FINAL 5A: GreenFoot JoC #4 Finally Some Code

Here are screenshots of me watching the Java tutorial and reading through the Java FAQ's.

The first video tutorial i watched was with hedgehogs and the second video i watched (The "Finally Some Code" video) dealing with programming with turtles.

This is a final exercise where we used Java to learn source coding at a basic level. It is a final exercise from the Immersive Education course that I am taking at Boston College. The course is called Discovering Computer Graphics. For details, visit the immersive BC portal at http://ImmersiveEducation.org/@/bc

Class 10: The Education Grid

I went onto http://theeducationgrid.org and read about the Education Grid and what it actually really is.  Pretty much what it really is i guess is a couple virtual worlds that are being used for education purposes.  Within each world, each student has an avatar and username; which both of these have to be available for the student using there correct names and visuals.  This makes the Education Grid able to keep anyone out that is logged in that doesn't have a purpose on there other than Education.

We have used a couple different virtual worlds throughout this course, and i think that any student would have a great learning experience with virtual worlds because to them it would feel exactly like your playing a video game.

Class 10: COLLABORATIVE CODING IN Play Canvas

I went to the PlayCanvas website at https://playcanvas.com/  and found a game called Space Buggy that i remember playing at the beginning of the semester.  I looked into this project a little bit more and learned about the Collaborative Coding.

In the overview section you can see the team that created the game over on the left side of the screen.  These are some of the people that collaborated to write the code for this game.

Then i clicked the code tab in the middle of the screen and picked one to look at.  As you can see down below, the code for this game looks very complicated to me and it was about 10 pages long.  Big projects like this require more than one person to help put together and write the code for, because they are detailed and i don't think one person could do it alone.  

Class 10: Second Life Sandboxes

Here are my screenshots of building in Second life for the Sandbox.  I found that building in Second Life was a little more difficult than building in MineCraft.  My reasoning for this is because the shapes were smaller and you couldn't really get them where you actually wanted them to go.  I was in the Shiromani Sandbox for my first one where i began building and placing random boxes around.   

The second Sandbox i was in was called Little Sandbox for Rez.  Here i used the circles and built a circle then used boxes for my next shape and placed the boxes into the circle. 

Final #4 : High Resolution Avatar using Make Human

Here are my screenshots of making my 3D Avatar in Make Human. I tried to make my avatar look like me as much as possible.  I was able to get my face correct, also from my neck down i got to look pretty accurate. 

I started with the blank human template, and customized the "main" category to look as accurately as myself, before going on to the next categories.  I also played around and tried to make the arms equal in size and length.  

Here i picked the size of my face, and the shape of it.  Also picked my cheekbones and how they would look on my face or in this case my Avatar.  Then went back to the "main" category and choose the closest color of a skin color that would match mine in real life.

I took these two screenshots (down below) i made my torso and legs fit my profile.  I also picked my eye color which is brown here, the fingers and finger tip size, my height, weight, skin color, hair color, put eyebrows and eyelashes on.  Then fully clothed my avatar.

This is a final exercise where we used MakeHuman to create an avatar that looked like us. It is a final exercise from the Immersive Education course that I am taking at Boston College. The course is called Discovering Computer Graphics. For details, visit the immersive BC portal at http://ImmersiveEducation.org/@/bc  http://ImmersiveEducation.org/@/bc

Class 10 : Monocular Depth Cues

For this particular post i found some monocular depth cues using the game Mine Craft.  A monocular depth cue is something that you are seeing in front of you appear 3D even though a computer screen is a flat 2D screen.  One example would be standing behind something that obscures your view in Mine Craft.  You are not actually behind anything because it is only on a flat screen.  Although in real life if you were standing behind a tree it would certainly block your vision. 

Final Project Step 1: Immersive Libraries and Museums

This is an overview of the article i read on Immersive Education-Libraries and Museums Technology Working Group(LAM.TWG).  To get to this page i found the link in the lecture notes.  http://jied.org

In the overview they summarize how they are coming up with ways to use virtual worlds and other kinds of Immersive Technology to create a virtual Museum/Library.  I think that this article was interesting because it talked about the importance of keeping up to date with technology in the world today.  When students learn it is critical that you need to keep up to date so that they get to learn and access new knowledge everyday.

One of the main goals is to be able to design Libraries and Museums that can be accessed virtually.  This style of learning is fairly new and can be fun for students.  One reason why it can be good is because you do not have to hole yourself up in a book in the library, but you can gain knowledge right in your home or where you desire to learn all in your computer in a virtual world.  It is cool knowing you don's have to make a huge hassle out of where you are most comfortable in learning.

This diagram shows that students from all over can virtually access the same information they might need for more in depth learning.  There are the educators, the students, and then the fake participants who are those who come up with all the information that is put together.  The members of the group are trying to design a museum and a library that have two sides; a client side and a server side.  This would be highly beneficial because the two sides could be added to at any time, by anyone with access to the server side.  This would be really good for them because people could be adding to and editing the museum without having to shut down the link on the clients side.

Many people who like to have peace and quiet while they work and learn could benefit from this virtual Museum/Library.  Even though libraries are supposed to be quiet, flipping of pages and typing could be distracting to many students, but this gives them a new twist to being able to concentrate and learn on their own terms.  The idea that someone could virtually access the same and new information is new and useful to students.   

Virtually viewing museums could be a really cool idea and could pretty much work for everyone.  At some point during this course we talked about field trips and how some schools do not have the money to go on field trips that are required for students to learn.  I think that this program of virtually accessing Museums could help many schools so that they can virtually access all museums and students also get to learn as well.  Reading through this whole article i think that these ideas are pretty awesome and could benefit many schools and students!