Rich White sends us a link to the Greenbush Education Service Center based in Southeastern Kansas. Greenbush runs a whole suite of programs designed to improve the academic performance of Kansas youth. Among their many activities, Greenbush supports a 3D immersive education lab, designed to prototype various virtual world educational applications. They have piloted projects in three virtual worlds at this point: Second Life, OpenSimulator and Edusim.
As someone who was tertiarily involved with the CSI game in Second Life, I am particularly interested in their crime scene simulation in OpenSim. The RPG (which can be purchased here) appears to teach about science by having the students role play as forensic criminologists. Sounds like a great frame for budding young sleuths to connect science and the real world.
Their Edusim project integrates virtual world tools and interactive whiteboards, which looks totally cool. An interactive whiteboard seems like a great interface for navigating and interacting with virtual content, particularly for younger students -- but really I want one for myself.
(BTW, check out this amazing augmented-reality collaboration app that IBM and Nokia have prototyped!)
Who knew such cutting edge tech was coming out of Kansas? Thanks for the tip, Rich!
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