September 26, 2004
Informatics
I had a chance to get a tour of the new IUPUI technology center in Indianapolis with Dean Darrell Bailey and Barb Hayes and I have to say I am extremely impressed. The IUPUI School of Informatics, the school's IT department, computer science, the Indianapolis components of the Pervasive Computing initiative, as well as the new media program are all in one excellent building. The convergance of all of these groups and many more seem to be creating a fantastic synergy I have not seen in other places. Most large universities have these programs but few are bringing them together under a single roof. Being physcially co-located cannot be underestimated!
For those who have not heard of the term "informatics," it is essentially technology applied to some other discipline (e.g. bio informatics, legal informatics, HCI, and more).
One of the items I got to see was an astounding 3-D (polarized glasses) redition of protein folding at a sub-cellular level. I think the most impressive aspect of this is that there are so many opportunities for people with deep expertise in both biology and visualization to work with top experts in computer science and other areas. In the example I got to see, the reult was not just scientifically accurate, but artistically engaging and scored with great music.
Is instructional technology the same thing as educational informatics? Do we need to be doing more to cross discipines?
Posted by Rovy at September 26, 2004 9:55 PM