Leap Motion: My Dev Kit Arrived - Now What?! Thoughts About "NUI" Child-Computer-Tech-Interaction - and More

My Leap Motion developer kit arrived last week. I carefully unboxed the small device and tried out the demo apps that came with the SDK.  I'm doing more looking than leaping at this point.

I'd like to create a simple cause-and-effect music, art and movement application for my 2-year-old grandson, knowing that he'll be turning three near the end of this year.  It would be nice if my app could provide young children with enough scaffolding to support gameplay and learning over a few years of development.

Now that I'm a grandmother, I've spent some time thinking about what the evolution of NUI will mean for young children like my grandson.   Family and friends captured his first moments after birth with iPhones, and shared across the Internet.  Born into the iWorld, he knows how to use an iPad or smart phone to view his earlier digital self on YouTube, without ever touching a mouse or a physical keyboard.

The little guy is pretty creative in his method of interacting with technology, as I've informally documented on video.   He was seven months old when he first encountered my first iPad.  It was fingers-and-toes interaction from the start.  

In the first picture below,  he's playing with NodeBeat.  In the second picture, he's 27 months old, experimenting with hand and foot interaction, on a variety of apps.

My grandson is new to motion control applications, so I'm just beginning to learn what he likes,  and what he is capable of doing.  A couple of weeks ago, we played River Rush, from the Kinect Adventures game. He loved jumping up and down as he tried to hit the adventure pins. Most of the time, he kept jumping right out of the raft!  (I think next time we'll try Kinect Sesame Street TV, or revisit Kinectimals.)  


One of the steps I'm taking to prepare for my Leap Motion adventure is take a look at what people have done with it so far.  There are at least 12,000 developer kits released, so hopefully there will be some interesting apps to go along with the retail version of Leap Motion when it is released at Best Buy on May 19th of this year.

One app I really like is  Adam Somer's AirHarp, featured in the video clip below:


I also like the idea behing the following app, developed by undergraduate students:

Social Sign: Multi-User sign language gesture translator using the Leap Motion Controller (git.to/socialSign)
 
"Built at the PennApps Spring 2013 hackathon, Social Sign is a friendly tool for learning sign language! By using the Leap Motion device, the BadApples team implemented a rudimentary machine learning algorithm to track and identify American Sign Language from a user's hand gestures."

"Social Sign visualizes these hand gestures and broadcasts them in textual and visual representations to other signers in a signing room. In a standard chat room fashion, the interface permits written communication but with the benefit of enhanced learning in mind. It's all about learning a new way to communicate."-BadApples Team

There are a few NUI-focused tech companies that have experimented with Leap Motion. Today, I received a link to the following videoclip Joanna Taccone, of Intuilab, featuring their most recent work:
Gesture recognition with Leap Motion using IntuiFace Presentation

"Preview of our work with the Leap Motion controller. In the same spirit as our support for Microsoft Kinect, we have encoded true gesture support, not just mouse emulation, for the creation of interactive applications by non-programmers. The goal is to hide complexity from designers using our product, IntuiFace Presentation (IP). Through the use of IP's trigger/action syntax, designers simply select a gesture as a trigger - Swipe Left, Swipe Right, Point, etc. - and associate that gesture with an action like "turn the page" or "rotate the carousel". As you can see in this video, it works quite well. :-) We will offer Leap support as soon as it ships." -IntuiLab



Below is a demonstration of guys playing Drop Cord, a collaboration between Leap Motion and Double Fine.  From the video, you can tell that they had a blast!  

Here is an excerpt from the chatter:  "The thing is that everyone just looks cool..Yeah, I know, it doesn't matter what you are doing...it's got the right amount of speed-up-slow-down stutter-y stuff...it is like a blend of art and science.."

According to the website, Drop Chord is a "A music-driven score challenge game for the Leap Motion controller, coming soon for PC, Mac, & IOS from the creators of Kinect Party.."  

