Egyptian Ceremony in the Virtual Temple- Avatars for Virtual Heritage

With Virtual Reality, students can directly interact with distant times and places, giving them greater understanding and empathy for other cultures. Egyptian religious performance and ritual were central to the culture, and monumental temples were their dramatic performance spaces. The Earth Theater at Carnegie Museum of Natural History supports the Virtual Egyptian Temple, a three-dimensional, computer-graphic simulation of a Ptolemaic Era temple. We propose to stage an important religious event from that time, the Egyptian Oracle, virtually “in” the temple at the Earth Theater and two other large-screen theaters. An expert puppeteer will control the temple virtual High Priest and lesser constructs, a live educator, and even with the audience in the role of the Egyptian public. A live puppeteer can experiment and improvise in ways no artificial intelligence can and decades of educational research show the best way to learn about a social activity is to see it and do it

Graduate Online Bulletin, 2011-2012 (2011)

https://red.mnstate.edu/graduate_bulletins/1026/thumbnail.jp

The Metaverse: Survey, Trends, Novel Pipeline Ecosystem & Future Directions

The Metaverse offers a second world beyond reality, where boundaries are non-existent, and possibilities are endless through engagement and immersive experiences using the virtual reality (VR) technology. Many disciplines can benefit from the advancement of the Metaverse when accurately developed, including the fields of technology, gaming, education, art, and culture. Nevertheless, developing the Metaverse environment to its full potential is an ambiguous task that needs proper guidance and directions. Existing surveys on the Metaverse focus only on a specific aspect and discipline of the Metaverse and lack a holistic view of the entire process. To this end, a more holistic, multi-disciplinary, in-depth, and academic and industry-oriented review is required to provide a thorough study of the Metaverse development pipeline. To address these issues, we present in this survey a novel multi-layered pipeline ecosystem composed of (1) the Metaverse computing, networking, communications and hardware infrastructure, (2) environment digitization, and (3) user interactions. For every layer, we discuss the components that detail the steps of its development. Also, for each of these components, we examine the impact of a set of enabling technologies and empowering domains (e.g., Artificial Intelligence, Security & Privacy, Blockchain, Business, Ethics, and Social) on its advancement. In addition, we explain the importance of these technologies to support decentralization, interoperability, user experiences, interactions, and monetization. Our presented study highlights the existing challenges for each component, followed by research directions and potential solutions. To the best of our knowledge, this survey is the most comprehensive and allows users, scholars, and entrepreneurs to get an in-depth understanding of the Metaverse ecosystem to find their opportunities and potentials for contribution

E-Learning and Digital Education in the Twenty-First Century

E-learning and digital education approaches are evolving and changing the landscape of teaching and learning at all levels of education throughout the world. Innovation of emerging learning technologies is assisting e-learning and digital education to meet the needs of the 21st century. Due to the digital transformation of everyday practice, the process of learning and education has become more self-paced and accessible at any time from anywhere. The new generations of digital natives are growing up with a set of skills through their engagement with the digital world. In this context, this book includes a collection of chapters to facilitate continuous improvements including flexibility and accessibility in e-learning and digital education by exploring the challenges and opportunities of innovative approaches through the lenses of current theories, policies, and practices

2013, UMaine News Press Releases

This is a catalog of press releases put out by the University of Maine Division of Marketing and Communications between January 2, 2013 and December 31, 2013