(aka “Ecampus Mind Set”. aka “Campus at home”) 11/15/2018 – Warren Blyth
Ecampus serves thousands of distance students around the world through web pages. With Magic Leap, we could bring the campus into a person’s house for greater connection to the Ecampus experience. I see three categories we could nail:
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Quick list of links to (16) sessions I thought relevant (with video links if available). 5 day conference with over 750 sessions, 550 exibitors. 28,000 industry professionals attended this year.
* Here’s our route from hotel to venue.
* A fun montage of 360 video clips from various areas of the show (4 min.)
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I gave a talk for co-workers about the magic tools CDT developers use, how we use them, and where I think we’re heading. I tried to use this blog post as my notes, opening links in new browser tabs as if they were slides. Now I’m fleshing the sections out a little, so you can just read this post by itself (please feel free to swing by and ask me questions about any of this!). The idea is that it starts off pretty tame, but gets progressively … crazy scifi.
10 hardware topics in 60 minutes:
* May 2016 PPTs – tree borer. plant identification (not debris focused. not CSI) (inherited from leaving ID – FE 430, Arne Skaugset)
– Idea 1 – crime scene. tree died in forest, what killed it? use tree borer and clinometer to investigate. then Q&A with teacher. ala BOT 350 plant detective)
photoscan like Alan Dennis – mossy pole bench
–Idea 2 – three stage forest-to-community-engagement (based on week 1 materials. piaget. toddlers collect balls in forest. grade school forms questions at border. adult gives speeches at city hall) (design ala TheLab longBow)
– ID and teacher feedback
Oct2016 – Vive demo. meetings with both (real start).
* idea 3 – two stage: forest facts (+ tools), and baby lesson plan
NW oregon forest reality. lessen the capstone fear.
– teacher sends 10 facts. James completes OER tool videos.
* version 1 – whitebox (March 2017 – 5 months later)
cardboard distances. puzzle variety/designs.
photoscan– lincoln city grove (too much at once)
* version 2 – hokey forest ranger (April 2017)
feedback: confusion. plus, performance concerns (water particle systems)
– olga design discussion (coherence) and ideas
– tango scans + ricoh 360 + meshlab tricks (best way for quick 3D cardboardVR).
* version 3 – museum class (july 2017 – 3 months later)
– VR SDKs updating (breaking everything). troubles switching between 2 builds.
– pressure to get something done by summer, and save more for later.
– instructor & ID sign off?
TAKEAWAYS:
– close captioning
– options (mute. mouse look speed)
– puzzle design
– focii (animals? debris felt more important when all you was drop giant logs)
– unaddressed teacher desires (move around. less claustrophobic. reuse space. 3D animals in forest. owl on final card)
…
might want to put puzzle board front and center, and shift all but one button out of initial view.?
(what will cover fringe to back trail?)
add message: “The 10 puzzle pieces you collect will show up here” ?
Here is a quick dump of notes from GDC (for an afternoon chat with my team).
If you’re curious, i’d recommend waiting for a more polished and official presentation. this is just quick temp barf
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current work:
ANTH345 “Bunny Buddies” game technically works with “programmer art placeholders”.
hoping to have it polished enough for use by early next week (adding hand holding messages, dice and card animations, and decipherable start and end game screens), so I can discuss with teacher. Then continue improving as long as time permits.
https://courses.ecampus.oregonstate.edu/anth345/game/bunnyBuddies.html
OFFICIAL SESSION NAME: (10:30am)
“Engage, Empower Students with 21st Century Skills” – Susan Meeks, Breakaway Games
SUMMARY:
The speaker covered some problems in the current education system(s), it’s antiquated goals, and the incomplete theories that form its foundation. Also covered several new inventions and innovative ideas for reform.
ECAMPUS TAKEAWAY:
While there are two must-see videos about the current American school system, I think the most interesting aspect of this talk was: the weird reactions (especially, the things it made me think about – zany brainstorms included below).
The question at the end (about presenting our long term assessment metrics to upper management, in a useful manner) struck me as one of the more profound takeaways of the whole conference.
RAW NOTES: Continue reading
OFFICIAL SESSION NAME: (9am)
“The Role of Assessment”
– Alex Games (Education Design Director, Microsoft), Zoran Popovic (Associate Professor, University of Washington), James Portnow (CEO, Rainmaker Games), Bob Dolan (Senior Research Scientist, Pearson)
SUMMARY:
Some really insightful thoughts on how to assess the effectiveness of any education.
ECAMPUS TAKEAWAY:
several useful quotes from some smart speakers (thinking of education as a process instead of a product, to the ideas around how games can assess for the rest of your life to… much more).
RAW NOTES: Continue reading
OFFICIAL SESSION NAME: (11:30am)
Techniques for Achieving an Effective Blend Between Engagement and Learning in Games
– Talib Hussain, Raytheon BBN Technologies
SUMMARY/ECAMPUS TAKEAWAY:
Some interesting thoughts on the importance of making the exercise fun, while also allowing room for the pain and suffering struggle that you need for proper learning. Ultimately my notes aren’t very good though.
RAW NOTES: Continue reading
Official Session Name: (10:30am)
US Game-based Learning Market Forecast: All Roads Lead to Mobile
– Sam Adkins (Chief Research Officer, Ambient Insight)
Summary:
At first I thought I went to the wrong session (this was a last minute room change. and initial talk was more about “money making” reality than “education effectiveness” reality). But there turned out to be some interesting analysis, and much food for thought (including several interesting apps and consumer learning products I’d never never heard of).
Ecampus Takeaway:
Some interesting discussion of tablets and asian markets, interesting links, and ideas for mobile apps we should make.
Raw Notes: Continue reading