The following video is a demonstration of the use of Leap Motion to control an avatar and other interaction in Second Life:

Below are a few more videos featuring Leap Motion:


Control Your Computer With a Chopstick: Leap Motion Hands On (Mashable)


The Leap Motion Experience at SXSW 2013


LEAP Motion demo: Visualizer, Windows 8, Fruit Ninja, and More...



RELATED
Air Harp for Leap Motion, Responsive Interaction
Leap Motion and Double Fine team on Dropchord, give air guitar skills an outlet
John Fingas, Engadget, 3/7/13
Leap Motion Controller Set To Ship May 13 for Global Pre-Orders, In Best Buy Stores May 19.
Hands on With Leap Motion's Controller
Lance Ulanoff, Mashable, 3/10/13
Leap Motion website
Social Sign
IntuiLab
Leap Motion: Low Cost Gesture Control for Your Computer Display

SOMEWHAT RELATED
Kinect for Windows Academic: Kaplan Early Learning
"3 years & up. Hands-on play with a purpose -- the next generation way. This unique learning tool uses your body as the game controller making it a great opportunity to combine active play and learning all in one. Use any surface to actively engage kinesthetic, visual, and audio learners. Bundle includes the following software: Word Pop, Directions, Patterns, and Shapes."

Comment:
I've been an enthusiastic supporter of natural-user interfaces and interaction for years - back in 2007 I worked on touch-screen applications for large displays as a graduate student, and became an early member of the NUI group.  I'm also a school psychologist, and from my experience, I understand how NUI-based applications and technologies, such as interactive whiteboards and touch-tablets, such as the iPad can support the learning, communication, and leisure needs of students who have significant special needs.   It looks like Leap Motion and similar technologies have the potential to support a wide range of applications that target special populations, of all ages.

A few links: GizmoWatch's 10 Interactive User Interfaces for the Future, CNN's Eatocracy, EVA 2010 and More!

Here's a quick link to a recent Gizmowatch post, Ten Interactive User Interfaces for the Future.  Bharat, the authro, reviews a variety of interfaces, input methods, and interaction techniques, such as Skinput, a water-based touch screen, a muscle-computer interface, air gestures, brain-computer systems, and even a mud-tub interface.


I was fortunate to see some of these interaction techniques and interfaces when I attended CHI 2010 this past April, and plan to share some of my photos and video clips from the conference on this blog soon.


Totally Unrelated


Online connection for foodies
Eatocracy is a new website within the CNN pages that provides news- and more- about all things related to food. The categories on the site include "main", "news", "bite", "sip", "make", "think", and "buzz".  The best part, in my opinion, is the heirloom recipe collection index, where people can upload and share family recipies and the stories behind them.

Here is the description of Eatocracy from the website:

Eatocracy  "is your online home for smart, passionate conversation and information about food news, politics, culture. We'll highlight regional and family recipes, dive into restaurants and food shopping, chat with celebrity and local chefs, and show you what's for dinner around the world tonight. Grab a place at the table and read with your mouth full."

Enjoy!

(The above is a repost from The World is My Interactive Interface)

Coming Soon

--More about 3D TV and Interactive TV

--Highlights from CHI 2010 (better late than never!)

--My experiments- SMARTTable, a game, interactive timeline prototype pictures...

--A post about Lieven van Velthoven's interesting Post-WIMP explorations - here are some links that he recently sent me:

• 3D birthday invitation: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pNOP5aIoS9o
• Virtual overgrowth in the real world: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nuJPoUpBIKU
• Make race tracks for virtual cars with any real stuff you can find: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e1K3og8qLcA
• Smoke Pong: Pong, ONLY for smokers: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zwrsVo5p2_E
• Webcam Airmouse: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=57kTrKJHOjM 
• MusicalNodes: the visual music library: www.musicalnodes.com, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=czQdhfA__UY (will be published at EVA2010)

As I took a peek at Lieven's video links, I noticed an interesting video mash-up Lieven created from the open-source code from the RadioHead's House of Cards music video and his One Million Particles app. I'll post them soon.

