Learning

From the Washington Post website: "Diane McFarland injected oranges with shots during nursing school until she felt confident enough to prick human subjects. Then she and her classmates took turns on each other.

Nurses at Inova Loudoun Hospital can now practice on SimMan 3G, a life-size patient simulator in a virtual reality lab that opened Monday on the first floor of the Leesburg facility.

From this Telepresence Options article: "A social robot can operate autonomously with children in a preschool setting. One long-term goal is to engineer systems that test whether young children can learn a foreign language through interactions with a talking robot.

Education is on the cusp of a transformation because of recent scientific findings in neuroscience, psychology, and machine learning that are converging to create foundations for a new science of learning.

From Positive Technology Journal : "Testing the effects of educational strategies on comprehension of a genomic concept using virtual reality" Patient Educ Couns. 2009 Apr 29; Authors: Kaphingst KA, Persky S, McCall C, Lachance C, Loewenstein J, Beall AC, Blascovich J

OBJECTIVE: Applying genetic susceptibility information to improve health will likely require educating patients about abstract concepts, for which there is little existing research. This experimental study examined the effect of learning mode on comprehension of a genomic concept.

Have a look at the Cobalt - Edusim project. It is a 3D multi-user virtual world platform and authoring toolkit intended for your classroom interactive whiteboard (but equally powerful on the students laptop or desktop computers !).

This stuff.co.nz article talks about a project designing virtual work environments to give students practical experience. From the article: "Students will be able to peek inside chemical reactions and explore three-dimensional models of ear canals in virtual technology being developed at Canterbury University.

The university has received $1.77 million from the Government's Encouraging and Supporting Innovation Fund for a three-year project designing virtual work environments to give students practical experience.

Canterbury University HitLab director Mark Billinghurst, who is leading the project, said New Zealand is lagging behind in virtual technology.

"There's not much government investment in the area, so this will allow us to catch up with some of the teaching and technology trends internationally."

This LA Times Travel article takes a look at a high-tech show based on a virtual map of the ancient Rome. Frome the article: "It’s back to the future — or is that forward to the past? — at a theater near the Coliseum where “3-D Rewind Rome” opens on Nov. 20. The high-tech, virtual-reality program is aimed at introducing visitors to ancient Rome in a vivid and exciting way to prepare them for touring the 2,000-year-old city.

Spectators don special 3-D glasses for the 30-minute program that uses some 60,000 virtual characters — senators, plebeians, even vestal virgins — brought to life using some of the same kinds of technology that created “The Lord of the Rings.”

This Journal article takes a look at augmented reality games that require students to uncover solutions in spaces where the real mingles with the virtual. From the article: "Researchers are ramping up traditional MUVEs, developing games that require students to uncover solutions in spaces where the real mingles with the virtual.

NOAH PATEL REMEMBERS the first time aliens descended on his math class at Thomas A. Edison Middle School in Brighton, MA.

This press release reports EON Reality has collaborated with the Kentucky Community and Technical College System (KCTCS) to develop an Interactive Digital Center (IDC). From the press release: "The new center is part of the KCTCS statewide strategic plan for integrating visualization technologies throughout KCTCS and provides a platform to develop interactive 3D applications for education and industry and a simulation technician-certified curriculum.

This Wired Campus post shows Sorin A. Matei's (an associate professor of communication at Purdue University) CAVE tool for studying history. A video report is also available. From the post: "It’s one thing to imagine what Rome looked like in ancient times. It’s another thing to wander around a virtual-reality simulation of ancient Rome learning about buildings as you go by clicking on them. Sorin A. Matei, an associate professor of communication at Purdue University, is experimenting with various ways to blend databases with digital maps or 3-D models. I put together a short video report."

This MediaGrid article reports the Harvard University's Interactive Media Group will host a half-day Immersive Education event, on December 8th 2007 from 2-5pm, that is open to the public and free to attend. From the article: "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.