Design Interfaces with VR

Virtual Reality (VR) is maturing as a technology. Now that mainstream head-mounted displays (HMDs) are consumer-affordable, the space of application development has begun in earnest. Some of this development transitions existing applications (e.g. computer games) to work with a 3D tracked interface while others explore completely novel and innovative uses of VR. The idea of using VR in architectural practice has a long history. As a tool with the potential to allow 3D visualisation at 1:1scale, the use-case for architectural visualisation has seemed natural and obvious since the early days of the technology. However, the realisation of this idea was not initially straightforward. In 2000 UCL built a CAVE-like VR projection theatre – this is a 3m x 3m room where three of the four walls and the floor are stereo displays, viewed through tracked stereo glasses allowing perspective-correct stereo views. This was driven by a state-of-the-art SGI computer, many times more powerful than any standard PC (and about 20 times the size). However, despite this vast graphics processing power, most architectural models, could not easily be adapted to this new technology. These models had been designed for accurate renderings of detailed geometry. Twenty minutes of processing with standard computer graphics applications on a desktop PC could produce a beautiful rendering of a view into this model, but VR demands real-time frame rates (ideally at least 60 frames per second) and the models were simply too large and detailed for this. These tensions between designs for single viewpoint renderings and designs for real-time rendering are now better understood, and advances in both graphics hardware and software have improved this situation. However recent trends in consumer VR towards standalone headsets mean that simulations are now driven by the same graphics processors that drive the mobile devices in our pockets. Aside from these technical hurdles, the cost has been the main contributing factor to the relatively slow uptake of VR as a tool for exploring design, but now that we have affordable devices available, what are the factors that still hinder progress

Exploring the Current Nature of a School Principal\u27s Work

This study employed a qualitative framework to explore the current nature of a selected school principal’s work. Specifically, through observations, audio journals and interviews, I sought to better understand what a selected Ontario elementary school principal did when engaging in her work. The research questions were designed to explore how the principal spent her time and why, and examine the challenges she faced in accomplishing her work. The findings of the inquiry revealed that the school principal was concerned with fulfilling the formal mandates of her job while emphasizing communication, building relationships and the instructional program in developing healthy learning environments for students. She employed a range of media in the day to day operationalization of her work and faced several challenges including increasing student diversity, labour relations, and lack of parental involvement

Principal Leadership and Prioritizing Equity in An Era of Work Intensification: Must Wellbeing be Sacrificed?

This case explores the themes of equity, leadership, wellbeing, and work intensification. The case follows Jennifer “Jen” Barns, the new principal at Westfield Public School, a JK-8 school in Ontario. Jen is overwhelmed by all the responsibilities of the job. She does not have a productive working relationship with staff and is unable to get them to support a social justice initiative or take on responsibilities at the school. At first glance, it appears the issue may be with the teachers or even the equity agenda Jen is proposing to implement. However, a closer look at the case reveals gaps in principal leadership that would need to be addressed if Jen is to turn things around. Three teaching exercises are included to fully situate the case and chart a course of action that includes identifying the issues in the case and developing several leadership principles that would transform the learning environment at Westfield, foster sustainable school improvement, and improve Jen’s wellbeing. While the case casts an important gaze on the impact of an equity focus on workload and wellbeing, it provides the basis for a discussion of the pivotal role principals play in leading schools in this contemporary era of change

Book Review: Miller, P. (Ed.) (2013). School leadership in the Caribbean: Perceptions, practices, paradigms.

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BOOK REVIEW: Thompson, C. (2013). Leadership Re-imagination: A Primer of Principles and Practices (Kindle DX version). Kingston, Jamaica: The Caribbean Leadership Re-Imagination Initiative.

BOOK REVIEW: Thompson, C. (2013). Leadership Re-imagination: A Primer of Principles and Practices (Kindle DX version). Kingston, Jamaica: The Caribbean Leadership Re-Imagination Initiative

Melting Multiculturalism? Legacies of Assimilation Pressures in Human Service Organizations

This paper examines non-profit human service agency workers\u27 discussions of their work with diverse clients. These conversations are understood within the competing social agendas of multiculturalism and assimilation, and they suggest how service providers may resist or perpetuate the social control of people of color. Findings revealed that people of color were often excluded from providers\u27 notions of American identity. It was common for providers, both whites and people of color, to both wittingly and unwittingly describe pressures to assimilate their clients. Providers disagreed on the merits and consequences of these assimilation pressures, with some seeing harm done to themselves as well as their clients, and others defending the practice as in their clients\u27 best interest. Other providers resisted pressures to assimilate clients into a white Northern European norm by breaking agency rules that were considered culturally insensitive or by engaging in self-reflection and adjustment-making in their own expectations and behaviors instead of changing their clients\u27 ways

The Use of Virtual Reality in the Study of People's Responses to Violent Incidents

This paper reviews experimental methods for the study of the responses of people to violence in digital media, and in particular considers the issues of internal validity and ecological validity or generalisability of results to events in the real world. Experimental methods typically involve a significant level of abstraction from reality, with participants required to carry out tasks that are far removed from violence in real life, and hence their ecological validity is questionable. On the other hand studies based on field data, while having ecological validity, cannot control multiple confounding variables that may have an impact on observed results, so that their internal validity is questionable. It is argued that immersive virtual reality may provide a unification of these two approaches. Since people tend to respond realistically to situations and events that occur in virtual reality, and since virtual reality simulations can be completely controlled for experimental purposes, studies of responses to violence within virtual reality are likely to have both ecological and internal validity. This depends on a property that we call ‘plausibility’ – including the fidelity of the depicted situation with prior knowledge and expectations. We illustrate this with data from a previously published experiment, a virtual reprise of Stanley Milgram's 1960s obedience experiment, and also with pilot data from a new study being developed that looks at bystander responses to violent incidents