EARTH DAY APRIL 22 1998

Theme – CREATIVE COMMUNICATIONS FOR A HAPPY HEALTHY FUTURE

We want to teach the kids and show the adults that it is possible to develop

Intelligent communication systems for education, healthcare, communication, and recreation,

To empower people with knowledge of options

As we live in an information age, our lives are continually influenced by new applications of information technology. Informaticsystems impact society at all levels,

from personal and interpersonal dynamics, to global systems of immense complexity. Thefuture needs of the info-culture can be anticipated, thus environments must

be created and processes need be initiated whichwill aid in a smooth and intelligent transition into the future. It is not enough to just refine current methods of

education; instead,we must reach out with all our insight and an open mind and begin to develop new methods of thinking, learning, exploring andgrowing which will

serve as the basis of intelligent migration into this new and exciting future. We must be proactive and makea conscious effort to act in ways which will allow us to

reach the most potential offered by this inevitable progression into anew century and a new world. By developing a compassionate and pro-social basis for

exploring and sharing knowledgeabout the impact of technology we can create an environment for intelligently cultivating an awareness of the processes whichwill

shape the nature of the future.

It becomes our obligation as leaders in the revolution of thought and process that we take steps to ensure that we have givenour future generations the best possible

opportunity to reach the highest levels of their true potential. We must overcome thenatural fear of the unknown and move forward with determination and

compassion as the future generations will indeed bestrongly affected by what we do in these early phases of the information culture.

Thus, we must model and create seed environments which will:

Facilitate the proactive utilization of informatic systems for the betterment of all.

A event where you can experience and learn about new communication technologies and interactive techniques designed to improve the quality of life. The main areas of focus will be in education, health and wellness.

This will have multiple purposes. It will be used as a "classroom" to expose/educate the kids participating in the "Widgiteering Lab" and kidcast for peace about socially relevant applications. This will also be a hands on demonstration area showcasing applications which will range from accessible interfaces for enabling disabled

children to participate in the cyberculture to demonstrating how the internet can be used for telemedicine to technologies which are intended to reduce stress and elevate mood.

To digital storytelling

To interactive music

Promote intelligent and pro-social use of multimedia technologies in areas such as Healthcare, Communication, Recreation, and Commerce.

Encourage the active sharing of information and technology with others involved in socially progressive uses of advanced information systems. Develop innovative

human-computer interface systems to empower the disabled. Create interactive systems which enrich perceptual states and extend expressional capacities.

Prime meme-- GLOBAL WELLNESS THROUGH COMMUNICATION

Cyberarium will hold workshops/seminars for teachers and parents geared to empower them to easily utilize these emerging communication tools

and interactive technologies in the classroom and in the home. Emphasis will be placed on methods and tools for teaching the science, math and social skills which

Cyber hugs --" TELE-affection"

Focus – Increased awareness of the interconnectedness of society technology and ecology

-Empower the children of today with the tools, skills, knowledge and perspective needed to develop a wonderful future.

Main Event -KidCast for Peace

Peter Rosen –Creativity Cafe (founder of kidcast for peace events)

Dave Warner MD -- Institute for Interventional Informatics

Overview of activities

The CC will be the lead agent for the "arts and music" aspects of the earth day event

And what ever else they want/can be this is an open project

I3 will be the lead agent for stunt-science and education

CORE – activities

@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@

kidcast for peace

1 –Creativity café will provide the tech and connections for their parts, which include

the regular kidcast CU-SeeMe,

Natural Instrument Jam Sessions,

MIDI Jam Sessions,

Chat and more

@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@

THE EARTH DAY COLLECTIVE

SYNTHETIC INTELLIGENCE

2 – I3 will have a 24hr Web event which will include (but not be limited to)

I3 will provide a 24hr webcast of event

We will have several clusters of computers throughout the campus here at syracuse

We will be generating a realtime webumentry of the event

We will be developing a web-based resource which will continue to grow after the event

We will be having a world wide web mediated collaborative distance learning event

We have the support of

NPAC prepares and delivers advanced computer

science courses and tutorials in several practical areas

(aka Internetics) including simulation, databases and

Web technologies. These are put together in various

ways for different classes of learner and have been

offered in both USA and China . The virtual University

Webwisdom.org has been set up both to allow NPAC to

deliver and help others deliver and prepare education

and training using modern web techniques. Essentially

all our material, which spans K-12 , Undergraduate,

Graduate and Continuing Education is available online.

