HARVARD IMMERSIVE EDUCATION DAY

DATE: SATURDAY, DECEMBER 8, 2007
TIME: 2:00 - 5:00PM
LOCATION: HARVARD UNIVERSITY
ASKWITH LECTURE HALL in LONGFELLOW HALL
13 APPIAN WAY, CAMBRIDGE, MA 02138

SPEAKERS
Aaron E. Walsh "Enabling the Age of Immersive Education"
Director, Immersive Education Initiative, BC Faculty

Gene Koo "Fostering Civic Engagement through Immersive Education"
Fellow, Berkman Center for Internet and Society
co-Director, Hub2 Project

Timothy J. Magner "School 2.0 and Immersive Education"
Director, US Department of Education
Advisor, Immersive Education Initiative

Jeff Orkin "The Restaurant Game: New Forms of Artificial
Intelligence for Immersive Education"
Research Assistant, MIT Media Lab
co-Chair, Immersive Education Initiative


John Carfora "Pedagogy, Assessment, and Learning Outcomes for
Immersive Education"
Director of Sponsored Research, Amherst University
co-Chair, Immersive Education Initiative



Media Grid's Immersive Education is a cutting edge public utility for digital media. It builds upon existing Internet and Web standards to create a high tech outlet for digital media delivery, storage and processing. You can find Massive Media on Demand (MMoD), Interactive Digital Cinema on Demand, Hollywood special effects and Virtual Reality. It is the brainchild of a very impressive collaborative group.

The collaborative group includes, Amherst University, Boston College, Harvard University, MIT, and all of the Jesuit colleges throughout the United States. In addition, Japan, Singapore, and Israel are some of the foreign partners which makes immersive education a universal phenomenon. Online education is replaced with Virtual Education. Desktop computers, laptops and PDA's can be used to assess Immersive Education. Not only can college students take advantage of this new technology, but younger students in the Kindergarten to High School levels can also benefit. Furthermore, adults in the workplace can take training workshops right in the convenience of their work place. Companies can have in-house training and expertly skilled workers, not to mention the cost-savings factor.

Aaron E. Walsh is the Director of the Grid Institute and the Immersive Education Initiative. He has published several books on virtual reality and is the author of the first, second and third editions of "Java For Dummies". Mr. Walsh is a member of Boston College's outstanding faculty and can be found teaching computer classes in the Wood's College of Advancing Studies. Computerworld named Aaron E. Walsh as one of the forty people to watch in the information technology (IT)world. Walsh has patents and patents-pending on Virtual Reality and the World Wide Web.

Timothy J. Magner is the Director of the United States Department of Education.

John Carfora is the Director of Sponsored Research at Amherst College, Chair of the International Research Administration and the co-Chair of the Immersive Education Technology Working Group(IETWG). This past Novemver, he received a "Distinguised Services Award" from the National Council of University Research Administrators (NCURA). This recognition will help further the efforts of the Initiative. Mr. Carfora says that Immersive Education gives the individual the feeling of "being there" in the real classroom when infact they are in the virtual classroom. This type of education is available when a student cannot be in the actual classroom for one reason or another.

Jeff Orkin was one of the keynote speakers at Harvard and gave a talk on
"The Restaurant Game: New Forms of Artificial Intelligence for Immersive Education".

Jeff is a Research Assistant at MIT's Media Lab and co-Chair of the Immersive Education Initiative. There is a link to a powerpoint presentation titled "Media Grid: The Future of Artificial Intelligence". I was happy to see my old friend PAC-MAN or MS-PAC-MAN. I remember playing that came at a lot of arcades.

It was also interesting to see the evolution of Robotics, PC Gaming, XBOX and XBOX360 in his presentation. As the presentation came to a close, Orkin used the Mr.Potato Head as the dummy for the pain factor. Also, he brought in the Marine's Half-life game that I heard of from one of my sons and an IPOD screen followed by the Second-Life page.