Post Magazine

54 Post • October 2008 www.postmagazine.com T o the thousands of K-12 and higher educational institutions already using immersive applications, it might sound like old news to hear that the tech- nology's time has come, but for those who have yet to embrace it, hold on... If the forces behind the Immersive Edu- cation Initiative (www.immersiveeducation. org) have their way over the next two to three years, an ever-increasing number of students and teachers the world over will be exploring 3D environments, playing in- teractive learning games and enjoying virtual collaboration sessions with peers a state, or even a continent, away. Changes are also in store for those schools already using immer- sive education; they will experience a major upsurge in terms of content, tools, usability and image quality. One example of what is to come is the Virtual Egypt Immersive Education environ- ment developed for the Woods College of Advancing Studies at Boston College (www.bc.edu/advancingstudies).The original Virtual Egypt was created in 2003 using Vir- tual Reality Modeling Language (VRML), Ex- tensible 3D (X3D), QuickTime 3D, Flash, streaming video, and the Unreal 2 game en- gine. (In 2006, the Second Life 3D platform was incorporated as well). Users, or rather their avatars, move through a high-res virtual tomb created by hand and also using scans from the Theban Mapping Project (www.the- banmappingproject.com), interacting with content such as objects, text, video, or games. The upgraded, or third-generation, Virtual Egypt will feature richer imagery, such as near photorealistic avatars created with photo- mapping software, and a variety of 3D for- mats.The new Egypt will also have more cus- tomization options. Teachers who want to focus on a particular area — archaeology or mythology, for example — can populate the environment with unique content such as videos of excavation techniques or text translations of hieroglyphics. But for educa- tors simply wanting a ready-to-go app to complement class material, Virtual Egypt can be downloaded and used as is. The overarching idea behind the Immer- sive Education Initiative is that schools of all kinds, including those with tight budgets, will be able to access a universal librar y of ob- jects that they can use to help engage stu- dents more thoroughly. Reaching students through digital media is increasingly viewed as a must, as each new generation arriving at school seems more media-savvy than its predecessor. Many of those librar y objects will be 3D, but there will also be video, audio, Flash and interactive games, among other kinds of media. "It's impor tant to have different kinds of content," says Aaron Walsh, founder of the Immersive Education Initiative and a direc- tor of its parent organization, the Media Grid. Virtual Egypt, he says, is just one example of the types of complete immersive education learning environments that the Ini- tiative plans to provide free of charge to educators. "Many more are under develop- ment, including a full suite of K-12 STEM [science, technology, engi- neering, and math] learning envi- ronments," Walsh says. Pre-built courses and modules can be used out of the box, but everything will also be "infinitely customizable." All content, by design, will be cross-platform and open source. O R G A N I Z AT I O N A L F O R C E S The Immersive Education Initiative is a nonprofit collaboration among colleges, uni- versities, research institutes and various com- panies. Among its members are Boston Col- lege, Columbia University, Sun Microsystems, The Burke Institute for Innovation in Educa- tion, the Israeli Association of Grid Technolo- gies and the New Media Consor tium, itself with more than 200 members.The Initiative was founded in '07 to, in the words of its liter- ature, "define and develop open standards, best practices, platforms, and communities of suppor t for vir tual worlds and game-based learning and training systems." The Initiative's parent organization, the Media Grid (www.mediagrid.org), was founded in '03 to promote the use of a computational grid platform as a public util- ity for developing and delivering virtual real- ity and 3D simulation programs. The Media Grid was designed specifically for net- worked applications that produce and con- sume large quantities of digital media, and is currently powered by renderfarms, clusters, high-performance computer systems, com- putational grids and other systems. W H AT ' S TO C O M E In practical terms, the Initiative is prepar- ing to get the word out to educational facil- ities that might not yet be familiar with im- mersive educational tools. Institutions inter- ested in becoming pilot schools can contact the Initiative through its Website, Walsh says. Tools and usage are currently free of charge for nonprofits. In fact, it is par t of the Institute's agenda to ensure that schools that might not have the capital equipment or the infrastructure to run these applica- tions can do so. To that end, there is what Walsh calls a sustainability model for for-profit companies that want to get involved with Immersive Education Initiative projects. "If game compa- nies, for example, want to use the Grid, they can sustain it by putting some money into it," says Walsh, noting that the Initiative is spon- sored by foundations, philanthropists and universities, and is not commercially backed. High on the list of future features are high-resolution graphics like those that ap- pear on PlayStation 3 or XBox 360. Walsh says it's impor tant that the new generation suppor t various shared apps, since collaborating on projects in PowerPoint or Web browsers has become the norm for students. It's not enough for students to oc- cupy the same virtual space — they need to be able to work together there too. Walsh likes to describe immersive educa- tion at this point in time as having "traction." It's poised to catch hold due to the right con- fluence of factors: availability of mature, open- source programs; grid computing; and general acceptance — and even appetite for high- quality immersive applications that can cap- ture the imaginations of students. By JENNY DONELAN jenny.donelan@comcast.net The third gen of Virtual Egypt will feature richer imagery. A nonprofit with university roots is working to get students immersed in learning. Taking the Initiative In the Virtual Egypt environment, students can move their avatars through a digital tomb.

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