As well as course material, there are several

asynchronous learning resources with examples and

tutorials.

NPAC has leading edge technology to support

education, which includes the Tango Collaboration

System , Digital Video Archives , Audio Video

Conferencing ,Web linked interfaces to programming

laboratories . The Pulsar site collects the work of Warner

and Lipson on human computer interactions and

resources for disabled individuals. Much of our work was

developed with Syracuse’s school of education for the

K-12 community as the Living SchoolBook project. and

includes a Web based 3D Geographical Information

System for use in virtual field trips. Much of NPAC’s

education technology is available commercially through

the spin-off Webwisdom.com

Many Syracuse students work with NPAC on Masters

and Ph.D. projects and we have a suggested strategy

for new students.

Our work involves many critical partners including CRPC

, the DoD PET Program and most recently the NSF

funded national partnership in advanced computational

infrastructure where we are working through NCSA as

part of national coordinating team. At Syracuse

University , we work especially with the Physics

department , the College of Engineering and Computer

Our resource on research and education projects for disabled

individuals

Kid's Web - is the most popular site at NPAC our recently

upgraded resource for children

The K-12 resource The Living Schoolbook prepared by our

collaborators in the School of Education at Syracuse while here

is an old internal NPAC resource in this area.

I3 will over see the development of a planet earth viewer

Treasure Trove Welcome to Treasure Trove at the Northeast Parallel

Architecture Center at

Syracuse University.

What is Treasure Trove?

Treasure Trove is a

Geographical information

System with a Virtual Twist.

Our database stores nearly 10

million variables for Census

Information, Geospatial

features and Business related

information. This translates to

choosing any area in New York

State and obtaining relevant

information pertaining to that

location.

Virtual reality, Digital Elevation Models,

and 2-D maps. This site contains 10 million

statistical, demographical data variables stored in

an ORDBMS. In this case the ORDBMS is Illustra

What's a Virtual Twist?

Conventional Geographic Information Systems use a two dimensional

mode to display geographic results. This is where we push the envelope

into the realm of Virtual Data Visualization. Using VRML worlds we

recreate the world in a three dimensional mode. We overlay satellite

images, two dimensional maps and terrain features and embed VRML

objects into the layout. A Cyber City to say the least..

I3 will provide web space for the multimedia "get well cards for planet earth"

I3 will generate a "web resources for communication" site

This will have tools and tutorials for educators to use

The World Wide Web offers the potential for revolutionary

changes in education at all levels from K-12,

undergraduate, graduate and continuing (lifelong) levels.

Currently NPAC several K-12 academic programs in New

York State.

Development of such programs is particularly challenging,

since most K-12 schools have nonexistent or inadequate

computer and communications infrastructures, and most

K-12 educators have little idea of how to use the NII for

education. In response, NPAC researchers have

developed "The Living Schoolbook".The Living

Schoolbook" is a HPCC (High Performance Computing

and Communications) educational resource provided to

three upstate

and three downstate K-12 schools in New York State. It is a leading example of the

innovative use of advanced information systems in the K-12 classroom.

The Living SchoolBook is a collaborative project between the the Northeast Parallel

Architectures Center (NPAC) , School of Education at Syracuse University and the

Institute for Learning Technologies at Teachers College, Columbia University. Based on

leading NII technologies, such as databases, digital video, the WWW, and advanced

networking, the Living SchoolBook demonstrates Educational Information Infrastructure

(or EII) services. Teacher and students are discovering ways in which state of the art

information systems support development of pioneering educational resources within the

culture of the classroom and the larger school community.

