learning Environments (news release).
Excerpt: MediaGrid.org launches the Immersive Education initiative with an open call to educators, students, and professionals who have experience using virtual learning environments or video game technologies (such as Second Life, Croquet, Extensible 3D [X3D], Panda3D, Quake, Unreal, Torque Game Engine, and so forth).
The New Media Consortium (NMC) joins Immersive Education initiative to advance virtual learning (news release).
Excerpt: During the NMC Summer Conference today the New Media Consortium (NMC) announced that it has joined the Media Grid’s Immersive Education initiative to participate in the development of best practices and standards for virtual learning and game-based learning platforms. NMC is an international consortium of over 250 learning-focused organizations dedicated to the exploration and use of new media and new technologies. NMC member institutions are found in almost every state in the United States, across Canada, and in Europe, Asia and Australia. Among the consortium’s membership are an elite list of the most highly regarded colleges and universities in the world, innovative museums, research centers, foundations, and forward-thinking companies. The consortium’s collective wealth of experience in building virtual learning environments in Second Life will be applied directly to Immersive Education.
Immersive Education wins Teaching with New Media (TWIN) award and the corresponding TWIN award video (Microsoft Windows Media format). [News release] [Video]
The video provides a brief and very limited visual overview of Immersive Education (requires Windows Media Player).
Enabling the Age of Immersive Education.
Keynote presentation delivered to approximately 30 universities at the Association of Jesuit Colleges and Universities (AJCU) Conference hosted by Boston College. October 13-14 2005. Includes a variety of Immersive Education screenshots.
Immersive Education Ecosystem (discussion draft).
Overview of the Immersive Education faculty-student ecosystem and its potential impact on the future of education and the immediate and long-term impact on faculty, students, and digital media development communities.
Virtual reality and higher education: Another perspective (Terra Nova interview).
Excerpts: While Second Life has been adopted by Harvard and more than 100 other schools worldwide, it is not the only online virtual reality environment that is used for educational purposes. There are other virtual world/virtual reality technologies that can support instruction and classroom activities, and this week we will get a perspective from someone who is using these alternate technologies to teach...His VR classes are part of a larger effort to develop a standards-based educational platform called Immersive Education.
Media Grid Enables the Age of Immersive Education news release
Meeting the Second Wave: How Technology, Demographics, and Usage Trends Will Drive the Next Generation of Media Evolution (Essay based on Ian Lamont's 2006 Digital Media Summit presentation).
Excerpts: In the second wave of new media evolution, how will the Internet cope, with billions of users simultaneously accessing video, 3D worlds, and sophisticated media applications at peak times? Where will the processing power for these types of applications come from? And, with petabytes of new video and rich media content being uploaded every second, where will the data be stored? ... Distributed computing technologies — Internet-based processing grids and peer-to-peer software — could be the answer, but a great deal of research, testing, and cooperation on a global scale would be required to make it work. The Media Grid and Open Grid Forum are two initiatives that are working on these issues, and such efforts will be key to realizing some of the advanced applications and usage patterns outlined in this essay.
Media Grid: The Future of Artificial Intelligence (AI)
(Powerpoint slides from Jeff Orkin's 2006 Digital Media Summit Presentation). Jeff Orkin, MIT Media Lab and co-chair of the Immersive Education standards group, presents a novel framework for Artificial Intelligence (AI) on the Media Grid that can be used to create intelligent Immersive Education characters that use language to communicate in the same way that people do.
Emerging Web3D Web Standards and Technologies.
Keynote Paper and Address: Sixth International Conference on Humans and Computers. August 28-30, 2003, Aizu Japan.
Visual Effects Pioneer Appointed Fellowship news release
Graphics Pioneer Appointed Fellowship news release
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