IMSC Vision for US Dept of Commerce
IMSC presented its vision of the future of kindergarten through 12th grade education as part of a U.S. Department of Commerce report, and IMSC Director Ulrich Neumann participated in a Department-sponsored workshop on the topic in Washington, DC, in September 2002.
Other contributors to the Commerce Department report included the George Lucas Foundation, Federation of American Scientists, Electronic Arts, Microsoft and WorldCom.
Prof. Neumann and IMSC key investigator Prof. Chris Kyriakakis developed the vision of education based on IMSC's 2020 Classroom project, which involves developing immersive technologies for use over the Internet. Prof. Kyriakakis and IMSC key investigator Prof. Cyrus Shahabi are co-leaders of the 2020 Classroom project.
The vision statement prepared for the Commerce report describes new remote immersion systems bringing interactive and stimulating classroom experiences to all student populations-regardless of location. It anticipates the fading of classroom boundaries as students and teachers are brought together by peer-to-peer high-resolution video and Immersive Audio in 3D shared environments. These technologies will allow natural discussion, collaboration, and interaction among physically distant participants, as well as access to national archives of instructive media modules.