I'll try to get video, pictures, and commentary about EVA 2010.  EVA stands for Electronic Visualization and the Arts. "Electronic Information, the Visual Arts, and Beyond.

FYI

I'm in the process of sorting through and re-organizing my blogs, which have been around for over four years!  During this time, my blogs have attracted a growing number of readers. Because of this, I'd like to make things a bit user-centered.  So expect to see little changes here and there.  I promise I'll give my readers warnings in advance if I make any serious changes! 

If you are new to this blog, you should know that my blogs started out as on-line filing cabinets, open to the world.  Although there is a bit of overlap of material and some cross-posting between the blogs, they are arranged to serve as a paper-less way of keeping track of things that I've learned through my coursework, conference attendance, readings, and research. Since emerging technologies are high on my list of interests, I also use my blogs to share interesting things that cross my path.    

  

I changed the name of my World Is My Interface blog to The World Is My Interactive Interface.   "Off-the-desktop natural user interfaces, interaction, and user experience" are the main topics of the blog.  It sometimes includes information about ubiquitous computing and DOOH, otherwise known as Digital Out Of Home.

I plan to tinker with my TechPsych blog later on. It focuses on topics that are useful to psychologists, educators, special education teachers, speech and language therapists, health and wellness professionals, and parents.

Feel free to leave comments, as I welcome your input.

TechCrunch Charlotte Highlights: T1 Vision; inTouch Collaborative Software

Yesterday evening I attended a meetup of TechCrunch and Charlotte-area techies, held at the uptown Packard Place entrepreneurial center.  It was jammed-packed with people all abuzz with tech start-up fever, fueled by awesome food provided by Zen Fusion.  Although my main purpose for attending the TechCrunch meet-up was to learn more about innovative technology start-ups in my region, I also was hoping to capture a few shots of interesting people.   I like to keep my eye open for tee-shirt slogans, and one worn by a young gentleman caught my eye, proclaiming that he'd seen the future, and it is in his browser.  On the back of his tee-shirt was a bright HTML5 logo, something that is dear to my heart, as I am moving from HTML4 to HTML5.  He was polite and agreed to pose for a couple of photographs:
 






It turned out that the HTML5 guy was at the TechCrunch event with one of his colleagues from T1 Visions, a social touchscreen solutions company that I've featured previously on this blog.  They caught me up on the growth of this start-up company, which now has 15 employees and has broadened its reach beyond table-top restaurant applications to the healthcare, education, corporate, retail, and broader hospitality sectors.

What I like about table-top systems is that they provide support for "natural user interaction".  It allows for multiple modes of interaction with and presentation of multimedia content.  Over the past several years, these systems have been proven to be useful to a wider range of people and settings.  Interfaces that support touch and gesture interaction are no longer viewed as novelties, given the pervasiveness of touch-phones and tablets and their ease-of-use for most people.

A useful product from T1 Visions is the T1 Collaboration Table. It supports touch-screen interaction and can also handle up to four simultaneously connected laptops.   The table system provides a media viewer that supports sharing of photos across screens, devices, and surfaces.  It also contains a web browser, a presentation viewer, and a whiteboard that is compatible with video conferencing.  The company provides customized applications for its clients.   In the Charlotte area, some of the tables can be found in restaurants, such as the Mellow Mushroom, Cowfish, and Harpers.  A few were recently installed in the Atkins library at UNC-Charlotte, to support group-work among students.

To learn more about what T1 Visions has to offer, take a few minutes to view the following videos and follow the links at the end of this post!






