Science fiction in the classroom?

There is no doubt that gesture-based computing is a fascinating topic and the movie Minority Report is an often mentioned example for gesture-based computing.

Picture from Minority Report

So far we learned which devices and technology is used. According to the FAZ article ‘Fass mich nicht an‘ (Don’t touch me) which Baselix brought to our attention the following technology is mainly used.

• Gadgets with touchscreens (e.g. iPhone or the iPad)
• Kinect
• iPointPresenter
• Leap Motion

iPointPresenter and Leap Motion works with infrared light whereas the Kinect works with a different technique.

Claudia Bremer informed us with two blog post (post from 18.06 and from 19.06.12) about the type of gestures used and recognized by devices. Typing, wiping, open with two fingers to enlarge are familiar ‘touch’ gestures we apply when using e.g. an iPad with a touchscreen. But devices like Kinect or Leap Motion recognize movements of the hands or the whole body. Voice recognition is also included into gesture-based computing, also some questions why this belongs into this topic.

Learning4me brought Motion based computing into play and already came up with some ideas for teaching. However, so far it seems we all struggle come up with purposeful and feasible solutions for teaching and learning. Sure there is no doubt that this technique would support a haptic type of learner which prefers learning by doing and who likes to touch things to make them more comprehensible. Gestures come quite natural to us, so why not utilizing them for learning? Yet, that is viable without expensive devices.

So we all looking forward to our session tomorrow 21.06.2012 at 5 to 6 pm (CET) to hear what Professor Ulrike Lucke from the University from Potsdam has to tell us about this interesting, albeit somehow fictional topic (at least for most schools).

 

Although not related to education here an article by Dean Vogel (Kolidar Blog from April 12, 2012) about ‘Interactive User Experience Model Embedded in Movies’