Kid's Web is a World Wide Web Digital Library for school kids, that is being developed

as part of the Living Schoolbook. The site lists links for various sites related to the Arts,

Drama, Literature, Sciences and other Miscellanous links.

The Young Scholars Program

The Young Scholars Program gives

minority students and especially young

women, the chance to strengthen their

skills in math, science, and computer

technology.

We will use a collabborative tool called

Tangointeractive

TANGO is a Java-based collaboratory system for the World

Wide Web The purpose was to build a collaborative software

infrastructure and integration framework to better utilize the

Internet and, more specifically, World Wide Web environment for

cooperative work. Our focus is on collaborative applications for

education and distance learning, command and control, health

care, and computer steering.

Click here to visit the TANGO Home Page

BuenaVista is a multiplatform videoconferencing tool. The system is

multi-user - not just another Internet phone. It supports PC (Windows

'95, Windows NT) and UNIX (all IRIX) platforms in interoperable

fashion. A selection of high-performance, all-software audio and video

codecs makes this system suitable for both low bit-rate Internet and

high-quality LAN conferencing. The system adapts itself to the CPU

and networ k conditions.

Click here to visit BuenaVista home page.

The TVR and HyperWorld projects are studying critical features of future collaboraties

including scalability and televirtual environments.

SciVis is a Java-based collaborative data analysis system.

The main purpose of this software package is to provide

researchers with a customizable data analysis system to aid

research. One of the key features of our system is that filters

are user definable. We created API's for users to design

their own filters.

Click here to visit the SciVis Home Page

WebWisdom is a hierarchical tree of knowledge built from

JavaScript and aimed at Netscape 3.0 or higher class

Navigators. WebWisdom allows one to use the application

for both synchronous and asynchronous learning.

WebWisdom.com products are based on systems

designed by the Northeast Parallel Architectures Center at

Syracuse University over the last three years.

Click here to visit the WebWisdom Home page

Project Overview

TANGO Interactive is a web collaboratory. The system extends capabilties of web browsers towards fully interactive, multimedia collaborative

environment.

TANGO is also a framework for building collaboratory system. The publically available version is just one particular implementation which uses

TANGO runtime. It is possible to build collaboratory systems of arbitrary complexity using TANGO framework.

TANGO Interactive is written in Java. Most system modules are implemented as applets. The applets interact with each other and can control each

other behavior. Applet interaction in TANGO goes much further than trivial communication between few applets on an HTML page. TANGO

applets can come from different name spaces. There is no requirement that all applets or even different instances of the same applet come from the

same http server. The applets can be loaded when needed and released at any time, ensuring that the system is lean and agile. TANGO Interactive

is the first ever and, so far, the only system implementing this very flexible and powerful architecture.

How does TANGO Interactive work? Very simple. You start the system from your browser, which, thereafter, you can continue using. The system

connects you to a TANGO server of your choice. Once in the system, you can use one of the more than two dozen collaboratory applications to work

on projects with your partners, take a class at a virtual university, create and use chat room, private or public, videoconference, watch a movie or

surf Internet with friends, or play a game - such as 3D chess. Or do all this at the same time, in any combination, in as many chat rooms as you want.

No other collaboratory system, public domain or commercial, gives you so many applications under a consistent and very simple session and floor

control.

Is this all? By far not. Java applets are neat, but it takes time to load them. Not everybody is up to writing them, either. Javascript is an alternative

for implementation of client-side web applications. But, can you write collaborative Javascript apps? With TANGO, the answer is "yes". This

technology is unique to TANGO and not available anywhere else. Using it, TANGO can take an arbitrary HTML page and automatically turn it into

a shared entity.

But, suppose that you have a pre-Web applications written in C or C++, and you would like to use it as a part of your collaboratory system. With

TANGO, this is about as difficult as connecting an applet. If you have two Caves to connect, TANGO is going to relieve you from thinking about all

collaboratory infrastructure.

Going back to the Web, perhaps you would like to build a 3D VRML world, populate it with awatars, and let them interact? TANGO will help you

here as well. We support two integration modes: via VRML JavaScript nodes, and via EAI.

