Daniel Laughlin Transcript 2 August 2006
From SimTeach
Jeremy Kabumpo: well, our guest tonight (or morning for HK folks) is Dan Laughlin from Goddard/NASA in VA? He is Daniel Laughlin here - take is away mr. Hightower - why are you interested in SL?
Kate Spatula: grrr... book... gravity... keyboard... interesting reaction
Kala Pixie: Umm, I think kate just flew off.
Daniel Laughlin: Goddard Space Flight Center is in Greenbelt, MD. Just outside of DC.
Sas Shi: hi Ava
Ava Thereian: hi :)
Daniel Laughlin: I am interested in SL because it's the first synthetic environment I've been invited to speak in:)
Danielle Damone: LOL
Kala Pixie: ^_^
Daniel Laughlin: So thanks for inviting me.
Jeremy Kabumpo: very pragmatic :-)
Sas Shi grins
Jeremy Kabumpo: we are VERY honored to have you
Daniel Laughlin: To answer seriously, I manage NASA's Learning Technologies Project.
Daniel Laughlin: We work as NASA's research and development incubator for educational technologies.
Kate Spatula: edtech for what areas... age groups... etc?
Daniel Laughlin: NASA is tasked in it's charter to educate the American public in general and has a vested interested in creating more scientists and engineers
Daniel Laughlin: Traditionally NASA has taken a two pronged approach giving scholarships and the like to college students
Daniel Laughlin: and creating educational products for school students.
Daniel Laughlin: The last five years, we have particularly targeted middle school as the key area where kids lose interest in science and math.
Daniel Laughlin: My office works to bring innovative technology use together with NASA mission content and join them with top quality education practices.
Kate Spatula: that's what a lot of the work in computer science on the gender gap says as well... although there is the science exposure related to having a computer
Sas Shi: right
Kala Pixie: o.0
Dan Magpie: ergh
Daniel Laughlin: ah recess
Sas Shi laughs
Dan Magpie: what was that?
Corwin Carillon: lol
Danielle Damone: we were all excited to see you Dan
Jeremy Kabumpo: very strange!
Kala Pixie: *pokes Jeremy* its his fault! *jokes*
Dan Magpie: :D
Ava Thereian: i may have done then... when i took a free copy of something...
Sas Shi: yes it made us all jump up for joy
Kate Spatula: the spork plus the kilt was too much
Jeremy Kabumpo: woo hoo!
Daniel Laughlin: hehe
Sas Shi grins
Dan Magpie: ;) bizarre. hello all. :)
Sas Shi: so what kinds of things to do with/for children of that age Greyark?
Sas Shi: to keep them interested in science and technology
Sas Shi: because clearly they are important and valuable skills in today's society
Ava Thereian: I am familiar with the many lesson plans and video you have available
Ava Thereian: they are great btw
Sas Shi smiles
Daniel Laughlin: Since then we have funded about 30 projects. Mostly national standards based and attempting to match curricular needs with NASA mission content.
Daniel Laughlin: They does some great standards matching.
Ava Thereian: to me, the schools whose projects get funded are those who have the best support systems in place, i am afraid that my rural students are way behind
Ava Thereian: what recommendations do you have for schools with little prep time and equipment?
Sas Shi: also applies to inner city or lower income area public schools unfortunately
Daniel Laughlin: We fund the development and push the teams to make their products as accessible as possible.
Kate Spatula: well, accessibility can mean a lot of things. how do you define it?
Daniel Laughlin: In 1999 we funded a project called America's Farm to tie NASA remote sensing, web cams on a working farm and science lessons together.
Sas Shi nods
Ava Thereian: still available? that sounds good
Jeremy Kabumpo: Do you see any cool edtech benefits in using this environment and NASA mission content?
Daniel Laughlin: Yes. Until 4th grade, boys and girls seem to like science and math equally. By grade 8, most have lost interest but more girls than boys.
Daniel Laughlin: Unfortunately America's Farm was not a big success. They shut down at the end of funding. We prefer to incubate programs to move out on their own after several years.
