IM Public Lecture Series: “Designing Virtual Environments for Children and Teens: Challenges and Opportunities”

Presented by  Dr. Jamshid Beheshti @ McGill University

Abstract:
Virtual environments (VEs) provide the unique experience of a sense of being within a 3D space, where the user is involved by interacting with objects. In education, immersion and presence can have strong motivational impact for students, who can actively be engaged in building their own internal models of the world. VEs may also be used as an alternative information retrieval tool by presenting a more engaging browsing environment for children and teens. Creating informational and educational VEs, however, can be perplexing, requiring multitudes of experts, advanced technologies, funds and time. In this presentation the challenges and opportunities in the design process of two different VE projects will be discussed.

Biography:
Jamshid Beheshti, in collaboration with his colleagues, has produced more than one hundred publications, and has obtained close to three million dollars in research grants from SSHRC and other organizations over the past two decades. His research has focused primarily on investigating the information behavior of children and youth, and on designing and developing tools to assist them in their information seeking in the academic milieu. The culmination of his experience has led to the publication of two books on the topic of information behaviour. He served for five years as the Interim Dean and Associate Dean of the Faculty of Education, and for six years as the Director of the School of Information Studies at McGill University.

Lecture Details:
Monday, February 22nd, 2016 from 2:30-3:30pm
Room 3001, Kenneth C. Rowe Management Building, 6100 University Avenue