Demonstration of how the collaboration table can work within a business environment:


Demonstration of the T1VISION touch wall:

RELATED
T1 Visions Gallery
T1 Visions: Social Touchscreen Solutions
Interactive tabletops bring people together
Marty Minchin, Charlotte Observer, South Charlotte News, 2/20/12
Interactive Technology in the Carolinas: T-1 Visions Update

NOTE:
TechCrunch is a technology media group founded in 2005 that focuses on innovative technologies.  This summer, a group of TechCrunchers are visiting cities in the south that were previously not under their radar, such as Savannah and my home region, Charlotte, N.C.   The Charlotte TechCrunch meetup was held on Wednesday, July 11, 2012.  I plan to devote a few more blog posts to share what I learned.

Reflections About Interactivity in my Present World

Background:  For those of you who are new to this blog, I work as a school psychologist in a public school district in North Carolina. During the mid 2000's, I took a variety of computer courses, leading up to a decision to work part time while taking graduate courses part-time such as human-computer interaction, games, information visualization, ubiquitous computing, VR, etc. I returned to work full time in 2008, due to the economic downturn.

I continue to maintain my passion for technology that supports natural user interaction, and share my interests on this blog and to a lesser extent, two other blogs.  I initially started blogging because it was a requirement for one of my courses, and found that my blogs served me well as on-line filing cabinets.

Update:  I don't usually post much about my work on this blog, but I have some exciting things to share.

New School Year, New SMARTBoard: I'd like am excited about the upcoming school year because my "home" school, Wolfe, a program that serves mostly teens and young adults up to age 22 who have more severe disabilities (including autism), now has an interactive whiteboard in every classroom.

School started for Wolfe students on July 26th, and three more whiteboards were installed.  One of the new SMARTboards is in the speech and language room, along with a multi-touch SMARTTable the school received last April, one is in the Art/Work Adjustment room, and one is in the room I use with small groups of students, which is used for music one day a week.

Although I have used interactive whiteboards in my work with students for several years, this is the first year that I have had one available to me most of the time in a school. Since most of the teachers received their IWBs over the past year, there is a pressing need to figure out what works, why it works, and how to create useful interactive content that is appropriate for the needs of students who have severe or multiple disabilities. We really can't wait.  

Why is this important to me?

Observations of positive changes:

Students who previously had limited interest in applications on the computer, or a limited attention span for such activities, demonstrate a high degree of interest and engagement with the activities on the IWBs we've tried so far.  Many students who do not attend to learning materials, or only for brief periods of time, actively look at the IWB screen and even interacting with it, and smile.   Some students who rarely-or never- speak sometimes vocalize more often during IWB activities!   Some are making connections between learning materials and what they interact with on the screen, something that simply did not happen previously.  Some students who rarely established eye contact with others or demonstrated joint attention do so during IWB activities, something I discussed in a post on the TechPsych blog.

Technology and my role as a school psychologist:
Designing effective interventions is part of my job as a school psychologist, and mixing interactive whiteboards and interventions is fairly uncharted territory.  I know that there are probably a few other school psychologists, counselors, social workers, and speech/language therapists out there who are wondering what to make of this technology and the students they serve directly, or indirectly through consultation.  There isn't much literature about this topic, so it is difficult to know what is truly "evidence based".

We are in the process of discovery. Within a school that has an IWB in every classroom, serving students with the most complex needs within the school district,  how can I best follow professional school psychology practices(pdf) regarding the provision of direct and indirect services. Some of these expectations are listed below:

"School psychologists promote the development and maintenance of learning environments that support resilience and academic growth, promote high rates of academic engaged time, and reduce negative influences on learning and behavior."

"School psychologists use information and assistive technology resources to enhance students’ cognitive and academic skills."

"School psychologists work with other school personnel to develop, implement, and evaluate effective interventions for increasing the amount of time students are engaged in learning."

"School psychologists facilitate design and delivery of curricula to help students develop effective behaviors, such as self-regulation and self-monitoring, planning/ organization, empathy, and healthy decision-making."