Kate Spatula: one interesting idea i have would be to use the mars rovers' images to recreate mars on here
Danielle Damone: hey
Sas Shi: you might be able to do some of the moon too
stimpy Tripp: Oh dear. I'm wandering around, and this sounds like my work life...
Kala Pixie: ^_^
Danielle Damone: sorry stimpy LOL
Sas Shi: lol
Sas Shi: too many people on at once?
stimpy Tripp: I work at a college, and we are working with some software called Blackboard.
Daniel Laughlin: I just figured out the history button. Now I can see what I've missed.
Danielle Damone: Blackboard!! Bad subject today
Sas Shi: ya that's a goody
Sas Shi: I use history a lot.
Daniel Laughlin: Learning Technologies has been around NASA since 1997.
Sas Shi listens
stimpy Tripp: why, danielle?
Lloud Laffer: yes - blackboard and patent office <sigh>
Danielle Damone: I will tell you later
Daniel Laughlin: We funded the video series The SciFiles for three years.
stimpy Tripp: ooh, okay.
Ava Thereian: There is so much on the NASA Education website
Daniel Laughlin: Jeremy I do see some possible cool applications of edtech and the environment. Mostly what comes from NASA right now is cool pictures though.
Daniel Laughlin: Usually I mean disability access, but this time I meant useable by as many schools as possible.,
Sas Shi: sounds great
Sas Shi: it would be quite doable to recreate mars from pictures here, its a great idea
Ava Thereian: many wonderful resources if you can get the time to look at them and use them
Daniel Laughlin: I am currently working with a project to take NASA satellite images and feed them through a program to sonify them so blind students can understand the data.
stimpy Tripp: Well, Excuse me.
Danielle Damone: that is an excellent idea
Lloud Laffer: yes very cool
Daniel Laughlin: It's called Earth+ and is still in development.
Ava Thereian: wonderful
Lloud Laffer: It reminds me of the audio of telemetry from the Venus Lander
Daniel Laughlin: And you are right about the NASA Ed page, Ava. There is a lot there and it barely touches the NASA ed resources.
Kate Spatula: greyark... you and I should talk afterwards about that... i do a lot of work in accessibility in that sense and know of several projects like that i could point you too
Sas Shi: hi Coca :)
Danielle Damone: I work with some blind students and would love to see how that works
Cocatalia Lapointe: Hello
Jeremy Kabumpo: hello Cocatalia!
Cocatalia Lapointe: Hello Jeremy
Daniel Laughlin: We are still wrestling with getting our web presence more under control at NASA.
Corwin Carillon: hi cocatalia
Cocatalia Lapointe: Hi Corwin
Daniel Laughlin: Until a few years ago, every project with NASA funding made it's own web pages, education products and communications materials. It was a nightmare to try and find things.
Corwin Carillon: Greyark, does Earth+ have a website with info about the project?
Corwin Carillon: ... to add to the nightmare <grin>
Ava Thereian: There is an international space museum here... it has quite an impressive presence are you aware of it?
Ava Thereian: *international
Daniel Laughlin: Earth+ has an out of date page at http://prime.jsc.nasa.gov/earthplus/
Corwin Carillon: :) thx
Daniel Laughlin: But I will call the development team at Johnson Space center tomorrow and ask them to update it.
Sas Shi: (does anyone mind if I take a picture?
Danielle Damone: I hope not - I already took one :-)
Sas Shi: it would go on my blog, if no one minds, it is at www.joannasrobinson.com
Sas Shi: heh ok, just being cautious :)
Daniel Laughlin: I am aware of the ISM here. I bought this t-shirt there:)
Ava Thereian: ah lol didn't see your shirt :)
Daniel Laughlin: It's very impressive and I hope to have some luck show it off to about 25 NASA folks next week at Marshall Space Flight Center.
Ava Thereian: great :)
Daniel Laughlin: Jeremy started with a question about my interest in SL and I still have not gotten there.
Daniel Laughlin: Let me try and tie it together.
