The Sun Immersion Special Interest Group
The Sun Immersion Special Interest Group (SIG) is a Sun sponsored community dedicated to the research, development and application of virtual worlds and gaming using Project Wonderland, Project Darkstar and SunSPOT technologies for Open Education. It is open to academic institutions, commercial organizations, faculty and students interested in learning, collaboration and sharing practical experiences in Immersive Education.
Project Wonderland is a 100% Java and open source toolkit for creating collaborative 3D virtual worlds. Within those worlds, users can communicate with high-fidelity, immersive audio, share live desktop applications and documents and conduct real business. Wonderland is completely extensible; developers and graphic artists can extend its functionality to create entire new worlds and new features in existing worlds. To learn more about Project Wonderland, be sure to check out the new Technical Overview video series.
What is Immersive Education ?
Immersive Education combines 3-D virtual reality technology along with digital media to bring distance learning and self-directed learning to a new level. Unlike traditional distance learning, Immersive Education is designed to immerse and engage students in the same way that today's best video games grab and keep the attention of players. Immersion combines voice, chat, game-based learning modules, sensors, stereo audio and virtual world technologies with collaborative online course environments and classrooms. These virtual worlds give students a sense of "being there" even when attending class in person isn't possible, practical, or desirable. The rich media interface provides faculty and remote students with the ability to connect and communicate in a way that greatly enhances the learning experience. Immersive Education supports self-directed learning as well as collaborative group-based learning environments. Shorter mini-games and interactive lessons can be injected into larger bodies of course material to further heighten and enrich the educational experience. Immersion systems on the web today are focused on a broad spectrum of academic and non-academic institutional users including primary and secondary education, higher education, healthcare and government.
Project Wonderland and Project Darkstar are accepted open technology platforms for the Immersive Education Initiative and corresponding project to build the Education Grid. To learn more, visit http://www.ImmersiveEducation.org/
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