Digital Media Thesis

A nice long walk-through…

In the simplest examples a walk though is of a building, you can walk around the space, or a digital representation of it, and “experience” it. More complex “walk” through might allow a participant to actually fly through a molecule, or through a tsunami (again like the NOAA example). The later, “complex” model is one I envision using. I walk to construct some sort of “walk-through” to help make the abstract topics more visual, if not digitally tangible, and therefore more understandable in this visual world of ours.

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Math? It’s OK, in theory.

These seems like an odd item on some levels, but I included and considered how I might construct an experience where someone would solve a math problem because I mean, more or less, I might want to use other types of programming that might mimic the ideals and process of solving math problems as a system for the “learning” elements I create. Which still seems cryptic… In the simplest terms I aim to create elements/exercises/experiences that do indeed have a particular order and sequence to them, as well as a correct answer… like a math problem would.

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Writing and Sketching, perhaps not here.

There are more and more tools that will allow a user to “draw” in-world in SL. Items like “doodle-draw” (http://simteach.com/wiki/index.php?title=SL_Doodle_Draw) are a great example. There are plenty of other immersive environments that are providing these tools as well. Most of them are designed for interaction with other avatars, and that is not my goal either. I want the user to be able to interact with objects that teach them about a topic, so they can take as much or as little time as they need with any given element.

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Artificial Thoughts… or are they?

Artificial Intelligence (to some extend) is another option I considered. There are a few items I’ve seen where they create “chat-bots” (like “ALICE” [http://alicebot.blogspot.com/2008/05/pandorabots-has-xml-rpc-interface-that.html, http://simteach.com/wiki/index.php?title=Linden_AIML#LindenAIML_script] for different purposes, such as ESL. I could see something where a user could be asked questions, but this is also not really the type of learning I’m envisioning. I want it to be experiential where the participant DOES something, not a situation where they are simply told something and then quizzed about it. However, a place where they could be quizzed by a “bot” in the from of an Avatar might not be a bad idea, for a later project.

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To HUD, or not to HUD… this is one question

Stands for Heads up Display. I’m not sure I want to use one as I build my exercises/experiences in SL. At first I thought I would, but now I feel like using it might actually break the “immersion” I initially envisioned. Noting that there are many things a HUD is great for, such as the NOAA island and all its many exhibits, I do feel a bit funny saying it, but my sense is that since my goal is to “include” a participant *IN* something to make it less abstract, the HUD will break that. But, depending on how well a topic can/cannot be explained I might have to use it.

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My Proposal and Plan

Linked here is a pdf of my proposal. Essentially, in a nutshell I’d like to test some of the theories I (and many others) have about what an immersive environment, such as Secondlife, is good for. I intend to take some of the concepts and topic I currently teach (either face to face or online) and translate them into the immersive 3D environment – hopefully for the better, but as this is partially an experiment, I might find that for some fo the content it is simply not for the better… but I’m pretty sure I’ve picked topics and content that will lend itself well to this project.

sethmerriam_dmthesis_web.pdf »

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Brand Spankin’ New

This is the first of many posts to this blog. This blog will be dedicated to my thesis – it’s research, development, and production . I am focusing on translating some of my currenty teaching materials from a “traditional” format (that being either face to face or even an online class) to materials that can be delivered and used in a 3D immersive environment, such as Linden Lab’s Second Life.

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