Sas Shi: :)
Daniel Laughlin: Two years ago, NASA was contacted by Bill Davis from the America's Army game team.
Daniel Laughlin: He wanted to know if NASA was interested in making a commercial quality game.
Kala Pixie: o.0
Daniel Laughlin: At the time, NASA had no idea if it was interested or not.
Daniel Laughlin: In addition to all the cool elements, NASA is a big bureaucracy. We did not have any sort of game policy.
Daniel Laughlin: And without a policy, bureaucracies can't make decisions.
Ava Thereian: lol how familiar
Daniel Laughlin: The head of NASA Education's Technology and Products division sent out a memo asking for anyone who knew anything about computer games to speak up.
Kala Pixie: *raises hand*
Daniel Laughlin: I was working with Learning Technologies already. My PhD is in education with a focus on technology. And I've been playing computer games since the Apple was a cool new idea.
Sas Shi: <---- big gamer AND big virtual world-er
Daniel Laughlin: And importantly, I decided it might not be the end of my career if I said "I do" publicly.
Sas Shi: (we've come so far since pong)
Kala Pixie: <.< Bigger gamer. ^_^
Sas Shi: (noo!)
Sas Shi winks
Kala Pixie: ^_^
Sas Shi: welcome Wendy
Sas Shi smiles
Daniel Laughlin: Surprisingly, no one else at NASA claimed to know about games.
Wendy Widget: hi everybody, sorry to be late
Danielle Damone: come join us
Jeremy Kabumpo: black Wednesdays...
Daniel Laughlin: So I became the NASA Education lead on games research.
Danielle Damone: cool
Sas Shi tries not to be jealous ;)
Jeremy Kabumpo: (is jealous)
Sas Shi laughs
Kala Pixie: (is more jealous) ^_^
Danielle Damone: LOL
Sas Shi: (is really jealous, was just being polite)
Daniel Laughlin: I was jealous of Ted Castranova when he published his report on the economy of Norrath:)
Ava Thereian: *nods*
Sas Shi: yeah, I <3 T.L. Taylor
Sas Shi geeky smile
Daniel Laughlin: Over the last two years my job with games has been threefold.
Sas Shi: her book is Play Between Worlds, highly recommended for those with interest in women and gaming
Daniel Laughlin: The easy part has been doing the research to give NASA a sound basis for considering game technology.
Daniel Laughlin: There is now a draft white paper called A Guide for NASA to Educational Uses of Games.
Daniel Laughlin: Any day now, I'll do that last revision and make it a real paper instead of a draft.
Ava Thereian: *smiles*
Jeremy Kabumpo: enders game version .00001
Daniel Laughlin: A huge part of my job is meetings, reports and red tape. It leaves little time for real research and writing.
Kate Spatula: I'm only a grad student and my life is like that
Daniel Laughlin: The second part of my job with games has been to convince NASA, once we had a research base, to consider funding games.
Ava Thereian: *applauds*
Kala Pixie: while were on the subject of games, and NASA, I would like to point out a free downloadable game called Orbiter. It has (at least from my viewpoint), very realistic simulations of launching space craft and landing)
Lloud Laffer: Greyark, is the focus of the white paper on outreach to the public with games or for internal training/education?
Daniel Laughlin: The third part is to just get people at NASA to take me seriously when I talk about games in the first place.
Dan Magpie: /
Daniel Laughlin: I have played with Orbiter. I like it.
Kala Pixie: Yay. One point for me ^_^
Dan Magpie thanks everyone, has to run :)
Rubaiyat Shatner is offline
Ava Thereian: i would think that with all the simulations NASA has used over the years... that games would be a continuation
Danielle Damone: bye Dan
Ava Thereian: a natural progression in technology
Daniel Laughlin: My goal with games is to get NASA to fund a seriously educational game that is commercial quality and fun.
Daniel Laughlin: Piece of cake, right?
Kate Spatula: but a game is a lot more than a simulation... there needs to be the scaffolding of objective and goals
Jeremy Kabumpo: "Games" have been a part of training in complex systems from WAAAAY back...
