ECOS: everyday energy consumption through interactive data visualisation
"Inviting play and reflection on the role of green buildings, ECOS presents data on the Cube using a simple and interactive game-like application. The data shows how energy consumption and generation impacts people in a variety of climates within a five-star rated green building like the Science and Engineering Centre (SEC), where the Cube is located.
ECOS incorporates live weather data into an interactive illustration and places a fictional green building into different climates, allowing users to play with the parameters of the buildings and observe the results and the possible impacts on people.
ECOS promotes behavioural change by demonstrating the factors that influence sustainable energy consumption and generation."
Project team: Prof Jeff Jones (Cube Project Leader), Debra Polson (Project Leader), David Wallace, Cassie Selin, Warwick Mellow
CONTRIBUTOR
Simon PerkinsSHARE
Finland's school system accomplishes some impressive feats: so what makes Finnish students so successful?
"Students get plenty of teacher interaction: Finland and New York City have the same number of teachers. But Finland has nearly half the number of students. Standardized testing is kept to a minimum: before a New York student reaches high school, he or she will have taken 10 standardized tests. Collectively, US students take 100 million standardized tests a year. Finland's only standardized test is taken when students are 16 years old. Kids have more time to be kids: an average us 5th grader has 50 minimum of homework per day. Finnish students rarely do homework until their teens. And while us elementary students average 27 minutes of recess students in Finland get about 75 minutes a day). Finland knows good teachers are essential: teachers in Finland are all required to have a Master's degree (which is fully subsidized by the state)."
(OnlineClasses.org, 21 January 2013)
CONTRIBUTOR
Simon PerkinsSHARE
Immersive underwater experience for high school students
"The Virtual Reef is a life-sized marine ecosystem expanding across two levels of the new Science and Engineering Centre. Multi-touch technologies enable the user to manipulate, intimately explore and interact with the reef world, specific behaviours and relationships.
Australia's leading marine science and interactive and visual design organisations, QUT and the Queensland Museum, bring knowledge and research of the underwater world to your fingertips through multi-touch screens and projectors.
Users will have the opportunity to go beyond the cinematic experience and interact with the marine world. Each interaction has associated content designed to complement the aims of the National Curriculum and provide an exploratory learning experience."
(Jeff Jones, the Cube, QUT)
Fig.1 "The Virtual Reef" project team: Professor Jeff Jones (Cube Project Leader), Associate Professor Michael Docherty (Project Leader), Warwick Mellow (Principal Animator/Art Director), Joti Carroll, Paul Gaze, Sean Gobey, Ben Alldridge, Sophia Carroll, Sherwin Huang, Bryce Christensen.
CONTRIBUTOR
Simon PerkinsSHARE
Dumb Ways to Die ad becomes surprise hit
"'Set fire to your hair, poke a stick at a grizzly bear ... Dumb ways to die ... dumb ways to die-ie-ie.' If the chorus isn't stuck in your head, it will be soon. Melbourne Metro Trains' darkly cute - and irksomely catchy - new ad for transport safety has gone viral, notching up a whopping 4.2 million YouTube views in less than a week. And nobody is more stunned by its success than the man behind the music, Sydneysider Ollie McGill. The Cat Empire keyboards player was commissioned to write the score to accompany lyrics to the McCann Group's new ad and has watched Facebook likes, Twitter shares and YouTube hits skyrocket as word of the animated video has spread like wildfire. ... In the ad, cartoon characters meet their ends in a number of colourful, sardonic ways, including a couple of nasty mishaps on train tracks, while the sweet chorus, 'dumb ways to die ... ' is instant earworm material."
(Daisy Dumas, 19 November 2012, Fairfax New Zealand Ltd.)
CONTRIBUTOR
Simon PerkinsSHARE
MOOCs from Australia Coming to North America
"The University of New England (UNE) in Australia, a leader in online learning and distance education, announced that it will begin researching and pursuing North American partnerships for the deployment of free courses and highly scalable MOOCs. To accelerate the effort, UNE will send representatives to Educause 2012 in Denver, Colorado next week to conduct discussions with interested organizations."
(Peter Rasmussen, 1 November 2012, Gilfus Education Group)
CONTRIBUTOR
Simon PerkinsSHARE
