BOSTON, MA - July 28, 2009 - Aaron E. Walsh, Director of the Immersive Education Initiative, will present the keynote address at the 16th annual Campus Technology conference in Boston on Wednesday, July 29, 2009. Walsh will deliver the keynote after being presented with the Campus Technology Innovator's award for his contributions to the field of Immersive Education, a term that describes the combination of interactive 3D graphics, commercial game and simulation technology, virtual reality, voice chat, Web cameras, and rich digital media with collaborative online course environments and classrooms. Special one-day passes are available for the event.

Walsh, who coined the term immersive education, will take attendees on a fast-paced journey of innovation, though his past twenty years developing new forms of learning technology that together enable the age of immersive education we are in today. His presentation incorporates a combination of rich media, early prototypes, and modern immersive technology as he recalls the inspirations, advances, and setbacks he encountered along the way. Looking toward the horizon, Walsh gives attendees a pioneer's view of the exciting road ahead for immersive learning technologies and their potential long-term impact on education and society.

Walsh is Director of the Grid Institute and Immersive Education Initiative, an international best-selling author, and faculty of the Woods College of Advancing Studies at Boston College where he teaches computer graphics using immersive technologies. An award-winning educator and technologist, Walsh received the Teaching with New Media award in 2006 for his work on Immersive Education. In 2007 Computerworld magazine named him one of the forty most innovative people in the technology industry. He received this prestigious national award for his pioneering work on Immersive Education, which was recognized as "...innovative, promising technology which holds the potential to significantly affect society in the near future."

After more than a decade of research and development in the field, Walsh began using his prototype technologies to teach Boston College courses from a distance in 2001. In 2007 he founded the Immersive Education Initiative as a non-profit international collaboration of universities, colleges, research institutes, consortia and companies that work together to define and develop open standards, best practices, platforms, and communities of support for virtual world, virtual reality and game-based learning and training systems. Today over a thousand faculty, researchers, staff, administrators and students are members of the Immersive Education Initiative, which is growing at the rate of approximately 2 new members every day.

In addition to the keynote address by Walsh, the Campus Technology 2009 conference features a number of Immersive Education sessions and a special break-out panel on open standards for immersive learning technologies. One day passes and general registration are open to the public through the Campus Technology 2009 conference website.

About Immersive Education
Immersive Education (ImmersiveEducation.org) combines interactive 3D graphics, commercial game and simulation technology, virtual reality, voice chat (Voice over IP/VoIP), Web cameras (webcams) and rich digital media with collaborative online course environments and classrooms. Immersive Education gives participants a sense of "being there" even when attending a class or training session in person isn't possible, practical, or desirable, which in turn provides educators and students with the ability to connect and communicate in a way that greatly enhances the learning experience. Unlike traditional computer-based learning systems, Immersive Education is designed to immerse and engage students in the same way that today's best video games grab and keep the attention of players. Immersive Education supports self-directed learning as well as collaborative group-based learning environments that can be delivered over the Internet or using fixed-media such as CD-ROM and DVD. Shorter mini-games and interactive lessons can be injected into larger bodies of course material to further heighten and enrich the Immersive Education experience.

About the Media Grid
The Media Grid is a public utility for digital media. Based on new and emerging distributed computational grid technologies, the Media Grid builds upon existing Internet and Web standards to create a unique network optimized for digital media delivery, storage, and processing. As an on-demand public computing utility, a range of software programs and Web sites can use the Media Grid for delivery and storage of rich media content, media processing, and computing power. The Media Grid is an open and extensible platform that enables a wide range of applications not possible with the traditional Internet alone, including: Massive Media on Demand (MMoD); Interactive digital cinema on demand; Immersive Education and distance learning; Truly immersive multiplayer games and Virtual Reality (VR); Hollywood movie and film rendering, special effects, and composition; Real-time rendering of high resolution graphics; Real-time visualization of complex weather patterns; Real-time protein modeling and drug design; Telepresence, telemedicine, and telesurgery; Vehicle and aircraft design and simulation; Visualization of scientific and medical data.

The Grid Institute leads the design and development of the global Media Grid through the MediaGrid.org open standards organization in collaboration with industry, academia, and governments from around the world.

To learn more about the Media Grid, Immersive Education or the Education Grid visit:
MediaGrid.org, ImmersiveEducation.org and TheEducationGrid.org