Ava Thereian: *nods*
Daniel Laughlin: Very true, Jeremy.
Kate Spatula: a lot of this is reminding me of the work that is done at USC's Institute for Creative Technologies.
Kala Pixie: One thing a lot of people don't realize in game development, and possible simulations, is that it has to be just as educational as it is fun. No one wants to play an extremely educational...typing game. But add in some form of fun, (House of the Dead),
Kala Pixie: and typing becomes a lot less repetitive, it becomes fun. Your typing to win.
Daniel Laughlin: Since you are all are sophisticated veterans of SL, I can use more complex ideas that I use at most NASA meetings on games.
Sas Shi: sophisticated, ooh.
Kate Spatula: http://people.ict.usc.edu/~lane is the work that I'm thinking of (Chad would probably be willing to answer e-mails... he's a great guy)
Daniel Laughlin: What I really want is a real-physics based, synthetic environment that is persistent. With a games being the front end hook that lures students and teachers in.
Jeremy Kabumpo: and here we are...
Wendy Widget: does anyone know if Croquet would do?
Daniel Laughlin: Thanks Kate.
Sas Shi: yes, we are at it
Sas Shi: hehehe
Kate Spatula: well, the physics model here has some issues, but you can hack around it if you need it
Kala Pixie: Wendy, that's a negative. 6_^
Kala Pixie: I've played around a lot with Croquet, and it seems very funky, clunky, and hard for a new person to get into with.
Daniel Laughlin: NASA is very fussy on the physics issue.
Sas Shi: you can make it match real world conditions yes, with world controls, and then scripts for various consequences for actions
Jeremy Kabumpo: good enough for basic mechanics - middle schoolers
Kala Pixie: I think, SL, would be great, if updated a bit more, with better physics. Its quite easy to get into, but still fun to just play around with.
Daniel Laughlin: But I have to sell it to rocket scientists before I can get it to the middle schoolers:)
Sas Shi: that's true. I wish I could tell you about a sim that fulfills those requirements already but I am still exploring, and I do not know if it exists
Daniel Laughlin: Don't get me wrong. I like SL even if I don't visit as often as I should.
Sas Shi: but the ability to fly is easily turned off, and scripts can do other things
Kate Spatula: the other aspect of SL is that scale is not as much of an issue as in RL. i'm thinking of realistic solar system models and the like
Sas Shi: one way scripts are being used are so that actual damage occurs when shot with scripted weapons, in combat sims, but this sort of script could be modified for many other purposes
Daniel Laughlin: Realistic solar system model is good.
Sas Shi: yes!
Jeremy Kabumpo: the ISM is a great evidence that collaborative communities can do space education...
Kala Pixie: Greyark, you did visit the solar system simulation at the museum, correct?
Daniel Laughlin: Yes I did.
Kala Pixie: ^_^
Wendy Widget: Does anyone know about the Physics class at U of Minnesota that's using SL?
Daniel Laughlin: I know that some classes have tried SL for physics.
Daniel Laughlin: There is a lot of cool education stuff going on here and more than a fair share of it looking at space.
Daniel Laughlin: And a lot of traffic on your education listserv.
Kate Spatula: the key is to focus on the interactive.... how about tinkering with certain physical forces? a room that has adjustable gravity
Daniel Laughlin: It sounds cool.
Daniel Laughlin: NASA wants whole planets with the right gravity and atmosphere.
Jeremy Kabumpo: Aye guvner
Ava Thereian: that--- would be fantastic
Sas Shi: that's doable, skyboxes can be used, with moving gas, or clouds or whatever
Jeremy Kabumpo: particle effects!
Ava Thereian: *nods*
Sas Shi: it will be better in the future of course, as more program facets are added
Daniel Laughlin: Next week we are kicking off a prototype development with the America's Army team to show you can make a fun, learning game with top of the time graphics and NASA content.
Kala Pixie: On that note. another game comes to mind. The newest Microsoft Flight Simulator, which, supposedly has a full world, with correct gravity. If modified, it could be a good platform, at least offline.
