Computer Graphics World

October 2008 43 Knowledge & Career n n n n nents of a historical learning game based on the Unreal Engine. Players had to board the ship, break open the tea crates, and throw the bags of tea overboard. Aboard ship were non-playable colonist characters dressed as Indians (just as they did for the real Boston Tea Party), who provided players with historical information about the event as they played the game. Creating the game was apparently as much fun as playing it. "I ac- tually had to pull the students back," said Walsh. "They researched everything—right down to how much things weighed, before they started modeling. When you put the content-creation tools into the hands of students, they become mini-experts in their domain." Three Generations of Immersive Ed The Boston Tea Party project was an example of what Walsh calls "second-generation immersive education." The previous genera- tion, which involved VRML, not only had the voice chat limita- tion, but also was somewhat daunting to use from a content-cre- ation perspective. In addition, it was a Windows-only platform; a The three platforms originally selected to be part of the Immersive Education Initiative's Platform Ecosystem are all open source and cross-platform. Croquet www.croquetconsortium.org Croquet is a software development environment for creating and deploying collaborative, multiuser online applications and 3D environments across different operating systems and devices. The platform began as a working prototype in 1994. Many of Croquet's principal architects are based in universities. What's unique about Croquet in terms of the Immersive Education Initiative are its roots in education. "Croquet was built from the ground up as an educational environment," says Aaron Walsh, founder of the Initiative. The platform also features superior ease of use: "I've seen it used by three-, four-, and five-year-olds," he says. Its ability to integrate Webcams, its usability, and its peer-to-peer architecture are also in its favor. Second Life www.secondlife.com "Second Life is most mature in terms of its utility," says Walsh. The Internet-based virtual environment, developed by Linden Research, launched online in 2003 and now has millions of registered users. Second Life members can create avatars, and converse and operate in a virtual world. The service is free at a basic level, and costs more if you want to access richer features. Many of Second Life's features—textures, objects, and so forth—come ready to use, which makes it appealing to educators with neither the time nor the inclination to learn programming. "A teacher can download it and use it," Walsh points out. "It's easy to get started with." Because the site was designed as a virtual world in which to meet and coexist with other virtual beings, Second Life is also rich in social tools, Walsh notes. Project Wonderland https://lg3d-wonderland.dev.java.net The Wonderland client is built on Sun Microsystems' Java 3D-based graphics engine. It allows users to manage and customize worlds, animations, and avatars, and supports applica- tion sharing (initially Java and X applications). Walsh points out the strength of Wonderland's collaboration tools. A feature called bridging, for instance, allows those who are not in the virtual environment—without a computer screen in front of them, perhaps—to take part in Wonderland collaborations. "I can dial up a phone number and call into the session," he says. "And everybody sees me as a glowing orb," for example. "I'm able to bridge through a telephone." Developers are also working on bridging with video cameras and shared applications, says Walsh. –Jenny Donelan Platforms of Choice

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