Working towards solutions:
I work closely with my colleague Kelly Cross, a speech and language therapist who serves Wolfe school and two classrooms of students with severe autism at a "regular" elementary school. Kelly also serves as the assistive technology and augmentative communication consultant for our school district.  She's used interactive applications and web resources for many years along with more traditional "hands-on" materials,  but like me, has had limited access to IWB's until recently.  She now has a SMARTboard in her room, along with the portable multi-touch SMARTTable Wolfe received last April.  We work with many of the same students, so with the influx of IWBs in our school, we've stepped up our collaboration.

One of Kelly's challenges is to figure out ways for teachers to integrate assistive technology and/or augmentative communication systems into their work with students during activities that involve interactive whiteboards.   Most of the research the area of assistive technology/aug com focuses on the use of technology to access applications as they are displayed on laptops or computer monitors, or factors related to the use of individual communication devices. The vSked project, led by Dr. Gillian Hayes at the University of California at Irvine, is on the right track in that it incorporates the use of a large interactive display that was used with students with autism, along with smaller hand-held communication systems, which I've discussed in a previous post.



vSKED in action

Workshop Presentation
This past week, Kelly and I presented at a workshop held in the Arlington VA school district that focused on the use of interactive whiteboards and related applications and web resources with students with special needs.  We shared some of the exciting things we've noticed with our students and shared "before and after" examples.  Included in the presentation were some of the video clips I quickly put together during the first days of school that had an impressive positive impact with students when they were used during interactive whiteboard activities. (Some of these video clips can be found in a previous post: Video clips that help students with autism learn and feel calm at the same time!)

During the workshop, we discussed a few guiding principals, such as the "least dangerous assumption" and the concept of Universal Design for Learning.   We also provided a sampling of resources previously used on the "small screen" appear to powerful when used with students interacting on the larger whiteboard screens.  Below are a few of the resources we shared:

Clicker5 is an application to support reading and writing that provides a natural voice output, and child-friendly word processor. It works well on interactive whitboards It can incorporate several communication symbol systems. It is a good tool for informal assessment with students with communication and other related needs.

Clicker5 

Sensory World provides an intuitive navigation system for students to use as they explore various areas of a house and engage in learning and related activities. The site map for all of the areas of the house, as well as the activities, is graphical.

Sensoryworld.org

Partial Screen Shot of Sensory World Site Map

We shared resources from the National Gallery of Art's Kids Zone, a great website that offers plenty of interactive content:

Interactive Jungle

Interactive Dutch Dollhouse

Teachers who want a limited browsing environment for their students the Zac Browser is great for use on IWBs and the new large all-in-one touch screen displays:

Zac Browser

Another website that is good for visual-based browsing is Symbol World:

Symbol World

"The intention is that symbol readers, teachers and carers will contribute, and we are delighted at the number of contributors that have already sent us their work"

We shared a recent find, Taptu rthat can be used on an IWB.  Although Taptu focuses on the mobile touchable web, accessed through smartphones with internet access, it provides links to a wide range of websites designed with intuitive touch interaction in mind, perfect for students with special needs.  In many cases, Taptu web navigation resources work fine on the larger screen of the IWB.  The advantage is that a icon/visual based touch navigation system supports students who can't type and also those who have very limited reading skills.

Sports Navigation for Taptu

Below is a slideshow about the touchable web:

Taptu: Virtual Roundtable

Update: SMARTTable

At Wolfe, we'd like to create a conversation wheel with related activities for the SMARTTable that co-ordinate with SMARTBoard activities.  We'll probably experiment with the conversation wheel concept on the SMARTboard first.

Considerations:
One thing we've learned over the past few months is that it is bit more complicated to create content and activities for the SMARTTable than for the SMARTBoard notebook or Promethean flipchart.   We hope to have it customized to support scaffolded, customized classroom activities for students with special needs, but it might take more time than we had anticipated.  The school's immediate need is for touchable interactive content for all of the classroom IWB's, suitable for our students.

