Collaboration: From the Classroom to Space.

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Collaboration From the Classroom to Space.

• Steve Braham
• Director, PolyLAB
• warp_at_polymath.cecm.sfu.ca
• http//polylab.cecm.sfu.ca/

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PolyLAB

• Sun Technology Research and Excellence Centre for
  21st Century Network Computing
• Space-based, ATM, networking for science and
  engineering collaboration
• Based at Simon Fraser University
• Centre for Experimental and Constructive
  Mathematics
• Telematics Research Laboratory

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Canadian Partners

• Communications Research Centre
• NCE TeleLearning (M3/Plexus)
• High Performance Computing Network
• BC Provincial Emergency Program
• Federal Disaster Agencies
• Waterloo Maple

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International Partners

• North American OpenMath Initiative
• OpenMath Society
• RIACA
• NASA Ames Research Center
• International Disaster Organizations (UN, NATO).
• Sun Microsystems

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Connected Intelligence

• Entering a new century with global networking,
  global computing.
• A new technoculture is building in which we can
  communicate, work, love and learn independent of
  location, and often time.
• We are increasingly all connected, not to the
  Internet, but to each other.

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Responsibility

• Our new technologies change how we communicate.
• They change with whom we communicate.
• They change who gets to do the how.
• We dont want a world of have and have-nots.

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How global?

• Wire-based networks are very expensive,
  especially in low-density regions.
• Sensitive to disasters, man-made or natural.
• Computers can be expensive, and really expensive
  to run.
• You need to know, to learn.

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TeleLearning

• K-12 Collaborative Tool Development
• University-level math courses
• Delivery systems.
• Ethnographical studies.
• Teacher, student-oriented design.

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Island Pacific School

• Bowen Island
• PDG Member/IPS Teacher designed her own content
• ATiC Lab studied ethnographics of early
  technology adoption

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Build-it-yourself software
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TeleWorking

• Scientific collaboration systems
• Remote service delivery
• TeleMedicine
• Disaster Response
• Arctic Communications
• Space Exploration

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Communication Tech

• SatCom, from TDMA to ATM.
• Integrated wireless network
• CANet2 (soon CANet3)
• Multicast video and audio
• Need to acquire information, and make it
  accessible by collaborative systems.
• Make it appropriate.

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Space-based systems

• Reach Everywhere
• Cheaper than wires in rural areas
• Very fast
• The Information SkyWay is coming

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Software Tech

• Interactive Ideation, global.
• Java systems
• Lightweight clients
• Collaborative whiteboarding
• Distributed services.

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Virtual Institute Network
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Collaborative Services
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Distributed Infrastructure
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Thick Server, Thin Client
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Why Thick/Thin?

• Experts can supply services
• User computer systems set themselves up.
• Java-based services allow the teacher, student,
  researcher, to still produce what they want, not
  what somebody delivers.

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Mars Exploration
TeleWorking, on a big scale!
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Mars, in the Canadian Arctic
Haughton Crater, Devon Island
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Collaboration with NASA Ames

• Space-based main link from base back to home
• High-speed regional wireless networking inside
  crater
• Integrates with International Space Station local
  high-speed network
• Cooperation on collaborative software for mobile
  science workstations

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Disaster Communications

• Same systems support NASA that support disaster
  comm
• Need highly-available networks
• Integration with other systems
• Mobility!
• Ease, speed, of setup crucial

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Do it for real
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Conclusion

• Apply technology appropriately
• Look for novel uses
• Look for context
• Does it really work? Ethnography
• Take a professional approach
• Make it work for industry

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References

• PDG http//pdg.cecm.sfu.ca/
• PolyLAB http//polylab.cecm.sfu.ca/
• NAOMI http//naomi.math.ca/
• TRL http//www.hazard.net/epix
• Mars http//www.arctic-mars.org/