Multi-touch In Action

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Not so many years ago, information technology was introduced into school curriculums, and each school was obliged to provide their students with access to a computer. Although computers were expected to deliver unprecedented advantages to the learning process, the fact that the use of computers can actually have a negative effect on learning was overlooked. Because information technology places students in isolation in front of a monitor, computers can have a negative impact on communication and social skills. Today, development is underway to introduce more computer interactivity into the classroom, which means students can access the benefits of computing without detriment to their ability to work as a team. Multi-touch surfaces create a shared workspace for student learning to encourage group learning and activities. The introduction of interactivity into the classroom means that student involvement and peer discussion reaches a higher level, as well as improving engagement in learning. While at present cutting-edge multi-touch technology – like Apple’s iPhone and Microsoft’s Surface and Sphere – is not usually educationally-oriented, the technology is sufficiently generic that, it could easily be adapted to fulfil the necessary criteria.

Interactive whiteboards are already making their presence felt, and a new market report from Futuresource Consulting, suggests that they are going to continue to be popular. The report records that over 600,000 whiteboards will have been installed across the globe by the end of 2008. Driven by continued technological developments, one in six classrooms worldwide are forecast to be using the technology by 2012. In the 66 countries covered within the report, Futuresource calculates there are over 37 million classrooms: a huge market potential for companies operating within this sector.
 
According to Colin Messenger, Futuresource Senior Consultant, "This technology is ideal for classrooms as the teacher no longer has to arrange large groups around a single computer screen. Governments are beginning to recognise this potential, with record-breaking sales recorded last quarter – up more than 40% on last year and the largest since we started tracking this market seven years ago."

Interactive whiteboards can be connected to computers and projectors to create large touch-sensitive displays showing text or graphics. By integrating these into the classroom, new concepts can be illustrated more clearly and effectively.

Yet this is by no means the whole picture: interactive whiteboards are not the only interactive educational equipment that could become a familiar sight in classrooms. A new multi-touch desk, SynergyNet, developed by researchers at Durham University led by Dr Liz Burd, might force interactive whiteboards to take a back bench among the blackboards.
 
The Durham University researchers have developed a multi-touch surface that can function as a screen or a keyboard and be used by several students at once. As this surface can be built into desks, it is the newest way for information technology to become part of the classroom furniture. This new learning space allows users to interact with a finger or other stylus and because the surface can also detect simultaneous touches from more than one user, it is well-suited for an interactive group-learning environment. The teacher’s control panel allows the teacher to see what each pupil is doing, so that the teacher remains in supervisory control of the learning process. Pupils from a local school have already been to the laboratories of the Technology Enhanced Learning Research Group to try out the early prototypes of these multi-touch surfaces and from the photos it certainly looks like they had a lot of fun. The system will be trialled in various schools over the next four years.

This project reflects a move from teacher-centric to pupil-centric interaction. This interactivity is already being tapped into by interactive whiteboards, but interactive whiteboards can be less accessible to students and are still a teacher-centric method of learning. Durham University’s multi-touch desk surfaces will mean that there is more equal access to information in classrooms, and should encourage girls – often more passive than boys when participating in group activities – to play a stronger role. These multi-touch desks could also enable disabled students to participate in learning in a normal classroom situation.

Microsoft, firm believers that many more surfaces have the potential to become computer displays in the future, have recently revealed one of its newest research projects, the Microsoft Sphere. It is a multi-user, multi-touch-sensitive display that permits easy all round access for multiple users. This research experiment combines the technology behind the Microsoft tabletop Surface computer with the commercially available globe projection system of Global Imagination’s Magic Planet.

Developed by a team of Microsoft researchers including Hrvoje Benko and Andy Wilson, the Sphere uses custom optics hardware with computer vision and graphics software to enable multi-touch omni-directional interaction. At the centre of the Sphere, a projector beams the screen onto its spherical display while the projection and the sensing mechanism are enclosed in the base of the device. This projector shares the same optical axis and lens as the infrared cameras which detect touch input. A custom graphics projection ensures that projected data is correctly visualised on the curved surface without distortion, with advanced algorithms translating flat images into round images.

A photo-sharing application enables users to rotate, resize and pass pictures around the surface of the sphere. Users standing on different sides of the Sphere can independently manipulate the display and view their own photos and videos and one user can pass a photo round to the other side of the spherical surface to share it with another user. The Sphere also includes a gaming application, which allows users to direct bouncing balls across the Sphere, as well as another which enables people to dip their fingers in virtual paint and apply them to the surface. In combination with Microsoft’s RingCam, a 360 degree camera already in use for video-conferencing, the Sphere also has an omni-directional video-conferencing application. Environments in which the Sphere would work well are highly interactive public environments like museums, lobbies, and schools. Global Imagination’s Magic Planet is already on the market for museum exhibits and marketing displays.