Institute for Creative Technologies
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The Institute for Creative Technologies (ICT) is a research institute of the University of Southern California located in Marina del Rey, California. Among ICT's goals are the advancement of the state-of-the-art in virtual reality and immersive environments, and the creation of the Experience Learning System (ELS) (which provides the ability to learn through active, as opposed to passive, systems). In addition to specific military training tasks, the ELS will have applications for a broad range of educational initiatives.
[edit] Projects
The Army Excellence in Leadership (AXL) project develops case studies and interactive training technologies to support the acquisition of leadership skills. The project is a collaboration with the Army Research Institute (ARI) Leader Development Research Unit. AXL leverages the best practices of case method teaching and Hollywood storytelling techniques to create fictional case studies that address specific leadership issues. The first case, “Power Hungry,” is a thirteen-minute film about a food distribution operation in Afghanistan. The second films case is “Trip Wire,” a case that considers the leadership challenges posed by the threat of improvised explosive devices in Iraq.
AXL learning is available through an online system called AXLnet. The AXL team has developed an authorable, instructional design to track and control the student’s learning experience as they explore the case. Using ICT natural language processing research, students are also able to interview characters from the cases through free-text questions. These interviews give the students the opportunity to “think like a commander” as they gather information about the case.