Complications:
Programming for the SMARTTable, for those who have 64-bit computers, requires Windows 7, Visual Studio 2008, and Expression Blend 3.   My HP Touchsmart, my home computer, is 64 bit, but runs Vista.  My school-issued laptop runs Windows XP and is also 64-bit.  To upgrade it, I will have to send it to the tech department for several weeks.   It will be slow-going, since I have to plan for my day-to-day activities and evaluations with students first.

Possible SMARTTable Solutions:
I'm hoping that some students from UNC-Charlotte might want to try their hand at multi-touch programming and help us out!  We'd welcome volunteers from other universities as well.   Wolfe's principal, Mary Jo Breckenridge, is very supportive of the use of innovative technologies with students with special needs, and would figure out a way to make a collaboration happen.

Upcoming Interactive Multimedia Technology Posts

I have about 6 posts in draft form about interesting interactive technologies, research, people, and companies involved with multi-touch, interactive multimedia, and natural user interface/interaction applications. I'll get them up as soon as possible.

One post is about 3M Touch Systems. Another is about an interesting multi-touch start-up company, Osmosis.  I revisited Ballantyne Village to update the use of interactive touch screen technology, something I discussed in detail, along with photos and video clips, in a 2008 post, Technology Supported Shopping and Entertainment User Experience at Ballantyne Village:  "A" for concept, "D" for touch-screen usability".   I got some inside scoop about the rationale behind the changes at the upscale center from a seasoned owner of a high-end audio-visual store I interviewed about 3D TV.   I have some interesting information about current research in "glasses-less" 3D displays. Sharp will be coming out with a 3D cell-phone camera AND glasses-less cell-phone display in the not-to-distant future.  

I'm preparing for posts that highlight a few of my favorite blogs. Until then, take a look at the recent posts on Tracy Boyer's Innovative Interactivity blog, and also InteractiveTV Today.

RELATED & SOMEWHAT RELATED

Multi-touch & Gesture Responsive Web & Related Applications: Helpful if you have a touch-screen or IWB

vSked:  Interactive Visual Supports for Children with Autism

AAC-RERC

"The AAC-RERC conducts a comprehensive program of research, development, training, and dissemination activities that address the NIDRR priorities and seek to improve technologies for individuals who rely on augmentative and alternative communication (AAC) technologies. The mission of the AAC-RERC is to assist people who rely on augmentative and alternative communication to achieve their goals by advancing and promoting AAC technologies and supporting the individuals who use, manufacture, and recommend them."

Promising Innovations in AAC for Individuals with Autism Spectrum Disorders

Research: Design AAC Systems that Provide Dynamic Shared Interactive Context for Children

Janet Light, Kathy Drager, Penn State University

Jeff Higginbotham's Bibliography:  Viewing AAC Through Authentic Social Interactions (pdf)

ProLoquo2Go (iPhone/iPod Touch/iPad communication system)


Also posted on the TechPsych blog

CFP for Special Issue of Personal and Ubiquitous Computing on Educational Interfaces, Software, and Technology (EIST) -Extended Deadline: December 9, 2012

CFP for Special Issue of Personal and Ubiquitous Computing on Educational Interfaces, Software, and Technology (EIST) -Extended Deadline: December 9, 2012

Overview 
One of the primary goals of teaching is to prepare learners for life in the real world. In this ever-changing world of technologies such as mobile interaction, cloud computing, natural user interfaces, and gestural interfaces like the Nintendo Wii and Microsoft Kinect, people have a greater selection of tools for the task at hand. Given the potential of these new interfaces, software, and technologies as learning tools, as well as the ubiquitous application of interactive technology in formal and informal learning environments, there is a growing need to explore how next-generation technologies will impact education in the future. 