In summary, TANGO Interactive is an advanced, powerful, and extensible Web collaboratory. The applications available with current release

We will teach courses on a wide variety of subjects

We will have "enrollment databases" of participants

Experts on line-

Scheduled experts to be on live "chat" and distance education sessions

Experts in ecology, technology, society,

These sessions will be recorded and placed on the net for future projects

I3 will over see the development of a "earthday resources page" this will be supported by Syracuse University

Like the "techno-social integration"

Global telemedcom

I3 will create/conjure several "spontaneous" stunt science projects

Tngs and neattools…

The software component will feature an object oriented, multi-platform, (FREE) program called "Neattools". Neattools is a visual programming tool designed so

that the kids can easily create networks of software modules which can perform a wide range of function. The software is designed to take data from a wide variety

of input devices and to use that data to control any output. For example they can create music programs to use with any input device, convert a joystick into a

mouse controller, connect to other computers over the internet using sockets, drive remote control vehicles with the computer, etc.. This software can also be used

to create programs which will help them understand fundamental concepts in mathematics and science. For those kids that are a little more advanced there is also a

module developers kit which will allow them to build there own unique software modules in c++ and integrate them into Neattools . This hardware component of

the Widgiteering Lab will allow to kids to "dissect" common computer input devices such as keyboards, computer mice and joysticks so they can better understand

how these devices work. They will then be shown how to use the components in novel ways to create new input devices. In addition to the "standard " input

devices participants in the Widgiteering Lab will be shown/taught how to invent new inputs using the 8 channel input device TNG3 (called "Thing 3". ) TNG3 allows

the user to quickly and easily explore new kinds of use a wide variety of (low cost, easy to find i.e. Radio Shack and WalMart ) sensors such as thermisters, photo

resistive light sensors, velostat resistive plastic, micro switches, potentiometers and a variety of materials which change their resistance or create a small voltage.

Internet phone

Midi toys

Ecology science activities

I3 will have a cyberarium

What is a Cyberarium? (http://www.pulsar.org/fallweb/cyberarium/cyberarium2b.html)

http://s008.infomall.org/sigkids/sigkids.htm

Cyberarium is a laboratory environment dedicated to the study and research in the area of cyber culture. It will also be a center where people can

visit to see and experience the cyber culture. It will be a site intentionally designed to cultivate awareness and develop skills required to be a successful citizen of the

cyber culture and society. It will be a place where the principles and potential of future commerce can be explored.

Areas such as:

tools for work toys for play educational materials for smart learning environmental issues of the cyber world products for cyber market economic system of the

cyber world

It will be a place where the tools and toys of future generations can be researched, prototyped, developed, tested and refined in an environment which fuses the

best of the methods of formal inquiry with the new exploratory iterative refinement processes of the info-culture.

The cyberarium will conduct studies and research in, but not limited to:

future school future recreation future employment future culture future arts future science future technologies future food future ecology etc

-this can be studied in the context of developing:

Cyberarium is that space.

Cyberarium is a cybercological venture. Seeking a fusion of academic, technological and social spheres, its aim is to create apossibility for the present and future of

socially inspired informatic systems applications. Children with mild to severe physicaland/or mental disabilities, fully functioning children from local schools, and

professional/academic persons requiring/desiring tolearn the many powerful tools for creating, rendering, distributing and intelligence supported databasing form the

social matrix of Cyberarium. The World Wide Web is both a literal and metaphorical model by which to structure a cyberarium. Information available to anyone,

anywhere, anytime makes superfluous some of the traditional institutional models for knowledge discovery and distribution inherent to the institutional and social

structures of formal education. Cyberarium,thereby, takes advantage of possible futures floating up to the top of the pool of information space. In this page we give

onepossible form of cyberarium; the form is not as crucial as the conceptual elements supporting it.

The idea is to let the techno-social reality which is ongrowingly emerging here in the present to teach us how to better create systems for facilitating the production and

consumption of information. The social interaction is an organism for which we must continually make better tools more amenable to its current needs and tastes.

