So it turns out this whole technology thing can be a real pain. I write this having just spent perhaps the bzillionth hour of my life setting up and breaking down a rather unusual and extremely temperamental electronic musical instrument. Or, to be more precise, a device that electronically extends an existing (and very old) [...]
AIMS Research Category
Is it Synthetic?
Monday, April 8th, 2013MOOCS — DIY?
Friday, March 1st, 2013Here is an obvious question: Why don’t universities host their own MOOCs rather than outsource hosting to third parties like Udacity and Coursera?
As we clearly see with edX — the partnership between Harvard and MIT — many universities already possess considerable marketing power through their own branding, identity, and prestige. Why should the University of [...]
MOOCs, Outsourcing, and Restrictive IP Licensing
Tuesday, February 26th, 2013MOOCs, or Massive Open Online Courses, are here — The Next Big Thing in higher education technology development. They appeared rapidly and unexpectedly on the education scene in 2012. The 2012 Horizon Report (Higher Education Edition) did not even mention MOOCs. But just a year later the 2013 Horizon Report identified MOOCs as one of [...]
Information is the Interface
Monday, October 29th, 2012Edward Tufte, godfather of modern information visualization, speaks of successful interaction design as making the “information the interface”.
Lately, I’ve been doing research on how information and data visualization are beginning to impact interface design. There are loads of examples of great interactive visualizations, that’s not what I mean. I mean places where traditional interfaces are [...]
Gaming Opportunities at Miami
Thursday, October 4th, 2012Students often ask, how do I get involved with games at Miami University? Here’s an overview to help you understand all that’s available to you. Students can take classes, join labs, travel to the game developer’s conference and even spend a month at the AIMS San Francisco Game Studio. There are also several clubs, the [...]
Tech Improvements and New Opportunities at CRUX
Thursday, September 20th, 2012It’s been two and half years since we announced the opening of the Center for Research in User Experience (CRUX). Our capabilities have significantly grown in that time and we wanted to share with you what we look like today. We now have four different types of usability and eye-tracking solutions, all of which are [...]
Student Presentation at Games, Learning and Society Conference
Thursday, June 21st, 2012Interactive Media Studies students Robert Smayda, Mohammed Al-Mulla, and Drew Ritcher created a board game to help people talk about the challenges of being in high school. This work, which was created in IMS212 The Design of Play was accepted at the Games, Learning and Society conference at the University of Wisconsin. Robert and Mohammed, [...]
The Mouse and WIMP
Thursday, October 27th, 2011This history of interactive media is extremely rich and can inform us today. The development of the mouse and the graphical user interfaces that we use today can inform us of where we need to go next in interaction design and development.
The Mother of All Demos
In a huge conference room in San Francisco, Doug Engelbart [...]
Innovation as a function of Trust
Wednesday, October 5th, 2011Next semester I am teaching a brand new class on “Innovation and Disruptive Thinking” for Miami University, and I’ve been doing a bit of research on the topic to make sure that I hit the learning outcomes with which I think students who take the class should walk away. And, I’ve been fortunate enough to [...]
Why I teach
Monday, October 3rd, 2011About a year ago, I started teaching for Armstrong Interactive Media Studies after several discussions with co-directors Glenn Platt and Peg Faimon. Read on the website (you’re already here–so why not?) for a better description, but AIMS is a cross disciplinary center that incorporates digital trends and innovations disrupting traditional disciplines, and emphasizes a team-based, [...]