Sas Shi: sounds interesting Kala, thanks (Googles)
Kala Pixie: It should be available on Windows Vista. Somewhere in 07.
Sas Shi nods
Daniel Laughlin: Next year, Learning Technologies (me) is putting out a solicitation for folks at NASA Centers to partner with experience game developers to try and build a MMOG based on NASA content.
Daniel Laughlin: I'm calling it a "sciberspace"
Sas Shi: scriber?
Ava Thereian: *volunteers by raising her hand*
Jeremy Kabumpo: writing?
Kala Pixie: oooh. *raises hand* Beta Tester!
Sas Shi: oh wait, science
Sas Shi: i get it hehehe
Sas Shi: yes Beta tester here too hehe
Daniel Laughlin: sci- as in science to replace cy-berspace:)
Sas Shi: :) gotcha
Ava Thereian: I think that is preferred for NASA
Kate Spatula: greyark... it's an old game with sever sci-fi conventions, but you might want to take a look at the game Starflight
Ava Thereian: *perfect even
Daniel Laughlin: I will, Kate. Thanks for the suggestion.
Kala Pixie: Along space games, though neither is really realistic, are Eve and Freelancer. Eve is an MMO.
Kala Pixie: But freelancer is sure fun ^_^
Daniel Laughlin: One of the fellows I know will propose to the solicitation is sitting down with the Eve folks this week.
Jeremy Kabumpo: and Olive?
Kala Pixie: But on the other hand, Eve happens to be single-handedly the most complicated MMO currently on the market.
Kala Pixie: ^_^
Daniel Laughlin: True.
Lloud Laffer: And a lot of Eve is about commerce
Daniel Laughlin: I am in the enviable position of not having to solve all the issues. I just have to frame the problem and then wait for the proposals:)
Kala Pixie: Hehehe. ^_^
Sas Shi: (raises hand) please be sure to have gender and race inclusive avatars! :)
Kala Pixie: ^_^
Danielle Damone: I agree!
Daniel Laughlin: absolutely.
Jeremy Kabumpo: seems like a key feature of SL is that you have a large community of expert builders - very rich in their understanding and varied in backgrounds - not like hiring thre or four guys for a few months of development!
Lloud Laffer: Are there specific objectives? I was thinking about Entropia but it seems a lot about conflict.
Kala Pixie: Yes, If you ever needed to build a professional platform for cheap, you could just get a few SL programmers together.
Daniel Laughlin: NASA will frown on conflict.
Kate Spatula: there's also the potential of letting the students create their own aspects of the game
Jeremy Kabumpo: and that content here is extensible
Kate Spatula: such as design a space probe like a rover for certain planetary conditions
Daniel Laughlin: NASA will also frown on shooting aliens. I have been told that specifically.
Sas Shi: My apologies, I need to go. But thank you for having me, this was my first meeting. Please feel free to contact me anyone, if you want to talk. I am a MA student in Popular Culture at Brock University in Canada, my research revolves around representations
Sas Shi: and gender identity in online games and environments
Sas Shi: thanks everyone :)
Danielle Damone: thanks sas!
You have offered friendship to Sas Shi.
Sas Shi is online
Daniel Laughlin: Let me give you all my email address
Sas Shi smiles
Ava Thereian: the fact that there are so many contributors working 24/7 makes this environment unique and dynamic
Sas Shi: ok, thankyou
Kala Pixie: <.< Wants to shoot NASA-declined aliens ^_^
Daniel Laughlin: daniel.laughlin@gsfc.nasa.gov.
Jeremy Kabumpo: Dan - may we publish this transcript?
Sas Shi: goodnight all, thank you again, look forward to speaking with you further in future :)
Daniel Laughlin: I suspect you all have something to offer NASA in the game and simulation arena. Your experience is much deeper than most people in NASA with this.
Kala Pixie: For when your on SL, ^_^
Danielle Damone: thanks!
Daniel Laughlin: I didn't say anything to embarrass myself or NASA, so publish away Jeremy.
Jeremy Kabumpo: thx!
