ijsfontein and OLPC/VR project

Yesterday’s meeting (19.11.08) with ijsfontein went quite well. It was a good first step towards developing, something I describe as, a tool to both test and encourage a child’s CQ (creative quotient). Imagine a web environment in which a child could choose to explore different aspects of creativity such as: animation, story telling, 3D design, social networking, educational gaming, etc. In this environment, all things created would be reusable, so an object created in 3D could be implemented in a story or as an element in a game. Imagine that it could happen in a web based environment (no heavy client downloads). These are the main goals of the collaboration and with creative partners like Ijsfontein, Paperworld, My naam is Haas and the Eduverse, a valuable result is ensured.
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The OLPC/VR project will have its 2nd meeting next week and should be quite interesting in terms of defining goals. The objective is to develop some kind of virtual platform for the OLPC to aid in education. This would allow for diverse groups in developing countries to bootstrap themselves to the web without first having to learn English. This is based on the idea that it must be possible to create visual references (symbolic language) which is not wholly dependent on English (or any one specific language) – if I can show you a tree, I do not need to use the word “tree” for you to understand its significance. Conversely, if I show you a tree and allow you to experience it, then describing it as a tree will have much greater value and be more intuitively understood. At the moment the parties interested in developing this project are: IBM, Kennisnet, Eduverse.
I am very hopeful about where these two projects can go and would welcome other interested parties to contact me about them (robert [dot] shepherd [at] eduverse [dot] org)