Recently I attended a conference "Enabling the Age of Immersive Education".

The best presentation was by Daniel Laughlin Research Scientist, NASA Learning Technologies. He was able to use Learning Thoery to give a very clear presentation that reinforced commone sense, but helped to organize understanding of the topic.  This is definitely a goal for me.

A definite highlight of the conference was the hallway conversation with a photographer, writer and oral historian from Roxbury.  She helped  me really understand what I'd like to see done with Immersive Environments.   As Daniel from NASA explained, our beliefs are burnt into our synapses.  If we want to challenge those beliefs, especialy about emotional issue like racism and identity we have to invoke emotions while we teach. Thus, to deeply understand history, in a way that allows us to change our current beliefs, we have to have empahty with the people and cultures we study. I think emersive technologies, in the hands of artists like this woman could have the potential to do this. 

The most fun was the demo from a Greenbush, an organization suported by the state of Kansas that used Croquet (an open source platform) to createan interactive whiteboard/projected experience that lets you draw and interact with the world.  Check out the Giant Rabbit if you are a Donnie Darko fan. ;)

Less cute (but still very cute) but showing a lot more of the editing capabilities