Sunday, November 17, 2013

Immersive Education Libraries and Museums Article Summary

Note: The article calls itself a "Charter" for the Immersive Education (I'm assuming based upon context, "Libraries and Museums Technology Working Group". From now on for convenience I will shorten this to LAMTWG.

The LAMTWG is effectively (this description is coming from my business background) an advisory/supervisory board or commission which monitors and ensures the quality of Libraries and Museums that wish to have a relationship with Immersive Education.

Based upon its membership criteria the LAMTWG seems very open to people with a variety of backgrounds. This seems like a real asset for recruitment and hopefully produces a board with diverse perspectives to contribute (something which is generally an asset). The flexibility to get those with both virtual and real world museum experience seems intelligent. In addition the board accepts people with technical backgrounds in virtual worlds and other online environments and simulations.

Real world museums and libraries face significant challenges incorporating virtual and non-corporeal information and content into their exhibit halls and learning spaces. Despite this virtual, immersive and multimedia assets and ideas offer profound benefits to these institutions' missions. The aid they could provide in teaching must be seized. Still more than this, in my opinion these alternative information streams are especially key in helping non-traditional students. Many of us (such as myself) are primarily or partially autodidacts. For us being able to access and control the information we get is key to teaching ourselves (the method by which we often learn best).

The next few paragraphs before the objectives section consist of specific methods by which libraries and museums could benefit from utilizing Immersive Education. Frankly you would be better reading the article (linked at bottom) but to briefly summarize they most tend to break down into either Efficiency/interface Improvements and/or greater information to be accessed/incorporated without space limitations (though some fall a little outside, between or in both of these categories we are space limited).

The objectives section is hard to summarize in total specificity (listing all the objectives in summaries longer than themselves would be pointless and I can't use quotes) so instead I will again recommend you read the page in addition to my short synopsis. Basically the LAMTWG wants to help libraries and museums help themselves with immersive assets and ideas while simultaneously helping the Immersive Education Initiative translate the priceless information and ideas inside those museums and libraries to a virtual environment that its students can access. The case is presented as a win win which it certainly sounds like. Most of the specific objective points are around how to insure this process works well and standards are upheld.

The next paragraph is about the Criteria for Success of the LAMTWG. Basically it can be broken down (though again you should actually read it) as maintain the professional standards which would apply to real museums and libraries while figuring out how to translate this stuff into virtual worlds. There is also a point about helping at risk youth(*Note at bottom*).

The next section of use cases is best to read personally (please follow link) as they are esoteric and contain diagrams. Following that section we have a couple of general housekeeping notes on how the LAMTWG will meet and the confidentiality of its memos (possibly including this one).

Sources: Information From "Immersive Education Libraries and Museums Technology Working Group (LAM.TWG)" @ http://jied.org/1/1/8/

**From my 2+ years of experience teaching at risk youth (I worked at the Epiphany School in Dorchester and the Agassiz School (now closed) in JP) I would argue that the Immersive Education I have experienced would be very unsuited for teaching at risk youth who generally do not possess basic computer skills and cannot afford computer or internet access, outside of libraries. As you may know libraries are often far away from their homes, critically understaffed and have staff do not possess the time or inclination to assist the students with computer issues, also their parents don't know computers either**

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