Initiative in Innovative Computing (IIC) Harvard University

With the opening of Harvard’s new Allston Education Portal, a Boston neighborhood has become the first to experience the technology being developed by a new IIC research project, the Scientists’ Discovery Room.

Robert A. Lue, the portal’s faculty director, worked with IIC Senior Scientist Chia Shen and project interns Hao Jiang, Mike Horn and Meekal Bajaj on prototypes of advanced software tools for interactive and cooperative science education. These prototypes were to be unveiled at a celebration of the new portal Nov. 21, with Harvard President Drew Faust, Boston Mayor Thomas M. Menino and Allston families in attendance.

A multi-user touch-screen table and large display wall in the "ed portal" will provide a rich interface for engaging young scientists in topics such as biodiversity and the inner working of the cell. This environment replicates the SDR Lab, housed by the Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences. There, Shen and the project research staff are using life-sciences education challenges for case studies in human-computer interaction, in the hope that this research will provide new interfaces for collaborative research and education in science.

For more, see the Harvard Gazette.