The period from September 15 - October 14 saw significant development in the Second China project.
The image depicts the taxi created this month. This taxi will feature in a guided learning scenario including interaction with one of our AI bots scripted to support learning in the environment.
Web-based Module Content
- Travel, Awareness, Politics and Foreign Relations, Government, and Society module pages are now complete
Technical Design
- Randomization of quiz questions in the Tea House completed
- Re-design of the taxi to perform as a Second Life physical vehicle - this involved creating a taxi with fewer prims to take advantage of the Havoc physics engine
- Problem solved: bots not appearing on the island, but also remaining as Unix tasks - the solution involves a periodic check on the “existence” status of the Second China bots. If the check results in one of the bots not being found, that Unix task is automatically restarted.
- Initial meetings held on the design approach for the Sky Oracle. The Oracle will represent an immersive and interactive approach. The following are being considered:Five stimuli representing different levels of representation, immersion, and interactionhe most complete stimuli to include a 3D representation of a flowchart capturing US vs. Chinese viewpoints on the Tibetan situation.
- Initial taxi scenario is complete (waiting on audio)
Added several quiz questions into the taxi and bot
Added the movement functions and route into the taxi, and avatar can select one of five destinations
Testing
- Blog created for reporting fixes needed in the Second China environment - students tasked with testing and reporting necessary fixes
Quiz Development
- Software purchased
- Quiz development commenced
- Quiz questions for Political Relations, Society, Awareness, Travel, Government, Facts, and Military completed
Evaluation Approaches
- Strategy and schedule for test and evaluation prepared
- Approval obtained approval for design in Second China
- Experiment approval rescheduled for December 2008
- Formal survey with plans for a publication on evaluation methodology initiated
- Meetings held weekly on strategy and approach for measuring impact of the Second China project on the acquisition of cultural knowledge, cultural sensitivity, recall, retention, and empathy
Check back with us next month to see further progress.