I3's systems approach allows that the form of any expression of this thinking be completely malleable to the most empoweringly conceived social facts and visions

being brought to the realm of information and communications science. Humans and their legitimate needs are the rule for figuring how to build institutions and

technologies for making those institutions relevant and useful, and these needs are constantly shifting. In this sense, the increasingly protean nature of the

cyberculture should provide our clue as to critical morph-readied nature of the institutions. Internal/social space brings shifting desires, needs and ephemeral and

novel responses to what it puts out there as its techno-physical-social ecology at any given time. No institution should therefore become an end in itself, but only a

spacestation to be used and recycled as the colony moves onward outward. Here we sketch a possible form of cyberarium, but the thinking behind this example is

our offering. Our only rule is that anything we do must count towards making the world a healthier, kinder, more compassionate and beneficial to all place. The

Project Information

Title........ Cyberarium..

Media......Interactive Experience

Descriptive sentence...... The Cyberarium is an innovative, integrative and interactive environment which will stimulate discovery and exploration of

creative and socially enriching interactive techniques through intelligence engaging, imagination inducing hands-on experiences with novel huamn-computer

interaction devices.

ABSTRACT..(and a little more)

Cyberarium Building interactive techniques for "Pre"-inventing the future

The Cyberarium will have three fundamental thrusts

The first (and most relevant) will be to provide kids with an experience which will give them the tools and the knowledge to creatively explore interface options

which will extend their ability to interact with computers in novel ways. The experience for the kids will include a "Widgiteering Lab where kids will get a hands on

exposure and experience with hardware and software tools which will enable them to build and test creative interactive tools. Emphasis will be placed on

creating/developing interactive systems that can be used in education, communication and enriching recreation. We will also expose them, through demonstration

and discussion, to the interface problems, both hardware and software, of the disabled computer user.

The cyberarium will have a widgiteering lab

The Widgiteering Lab will be designed to help the kids understand the basics of interactive techniques by providing exemplary projects which will engage their

intelligence and stimulate their imagination. The focus of the lab will have both a software component and a hardware component.

The software component will feature an object oriented, multi-platform, (FREE) program called "Neattools". Neattools is a visual programming tool designed so

that the kids can easily create networks of software modules which can perform a wide range of function. The software is designed to take data from a wide variety

of input devices and to use that data to control any output. For example they can create music programs to use with any input device, convert a joystick into a

mouse controller, connect to other computers over the internet using sockets, drive remote control vehicles with the computer, etc.. This software can also be used

to create programs which will help them understand fundamental concepts in mathematics and science. For those kids that are a little more advanced there is also a

module developers kit which will allow them to build there own unique software modules in c++ and integrate them into Neattools . This hardware component of

the Widgiteering Lab will allow to kids to "dissect" common computer input devices such as keyboards, computer mice and joysticks so they can better understand

how these devices work. They will then be shown how to use the components in novel ways to create new input devices. In addition to the "standard " input

devices participants in the Widgiteering Lab will be shown/taught how to invent new inputs using the 8 channel input device TNG3 (called "Thing 3". ) TNG3 allows

the user to quickly and easily explore new kinds of use a wide variety of (low cost, easy to find i.e. Radio Shack and WalMart ) sensors such as thermisters, photo

resistive light sensors, velostat resistive plastic, micro switches, potentiometers and a variety of materials which change their resistance or create a small voltage.

Time line

Mar 1-14

Inventory resources

Prioritize contacts

Finalize the overall plan.. I.e. what we will do, who will do it,

Develop web site(s)

Mar 14-21 secure resource commitments for tech support

Begin public awareness campaign

Identify and confirm primary participants

Mar 21-31 recruit and secure support (people tech services…) for weak areas

April 1-14 finalize on tech and test

Media blitz

Hit the schools via email for participation and general awareness of resources

April 15-21

Fix everything. Stress out. Pray

April 22 DO IT!!!!!

April 23 SLEEP in

April-24-? Begin to focus on sigkids cyberarium

http://s008.infomall.org/sigkids/sigkids.htm

MEME-POOL

@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@

courses on interfaces