Advancing Technologies

Below is a toned-down version of a presentation I did for my lit class.  Obviously, this isn't addressing digital literacies, but I think that these advances show the direction we may be heading.  Probably safe to say that things like the following won't be available to the masses for quite some time.  But I think it shows just how important digital literacy is - not just for current and future students, but for all of us.

Kevin Warwick

Kevin Warwick is a professor of cybernetics at the University of Reading in England; he is a leading researcher in robotics, artificial intelligence and biomedical engineering.

1998 - Warwick had a silicon chip implanted in his arm. The chip sent out radio waves alerting the computers in the cybernetics department of his actions. The computer said "Hello" to him when he entered the building. When he got close to his lab, the doors opened and the light came on.

2002 - Warwick and his wife Irena had electrodes implanted in their wrists and were hooked up to computers with wires from their arms. Every time Irena closed her hand, Warwick would "feel a charge" in his finger. Her nervous system was "talking" to his. This was the first successful experiment of person-to-person communication via the nervous system.

"The direction I am interested in ultimately is linking up to the human brain: can we give people extra memory? Can we allow people to communicate just by thinking to each other? My goal in life is to bring about thought communication between people. That's what I would like to achieve." - Kevin Warwick

Here's Warwick's homepage: http://www.kevinwarwick.com/
________________________________________

Brain-Computer Interface (BCI)

2000 - Electrodes were implanted in a human brain. Sensors were taped to shoulders and forehead to monitor electrical activity of muscle contractions. The subject was able to spell out words - just by thinking about them.

2003 - Electrodes were attached to the outside of the skull. The subjects were able to turn on appliances, change TV channels, change volume levels - just by thinking about it.

2009 - Emotiv releases brain-wave headset for video games?
________________________________________

Thought Helmets

2008 - The US DoD awarded $4 million contract to three universities to study "thought helmets." The helmet is made up of 128 electrodes buried in a soldier's helmet. Researchers are attempting to develop software that would detect speech-related brainwaves. The thoughts could then be transmitted to another helmet and spoken in a robotic voice. They are estimating 10-20 years to develop this technology.

Here's an article: http://www.physorg.com/news141314439.html
________________________________________

Brain-to-Brain Communication

May 2009

At the University of Southampton, two people were attached to EEG amplifiers. The first person thought of a series of binary digits, imagining moving their left arm for zero and moving their right arm for one. The PC detected the stream of digits and flashed an LED lamp at two different frequencies - one frequency for zero and another frequency for one. The pattern of the flash is too subtle to be picked up visually by the second person - but it is picked up by the electrodes measuring the visual cortex of the brain.  The PC could then decipher whether a zero or a one was transmitted to the brain.

"Whilst BCI is no longer a new thing and person to person communication via the nervous system was shown previously in work by Professor Kevin Warwick from the University of Reading, here we show, for the first time, true brain to brain interfacing." - Dr. Christopher James, US Institute of Sound and Vibration Research

Read the article here: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/10/091006102637.htm

Watch the experiment here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=93p7oDkA5WA
________________________________________

Future Possibilities?

• From CNN.com

"By the middle of the 21st century it will be possible to download your brain to a supercomputer, according to a leading thinker on the future.

Ian Pearson, head of British Telecom's futurology unit, told the UK's Observer newspaper that the rapid advances in computing power would make cyber-immortality a reality within 50 years."

Link to the article: http://edition.cnn.com/2005/TECH/05/23/brain.download/

New Technologies, New Literacies (and a Digital Story)

I've been researching some of the newest developments in technology for a presentation for my lit class. Brain-computer interfacing (BCI), brain to brain communication, speckled computing, augmented reality - it's made me realize just how vital digital literacy is and will be. I didn't need to know how to use a BCI to play Atari when I was little...but my son may need to know how to use one to play his Playstation(insert # here).

I'll be posting some information about this stuff later this week.  I also came across an article which indicated that Second Life is going to be huge in the future.  I'll post the link to that article as well.

Until then, here's my digital story:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cJm1JQTvx2M

Here's the background on it - the book we read (Air by Geoff Ryman) revolves around a future world in which brains are formatted and everyone gets the internet inside their heads. This is what led me to research new technologies. The video is a montage of art and reality. Hope you enjoy it.

Digital Storytelling

I love the idea of using this in a class. I think it's a wonderful opportunity to engage and challenge students. I know several people who have recently started school - Freshman comp for all. Write 5 essays this quarter. Write another 5 essays next quarter. Boring. While I believe competent writing is one of the most important skills that a person should acquire, I also believe it's not just about writing. It's also the ability to express your thoughts clearly and meaningfully, and that can be accomplished without having points taken off for a misplaced comma.

I created a digital story for a lit project last spring.  I don't know if "story" is the right word - I read a cummings poem and put it with some pictures and videos.  The poem was about love.  Most of the students viewed it as romantic love.  The poem doesn't really specify that, though, and I kept thinking of my son and my love for him when I read it.  So I used pictures of him.  Here's the point I am (and was) trying to make - literature is such a subjective experience.  You can take any piece of literature and make it your own in some way, without a professor telling you the "right" way to interpret it.  I think, then, that something like this is a wonderful way to see (literally) all of the various ways in which a piece can be viewed (literally).

What's My Inquiry?

I'll be doing my masters in English comp and rhetoric. With that in mind, my curiosity naturally tends toward how I could use these new-fangled technologies in a classroom. So many possibilites, so little time. I'm most interested in learning how to use the various media so that I can incorporate it in a class.

Second Life

I did try to spend some time in Second Life, but I didn't get far. At all. It took over 24 hours to receive my confirmation email. When I did enter SL, I tried to change the clothes my avatar was wearing and ended up mostly in the buff. That pretty much stopped me in my tracks. Seems that if I had so much trouble with that, I couldn't expect my future students to get terribly far either.

I did find some informative sites regarding education in SL before I ventured into the virtual world. Some of those are below:

http://web.ics.purdue.edu/~mpepper/slbib

http://www.iste.org/Content/NavigationMenu/Membership/Member_Networking/ISTE_Second_Life.htm

http://sleducation.wikispaces.com/educationaluses

This is a link to a Ball State English Comp course that was held in SL:

http://eng104sl.intellagirl.com/index.php?option=com_frontpage&Itemid=1
(Side Note: I skimmed through the very long transcript of a class that was held - wasn't impressed.)

And here's an interesting interview: "How NOT to Teach in Second Life"

http://theory.isthereason.com/?p=1363


Here's my take on it. As others have mentioned, there seems to be a lot of impropriety in this world. For that reason alone, I would have difficulty trying to use this as an educational tool without A LOT of training specific to SL. It would take me more than a few weeks to become confident enough and knowledgeable enough to attempt to use this as an educational tool.

I can certainly appreciate what has been created in this realm, though. I did watch the video from UC-Davis regarding schizophrenia. (My 2nd love is psychology.) For concepts such as this, and travelling back to the Globe and so forth, this seems to be a wonderful resource. However, as a possible comp teacher, I think I would be hard pressed to come up with something more creative than just having students sit in on a lecture. I'd much rather meet with my students in the real world rather than a virtual one. Guess I'm old school.