As a community of Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) and educational researchers, we need to theorize and discuss how new technologies should be integrated into the classrooms and homes of the future. In the last three years, three CHI workshops have provided a forum to discuss key issues of this sort, particularly in the context of next-generation education. The aim of this special issue of Personal and Ubiquitous Computing is to summarize the potential design challenges and perspectives on how the community should handle next-generation technologies in the education domain for both teachers and students. 

We invite authors to present position papers about potential design challenges and perspectives on how the community should handle the next generation of HCI in education. Topics of interest include but are not limited to: 

• Gestural input, multitouch, large displays 
• Mobile devices, response systems (clickers) 
• Tangible, VR, AR & MR, multimodal interfaces 
• Console gaming, 3D input devices 
• Co-located interaction, presentations 
• Educational pedagogy, learner-centric, child computer interaction 
• Empirical methods, case studies 
• Multi-display interaction 
• Wearable educational media 

Important Dates 

• Full papers due: December 9, 2012 
• Initial reviews to authors: January 18, 2013 
• Revised papers due: March 15, 2013 
• Final reviews to authors: April 26, 2013 
• Final papers due: June 14, 2013 

Submission Guidelines 
Submissions should be prepared according to the Word template located at the bottom of this page. All manuscripts are subject to peer review. Manuscripts must be submitted as a PDF to the easychair submission system. Submissions should be no more than 8000 words in length. 

Guest Editors and Contact Information 

• Syed Ishtiaque Ahmed, Cornell University 
• Quincy Brown, Bowie State University 
• Jochen Huber, Technische Universität Darmstadt 
• Si Jung “Jun” Kim, University of Central Florida 
• Lynn Marentette, Union County Public Schools, Wolfe School 
• Max Mühlhäuser, Technische Universität Darmstadt 
• Alexander Thayer, University of Washington 
• Edward Tse, SMART Technologies 

Contact: eistjournal2012@easychair.org 

Information about the Journal of Personal and Ubiquitous Computing 

• Editor-in-Chief: Peter Thomas
• Journal web site
• Facebook page

Submission Template: PUC_EIST_article_template.docx  (59k)

CFP for Special Issue of Personal and Ubiquitous Computing on Educational Interfaces, Software, and Technology (EIST)

CFP for Special Issue of Personal and Ubiquitous Computing on Educational Interfaces, Software, and Technology (EIST) 


Overview 
One of the primary goals of teaching is to prepare learners for life in the real world. In this ever-changing world of technologies such as mobile interaction, cloud computing, natural user interfaces, and gestural interfaces like the Nintendo Wii and Microsoft Kinect, people have a greater selection of tools for the task at hand. Given the potential of these new interfaces, software, and technologies as learning tools, as well as the ubiquitous application of interactive technology in formal and informal learning environments, there is a growing need to explore how next-generation technologies will impact education in the future. 


As a community of Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) and educational researchers, we need to theorize and discuss how new technologies should be integrated into the classrooms and homes of the future. In the last three years, three CHI workshops have provided a forum to discuss key issues of this sort, particularly in the context of next-generation education. The aim of this special issue of Personal and Ubiquitous Computing is to summarize the potential design challenges and perspectives on how the community should handle next-generation technologies in the education domain for both teachers and students. 

We invite authors to present position papers about potential design challenges and perspectives on how the community should handle the next generation of HCI in education. Topics of interest include but are not limited to: 

• Gestural input, multitouch, large displays 
• Mobile devices, response systems (clickers) 
• Tangible, VR, AR & MR, multimodal interfaces 
• Console gaming, 3D input devices 
• Co-located interaction, presentations 
• Educational pedagogy, learner-centric, child computer interaction 
• Empirical methods, case studies 
• Multi-display interaction 
• Wearable educational media

Important Dates

• Full papers due: November 9, 2012
• Initial reviews to authors: January 18, 2013
• Revised papers due: March 15, 2013
• Final reviews to authors: April 26, 2013
• Final papers due: June 14, 2013

Submission Guidelines

Submissions should be prepared according to the Word template located at the bottom of this page. All manuscripts are subject to peer review. Manuscripts must be submitted as a PDF to the easychair submission system. Submissions should be no more than 8000 words in length.

