INFOBITS 038 (August 1996) URL = http://hegel.lib.ncsu.edu/stacks/serials/infobits/infobits-038 IAT INFOBITS August 1996 No. 38 ISSN 1071-5223 About INFOBITS INFOBITS is an electronic service of the Institute for Academic Technology's Information Resources Group. Each month we monitor and select from a number of information technology and instruction technology sources that come to our attention and provide brief notes for electronic dissemination to educators. ========================================================== EDITOR'S NOTES FROM SIGGRAPH 96 CONFERENCE SIGGRAPH 96, the 23rd International Conference on Computer Graphics and Interactive Techniques, was held in New Orleans, LA, on August 4-9, 1996. SIGGRAPH is the ACM (Association for Computing Machinery) Special Interest Group on Computer Graphics. The group promotes the acquisition and exchange of information and opinion on the theory, design, implementation, and application of computer-generated graphics and interactive techniques to facilitate communication and understanding. Here are some notes on presentations at the conference that may be of interest to educators: Virtual Gorilla Project: "Gorillas in the Bits" The Virtual Gorilla Project is an educational tool being developed by researchers from the Georgia Institute of Technology's Graphics, Visualization and Usability (GVU) Lab and the Ph.D. program in the College of Architecture in conjunction with researchers and staff from Zoo Atlanta. The project is being developed as an immersive education tool to aid in the instruction of K-12 grade students in the interactions and behaviors of gorillas. For more details, visit the project's Web site at http://atlanta.arch.gatech.edu/city/gorilla/gortop2.html Journeys by TeleCommunity Journeys is an ongoing project in which young international students express ideas, art, and insights in a dialogue about Personal Journeys, through shared animations and interactive multimedia pieces, Internet videoconferencing, Web browsing and editing, email exchange, telepainting, and FTP transfers. Participants include students from the Duquesne University School of Education in Pittsburgh, PA; students at the Israel Museum Youth Wing in Jerusalem; students from Norway, in association with the Henie-Onstad Art Center exhibit in Hovikodden, Norway. Link to Journeys at http://www.arcv.lm.com/Journeys/JP1.html For related projects, check out the ArcVertuel On-line Explorer Web site at http://128.2.20.131/ArcVertuel/AVp1.html WebToons WebToons, developed by Pam Walatka (walatka@nas.nasa.gov), at the NASA Ames Research Center, are cartoon-like Web pages that use digital images of humans and voice balloons to introduce key concepts and link to detailed information. Walatka has found them useful for presenting technical instructions to novice users in an engaging, user-friendly format. "How to Make WebToons," Walatka's SIGGRAPH presentation: http://www.nas.nasa.gov/~walatka/WebToons/toon.html Also see, "Web Prep: How to Prepare NAS Reports for Publication on the Web" at http://www.nas.nasa.gov/NAS/TechReports/NASreports/NAS-96-002/ and "WebPrep Consultant's Corner" at http://www.nas.nasa.gov/NAS/TechReports/NASreports/NAS-96-002/toons.html Visualizing WWW Document Term Relations Professor Richard Fowler (fowler@panam.edu) and others at the Department of Computer Science, University of Texas - Pan American are exploring information visualization and interactive environments for visualization primarily in the domain of information retrieval. The tools they are developing to create graphical displays of the relationships of large quantities of information resulting from Web searches may assist users in judging the relevance of the materials retrieved. For more information on UT-PA Computer Science information visualization projects, see http://www.cs.panam.edu/info_vis/info_vis.html Storytelling: The World's Oldest Profession Bran Ferren, Executive Vice President for Creative Technology, Walt Disney Company, is an award winning designer and technologist. He currently heads the theme park, master-planning R&D, and creative development team at Disney. He has won numerous awards, including three from the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences for technical work on several films. Rather than focusing his presentation on new technologies in the entertainment industry, Ferren stressed the supremacy of the "story" (the content) over the technology that delivers it: "Emotional resolution is more important than screen resolution." He believes that the ultimate storytelling tool is the Internet, and predicts that the current and future tools will have the greatest impact in the area of education. For excerpts of Ferren's keynote address at the Fourth International World Wide Web Conference in December 1995, link to http://www.bellcore.com/WWWCONF/ARTICLES/05/ferren.html For more information on SIGGRAPH: http://www.siggraph.org/ For more information on the SIGGRAPH 96 conference: http://www.siggraph.org/conferences/siggraph96/ For more information on the ACM: http://www.acm.org/ ========================================================== ASYNCHRONOUS LEARNING NETWORKS WEB SITE The ALN Web site is designed to provide a place for discussion of issues related to the creation of (1) the ALN Society, (2) the ALN Web, and (3) the Journal of Asynchronous Learning Networks. The first formal discussion of these topics took place at the Spring 1996 conference on asynchronous learning networks held at the University of Illinois in Urbana, IL. The Web site provides on online forum to continue those discussions and contains reading materials, slides, and pointers to a bulletin board. For more information and to participate in the discussion, link to http://jrbnt.vuse.vanderbilt.edu/alnsociety/ ========================================================== ONLINE EDUCATION ARTICLES T.H.E. JOURNAL's Web site is another example of how publishers are using the Web not only to provide an electronic version of their print publication, but also to add value to each issue by supplementing articles with links to other sites and including additional articles that are not in the hardcopy. The theme of the August 1996 issue of T.H.E. Journal is online education. Topics include using the Web for instruction, setting up online courses, and developing distance education classrooms. All these articles are available on the publisher's Web site at http://www.thejournal.com/ T.H.E. (Technological Horizons in Education) Journal is published 11 times a year by T.H.E. Journal L.L.C., 150 El Camino