Encompassing Education
Students in the 2020s will explore knowledge in customized, full-immersive, 3-D learning environments, able to see, hear, smell, and touch simulated objects and interact with synthespians to foster a heightened sense of curiosity, says Diana Walczak, Artistic Director and Cofounder, Kleiser-Walczak.
Published in 2020
Visions: Transforming Education and Training Through Advanced Technologies,
U.S. Department of Commerce Sept. 17, 2002 and on KurzweilAI.net
Sept. 17, 2002.
Broad dynamic content will feed future education technologies.
We will integrate motion and haptic interfaces, display and sound
sciences, computer simulation breakthroughs, and next-level communication
and information technologies. The vast possibilities created by
these merging technologies make it crucial to bring together great
minds from every discipline to begin building a foundation for the
development of massive amounts of evolving content simultaneously
and in collaboration with the design of next-generation education
technology.
In an effort to illustrate one small but powerful possible piece
of the future education puzzle, this conceptual paper includes a
vignette set in the 2020s showing a twelve year old girl engrossed
in a highly comprehensive though very personal learning experience.
To create such a functional education system for the coming century,
we must find ways to break down long-standing educational shortcomings:
Problem Set 1:
· Faster and slower students are alienated because teaching
is aimed at the average student
· Less aggressive students learn less
· Teachers don't have time to give individualized instruction
Solution 1 - Customize the learning process
Problem Set 2:
· Students don't experience enough
· Students have trouble visualizing abstract concepts
· Students don't utilize enough of their senses
· Students don't utilize balance and coordination when learning
Solution 2 - Utilize the senses and experience more
Problem Set 3:
· Disciplines are too separate
· There is too much emphasis on grades, rules and directions
rather than creativity
· The arts have taken a superfluous position in education
· Too few students are interested in learning
Solution 3 - Foster a heightened sense of curiosity
The drawbacks listed above can be resolved by customizing the learning
process, allowing students to experience more, and fostering a heightened
level of curiosity. Students should pursue their own inspiration
and learn at their own levels. It is a well-known fact that we learn
more by doing. But how can we be individually exposed to many different
ideas or places? By developing a system for students to experience
more through increased usage of their senses.
Students should be compelled more toward seeking creative solutions
than merely following instructions. Let's allow rivers of subjects
to mingle in a confluence of endless possibilities and in the future,
incorporate rather than separate the arts. How can technology help
us overcome past educational problems, including those caused by
technology itself?
Though this paper highlights the individual full immersive education
experience, a complete, stable, and discrete student learning structure
includes teacher, parent/advisor, and group immersive experience
nodes. All nodes are interconnected with mobile, home or class communication
media.
We will evolve into a more productive society through Adventure
Learning. Picture an Adventure Learning structure in which the student
is surrounded by four essential education nodes, each of which is
connected to the others and to the student. The four surrounding
nodes are teacher, parent/advisor, group immersive education experience,
and individual full immersive education experience. Mobile, home,
or classroom communication media link the nodes to establish a unit
of stable and discrete education.
Communication media will become the glue that holds together a
more customized and far less simplistic education system. The technologies
that will vastly change information and communication are autostereoscopic
display systems, 3-D sound, augmented reality, virtual reality,
and portable or wearable ubiquitous information machines. Through
any or all of these technologies, a teacher can guide or a student
can present projects within the node or beyond. And all have access
to "cybraries" and other information databases.
The group immersive education experience can be an actual or virtual
laboratory where students can work together to solve problems and
achieve common goals. Telepresence with student avatars would allow
students to work closely with other colleagues around the world
or beyond. The group immersive experience could also be a variation
of the individual immersive experience, placing the group in a larger
display dome or providing retinal scanning or other virtual reality
eyewear in combination with full-body force-feedback systems.
This discussion will highlight the individual immersive experience
portion of the overall system because of its tremendous potential
impact on customization, experience and creativity.
Customize the Learning Process
Iona enters the Tangitrek. With a force feedback exoskeleton,
motion base, gimbaled harness and autostereoscopic display, a student
can go anywhere and do anything.
Fast-forward to the 2020's. A 12-year-old student walks up a
curving entry platform and enters a Tangitrek, which biometrically
identifies her as Iona Sole. A 10-foot sphere envelops her after
the entry platform rotates out of the way. Iona, who has two years
of Adventure Learning experience, makes some selections. The system
will accommodate and keep track of her preferences and skill levels
in different areas. Like many students, Iona's focus used to be
more on getting good grades than learning. Now that she's developed
a strong desire to learn, she is already several years ahead of
turn of the millennium educational standards for her age.
Utilize the Senses and Experience More
As we continue to increase our knowledge through an accelerating
number of virtual techniques, we rapidly lose touch with the tangible
world. By further advancing our simulation capabilities we will
actually bring real world challenges back into the virtual experience.
The sphere Iona is now inside is the inner of a three-ring gimbal
system that allows her complete freedom of rotation. The outer ring
is attached to a three-degree-of-freedom motion base that enhances
her sense of acceleration by moving up and down, side to side, and
forward and back. Iona sits on a small seat and is gently enveloped
by a body harness whose sensors make minute size adjustments and
lock into place. The body harness is an intelligent force feedback
exoskeleton.
Twenty years ago this haptic, or touch technology was used for
digital sculpting and surgical simulation. Now Iona can feel objects,
step on surfaces, and fly through spaces.
Like all students, Iona eagerly begins her adventure with her ongoing
individual exploration project. From there she will traverse research
branches which help to solve problems for her personal project or
enlighten her to related subjects. Iona, an enthusiast of ancient
mythology, has been studying the theoretical genetics of creating
a winged horse.