Guest Editors and Contact Information

• Syed Ishtiaque Ahmed, Cornell University
• Quincy Brown, Bowie State University
• Jochen Huber, Technische Universität Darmstadt
• Si Jung “Jun” Kim, University of Central Florida
• Lynn Marentette, Union County Public Schools, Wolfe School
• Max Mühlhäuser, Technische Universität Darmstadt
• Alexander Thayer, University of Washington 
• Edward Tse, SMART Technologies

Contact: eistjournal2012@easychair.org

Information about the Journal of Personal and Ubiquitous Computing

• Editor-in-Chief: Peter Thomas
• Journal web site
• Facebook page

Tangible User Interfaces Part I: Siftables

In 1997, the vision of tangible user interfaces, also known as TUI's, was outlined by Hiroshi Ishii and Brygg Ullmer of the Tangible Media Group at MIT, in their paper, "Tangible Bits: Towards Seamless Interfaces between People, Bits, and Atoms

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"(pdf). According to this vision, "the goal of Tangible Bits is to bridge the gaps between both cyberspace and the physical environment, as well as the foreground and background of human activities." This article is is a must-read for anyone interested in "new" interactive technologies.

The pictures in the article of the metaDesk, transBoard, activeLENS, and ambientRoom, along with the references, are worth taking at least a glance of this seminal work.

Another must-read is Hiroshi Ishii's 2008 article, Tangible Bits: Beyond Pixels (pdf). In this article, Ishii provides a good overview of TUI concepts as well as the contributions of his lab to the field since the first paper was written.

Related tothe Tangible User Interface research is the work of the Fluid Interfaces Group at MIT. The Fluid Interfaces Group was formerly known as the Ambient Intelligence Group, and many of the group's projects incorporate concepts related to TUI and ambient intelligence. According to the Fluid Interfaces website, the goal of this research group is to "radically rethink the human-machine interactive experience. By designing interfaces that are more immersive, more intelligent, and more interactive we are changing the human-machine relationship and creating systems that are more responsive to people's needs and actions, and that become true "accessories" for expanding our minds."

The Siftables project is an example of how TUI and fluid interface (FI) interaction can be combined.
Siftables is the work of David Merrill and Pattie Maes, in collaboration with Jeevan Kalanithi, and was brought to popular attention through David Merrill's recent TED talk:

David Merrill's TED Talk: Siftables - Making the digital physical -Grasp Information Physically

"Siftables aims to enable people to interact with information and media in physical, natural ways that approach interactions with physical objects in our everyday lives. As an interaction platform, Siftables applies technology and methodology from wireless sensor networks to tangible user interfaces. Siftables are independent, compact devices with sensing, graphical display, and wireless communication capabilities. They can be physically manipulated as a group to interact with digital information and media. Siftables can be used to implement any number of gestural interaction languages and HCI applications....Siftables can sense their neighbors, allowing applications to utilize topological arrangement..No special sensing surface or cameras are needed."



Siftables Music Sequencer from Jeevan Kalanithi on Vimeo.

More about Siftables:

Rethinking display technology (Scott Kirsner, Boston Globe, 7/27/08)
TED: Siftable Computing Makes Data Physical
Siftables: Toward Sensor Network User Interfaces (pdf)

It seems that people really like the Siftable concept, or they don't see the point. I found the following humerous critique of Siftables on YouTube:

"Imagine if all the little programs you had on your iphone were little separate chicklets in your pocket.
You'd lose em.
Your cat would eat em.
You'd vacuum them up.
They'd fall down in the sofa.
They'd be all over the car floor.
You'd throw them away by mistake..."

In my opinion, it is exciting to learn that perhaps some of this technology has the potential of becoming main-stream.