Real, Suite 112, Tustin, CA 92780-3670 USA. Subscriptions are free to qualified educators in the U.S. and Canada; non-qualifying subscriptions are $29/year (U.S. and Canada). Subscriptions for the print version can be requested through the Web site. ========================================================== CANADIAN CURRICULUM AND MULTIPLE INTELLIGENCES The Simcoe County Board of Education (SCBE) in Midhurst, Ontario has set up a Web site to assist over 3,000 teachers and staff in 94 schools in meeting the Common Curriculum Outcomes mandated by the Ontario Ministry of Education and Training. The "Data Engine" helps teachers locate lesson plans to match specific learning outcomes. These plans incorporate Howard Gardner's theories of multiple intelligences. "The Internet Classroom" provides Web links to fifteen areas (history, music, fine arts, languages, biology, mathematics, etc.) that are categorized by grade levels (K to Grade 3, Grade 4 to 6, Grade 7 to 9, and Grade 10 to 12). Link to SCBE's Web pages at http://www.scbe.on.ca/ For more information on multiple intelligences: Gardner, Howard. Multiple Intelligences: The Theory in Practice. New York: Basic Books, 1993. Gardner, Howard, Mindy L. Kornhaber, and Warren K. Wake. Intelligence: Multiple Perspectives. Fort Worth, TX: Harcourt Brace College Pub., 1996. Table of contents at http://www.the-bac.edu/wake/intellig/ Howard Gardner Web pages: On Penn State Educational Systems Design site at http://www.ed.psu.edu/dept/ae-insys-wfed/insys/esd/Gardner/menu.html On Andy Carvin's EdWeb site at http://k12.cnidr.org:90/edref.mi.gardner.html ========================================================== VIRTUAL EARTHQUAKES ON THE INTERNET Virtual Earthquake (VEQ) is a web-based application that allows anyone with Internet access to become a "virtual seismologist." Designed by Gary Novak, a professor of geology, VEQ provides a "hands-on" lesson on how to locate an earthquake's epicenter and how to determine its Richter magnitude. Users interpret simulated seismograms from three seismic recording stations in an effort to triangulate the location of an earthquake's epicenter. The user's results are plotted on a map and compared to the actual results. Those who successfully determine an earthquake's location and magnitude are rewarded with a personalized "virtual seismologist" certificate of completion. VEQ is part of the "Electronic Desktop Project" at California State University at Los Angeles. Anyone with Internet access and a Web browser can run VEQ free of charge. You can visit Virtual Earthquake at http://vflylab.calstatela.edu /edesktop/VirtApps/VirtualEarthQuake/VQuakeIntro.html For more information, contact Gary A. Novak, Professor of Geological Sciences, California State University at Los Angeles, Los Angeles, CA 90032 USA; email: gnovak@flash.calstatela.edu ========================================================== CANADIAN EDUCATIONAL TECHNOLOGY WEB SITE The Association for Media and Technology in Education in Canada (AMTEC) is Canada's national association for educational media and technology professionals. AMTEC provides national leadership through annual conferences, publications, workshops, media festivals, and awards. AMTEC responds to media and technology issues at the international, national, provincial, and local levels. Included on the association's Web site are information on AMTEC conferences, abstracts of articles from the CANADIAN JOURNAL OF EDUCATIONAL COMMUNICATION, and links to Canadian and international educational Web sites. Visit AMTEC at http://www.camosun.bc.ca/~amtec/ The Canadian Journal of Educational Communication (CJEC) [ISSN 0710-4340] is published three times a year by AMTEC. For more information, contact David A. Mappin, Editor, Canadian Journal of Educational Communication, Faculty of Education, 3-102 Education North, University of Alberta, Edmonton, Alberta T6G 2G5 Canada; email: david.mappin@ualberta.ca ========================================================== TUNE IN TO TIMECAST Timecast is a new Web service provided by Progressive Networks, developer of RealAudio software [see "Streaming Audio on the Internet," IAT Infobits, March 1996], that collects and organizes dozens of Web audio sites, including real-time broadcasts from radio stations (including stations in Australia, Canada, Colombia, Greece, Hong Kong, Ireland, Italy, Malaysia, Norway, Portugal, Spain, and Taiwan), television news coverage (including the 1996 U.S. political conventions), music, lectures, audio libraries, and sports events. Users can register their preferences and create a "Daily Briefing," a profile of personalized selections selected for regular listening. Connect to Timecast at http://www.timecast.com/ ========================================================== THE MONITOR -- NEW COLUMN ON IAT WEB SITE The IAT has a new feature on its Web site. In "The Monitor," we will introduce to you new and current hot topics in instructional technology and related issues. We plan to feature a new column every two weeks, along with our regular Web site updates. These columns will come from IAT faculty and staff -- nationally recognized for their leadership in instructional technology -- as well as guest columnists. Using Lotus Notes and Lotus Domino, we also provide an area where readers can post their comments and discuss the issue with the author and other readers. On August 15, we presented our first issue, "A Gutenberg Juncture: Changing the Model of Instruction in a New Technological Environment," by Tom Wason, who leads new projects in computer-based training and distributed learning at the IAT. Our next issue will appear the first week of September. Read "The Monitor" at http://www.iat.unc.edu/publications/monitor/monitor.html For more information on Lotus Notes: http://www.iat.unc.edu/guides/irg-45.html For more information on Lotus Domino: http://domino.lotus.com/ ========================================================== To Subscribe INFOBITS is published by the Institute for Academic Technology. The IAT is a national institute working to place higher education at the forefront of academic technology development and implementation. A partnership between the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and IBM Corporation, the IAT strives to facilitate widespread use of effective and affordable technologies in higher education. To subscribe to INFOBITS, send email to listserv@unc.edu with the following message: SUBSCRIBE INFOBITS firstname lastname substituting your own first and last names. 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