On her virtual mobile scaffold, Iona surfs through a giant chemical
model whose surfaces and atomic bonds she can feel.
In her visualization class, where students are coached in picturing
imagery in their heads, Iona worked out a DNA protein configuration
that her teacher was able to analyze from her brain scan. These
days teachers expect a lot of the work to be done in the student's
head in an effort to exercise more of her brain and to avoid over-immersion.
Iona begins where she left off by selecting and boarding a virtual
mobile scaffold—not unlike a surfboard—on which she
navigates through a giant model of DNA. She deftly arranges and
rearranges the chemical model whose surfaces and atomic bonds she
can actually feel.
The photo-realistic autostereoscopic computer-generated imagery
surrounding Iona appears to jump right off the inner surface of
the plasma display sphere. Though the spherical display surface
is never more than ten feet away from Iona, she perceives apparently
distant images reaching to infinity. This adventure system has access
to all the imagery and information in the entire US Public Cybrary;
a student can access information without the commercial intrusions
of general cyberspace.
Iona closely observes a prehistoric youngster cracking its
way out of the egg. She is able to see, hear, smell, and touch simulated
objects and environments.
When Iona reaches a juncture relating to bird origins which
requires further research, she quickly traverses the Theropoda branches
of Dinosaur classification and selects Caudipteryx > Hatchlings
> Reality Simulation.
Suddenly, Iona is standing in a Caudipteryx nesting grounds
in an Early Cretaceous landscape. This world even smells different,
as a function of the flora, fauna, and climate. The nanoaromatic
system delivers and deletes aromas based on the biochemistry of
objects in scenes. Aroma levels can be dialed up or down by the
Tangitrek user.
All around Iona, the small flightless theropods forage among
the ferns. She picks up two eggs, feels their shape and weight,
and vocalizes a few observation notes for future reference. Iona
hears the slightest of cracking sounds that seem to come from exactly
inside one of the eggs. A binaural 3-D acoustics system accurately
positions simulated or recorded sounds with respect to objects that
she sees in the spherical display system. Iona closely observes
a prehistoric youngster cracking its way out of the egg.
Foster a Heightened Sense of Curiosity
The industrial revolution, with its inventions and factories,
by necessity bred a society in which following sequences of instructions
was imperative. This approach has lingered through 20th century
education even though we've been transitioning into a society where
humans become more creative and machines perform manual or repetitive
tasks. Adventure Learning allows students to navigate, investigate
and determine their own solutions. Endless interdisciplinary combinations
discovered in immersive environments will lead to new kinds of specialists
with strong diverse backgrounds.
Iona studies horse anatomy and works on a concept design for
the mythical flying horse. Before allowing her to set out on a flying
trek to ancient Greece, the system prompts her to solve problems
involving English words with Greek origins. Reacting to Iona's inadvertent
avoidance of language, the system ensures a balanced set of disciplines
is reached in each adventure.
Iona flies over the Acropolis as it may have looked in ancient
times. She can converse with synthetic townspeople about their era.
Flying over the Acropolis, Iona can see the structures as they
originally looked. Simple hand gestures provide navigation as she
observes Synthespians in ancient dress going about their business.
She lands on the hill to browse the culture a bit. She makes herself
visible and speaks with the simulated Greek townspeople.
Recognizable highlighting allows her to see that there are a
few other Tangitrek users in the area. In any cultural recreation,
local Synthespians see Iona as one of them and are eager to discuss
ideas relating to their era. Iona experiences the original language
and can turn translation on as needed. She is directed to a temple
full of sculptures of interest. She touches the sculptures to enhance
her visual study of them. As she moves her hand over the neck of
a marble Pegasus, the Tangitrek informs her to prepare to disembark.
Though it's difficult to leave the simulator, she smiles with satisfaction,
knowing information from today's adventure will be accessible from
her personal media system.
Rewinding to the Present
We should note that though the above-illustrated system demonstrates
the exploration of a twelve-year-old girl, the concept has use in
education or training for people of all ages. It's especially important
to awaken the senses of the very young to the underlying structure
of nature through geometry, color, and sound. The basics: reading,
writing and arithmetic will come quickly and easily after a rich,
explorative foundation. Kindergarten as we know it today is a diluted
version of the original 1830's invention of Friedrich Frobel, which
intended children to use their natural ability to discover, reason,
and create through the universal language of geometric form. Adventure
Learning technology can help us reinvent the nearly lost, yet highly
innovative teaching system.
We know that with the development of content to drive a combination
of technologies—haptic, autostereoscopic display, 3-D computer
simulation, data management, harness and structural materials, personal
media communication systems—we will be able to realize a profoundly
valuable education system. The customized approach improves student
self-esteem, intellectual development, and vocational planning.
"Physical" experience increases retention, balances the
psychological with the intellectual, and brings tangibility to ever-increasing
virtual worlds.
We will see a transformation in the workplace whereby a person's
focus shifts from the pursuit of a paycheck to a daily quest for
knowledge and creative solutions when we finally develop education
content and technology powerful enough to reawaken the natural curiosity
of our students.
© 2002 Diana Walczak. Computer-generated imagery created
by Patrick Finley. Images composited by Io Kleiser and Diana Walczak.
Text and images are intended for demonstration use only.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Brosterman, Norman. Inventing Kindergarten. New York: Henry
N. Abrams, Inc.,1997.
Barrett, Paul. National Geographic Dinosaur. Washington,
D.C., 2001
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