Eric Sailers is a speech and language pathologist and assistive technology consultant who is on the cutting edge of innovative technologies and how they can be harnessed to support young people with special needs. His blog, Speech-Language Pathology Sharing, is a great resource, and has information that would be useful to regular education teachers who are working in inclusive co-teaching environments.
If you work in education, you probably heard the term, "21st Century Schools". All teachers must become skillful integrators of technology and pedagogy, and this will be the solution to cure all of public education's ills, right?!
Many teachers DO embrace technology, but find that despite the technological revolution, there are many barriers to moving forward.
The link below is to a 2009 thesis written by Barbara J. Wismer, a teacher who devoted much of her her life, 24/7, as a Classroom for the Futureteacher while working on her Master of Education degree. Her classroom was provided with a set of laptops, an interactive whiteboard, an LCD projector, a video camera, a digital camera, and an assortment of applications. In her thesis, Ms. Wismer describes numerous barriers that she faced nearly every day during her study. These are barriers that hold true throughout many schools in the U.S. Ms. Wismer provides a personal description of her experiences, a breath of fresh air when compared with most academic papers that have crossed my path:
Here are a few examples from the "Problems and Shortcomings" section of the thesis (p. 89-96):
"The “right click” function is disabled (it is also disabled for teachers, too). This made the copying and pasting of pictures and information more difficult."
"Flash drives (USB saving devices) are the biggest gripe among teachers in my district. We are not allowed to insert a flash drive into a school computer; it can result in immediate dismissal. The technology department places such a restriction (the staff has all the same restrictions as students) on us out of fear that someone will bring in a virus or operating system that could compromise our school district’s system. It is frustrating to be treated like we are children. There is constant uproar in the district to treat the teachers like adults and respect the decisions we make – like not abusing the right to use a flash drive. Many of the saving issues that I brought up previously could be avoided with the permission to use a flash drive."
"Internet connection and network connection issues plagued us the entire semester. There were some days when half of the class would lose their connection and any unsaved work would be lost."
"By why is Google Images blocked? Why are all blogs (even educational ones) blocked? Why can I not download a video from United Streaming or a flipchart from Promethean Planet? We were told that if we wanted any of those things downloaded, we were to provide a list to the technology department. I did that and was told that I could download them myself at home and then save them to a CD-ROM and bring them in to use."
"The only complaint that I would have is that about half of the teachers that have the equipment actually use it. The other half just lets the equipment sit in a closet. I have found that those teachers only signed up to be part of the Classrooms for the Future program to have a laptop cart permanently in their room."
I had no idea that teachers could be restricted from access to the right-click functions of their mice at work, and could be fired for inserting a flash drive into a school's computer! Both restrictions had a negative impact on Ms. Wisner's ability to do her job with efficiency.
I recently learned that Inclusive Technologies, of the UK, has a North American office in Waxhaw, N.C., a town in Union County, not too far from where I live and work. This is what I found when I was looking up some information:
The Tilt and Touch provides a high-definition surface that can accommodate multi-touch applications. It comes in two sizes, 42" and 50". At the time of this post, it was only available in the UK.
This video produced by IBM is an overview of the Internet of Things, and depicts how a vast amount of data is generated every day through sensors and monitors that are embedded in everything around us. The concept of "systems of systems" is depicted in a cute graphical manner.
In the video, a pyramid similar to the one below is discussed, outlining the data-to-wisdom process:
Knowledge discovery to wisdom, based on Giarratano and Riley, 1998, found on Ranjeet Walunj's blog.
Questions: What are mere mortals to make of all of this data flowing around? How should educators respond to the reality of the Internet of Things and the wealth of data that will soon be available?
FYI: Previous posts related to the Internet of Things
Lately I've been thinking deeply about ways new multi-touch technologies, running on screens and surfaces of all sizes, can support learning and collaboration, in and outside of the classroom. Microsoft's Courier and Apple's iPad are two tools I'd love to test out in the digital mix in the schools. Here's the latest information about the Courier, via Engadget:
The applications running on this demo look useful!
Apparently the Microsoft Courier, a dual screen 7-inch notebook, accepts multi-touch and stylus input:
-via Deeper2K's YouTube channel
According to Engadget, the Courier is "built on Tegra 2 and runs on the same OS as the Zune HD, Pink, and Windows Mobile 7 Series...We're also hearing that there will be a built-in camera, and there's a headphone jack for media playback. Most interestingly, it looks like the Courier will also serve as Microsoft's e-book device...."
By the way, you can pre-order your shiny new iPad from the Apple Store right now!
-Apple Store
For the Techies and the Tech-Curious:
The iPhone SDK 3.2 beta includes what you'll need for developing applications for the iPad. You can go to the iPad webpage and dowload the SDK, which includes an iPad Simulator, programming guide, sample code, human interface guide, and more. But first, you must be a member of the iPhone Developer Program. The fee is $99.00 a year.
I will share my thoughts about these devices and their use for learning/education in future posts.
We're planning an application for a multi-touch SMART Table at one of my schools, and one of the goals is to ensure that it can facilitate social interaction among students with and without disabilties, including autism. Keeping this in mind, one of my colleages sent me an email a minute ago with a link to a great post by Michelle Winner's blog about social thinking and "inclusion" vs "integration" in education settings. It is worth a read!
The NETP is consistent with the Framework for 21st Century Learning model, calling for schools to ensure students are prepared for the skills they will need in an increasingly complex, technological society:
"The model of 21st century learning described in this plan calls for engaging and empowering learning experiences for all learners. The model asks that we focus what and how we teach to match what people need to know, how they learn, where and when they will learn, and who needs to learn. It brings state-of-the art technology into learning to enable, motivate, and inspire all students, regardless of background, languages, or disabilities, to achieve. It leverages the power of technology to provide personalized learning instead of a one-size fits-all curriculum, pace of teaching, and instructional practices."
Secretary Duncan announcing the Education Technology Plan on YouTube
Hopefully the NETP initiative will encourage teachers to consider video clips for their students to explore that are more exciting than this well-meaning gentleman's talking head!
Teachers who are still struggling with figuring out how to access e-mail attachments and the basics of Microsoft Office 2003, this plan will call for a steep learning curve! I will be by your side to help. It is good to know that David Rose, of CAST, the father of Universal Design for Learning, was one of the members of the NETP working group.
RELATED
National Educational Technology Plan Technical Working Group:
So touch is a creative software company that has developed So touch Presention for creating multi-touch presentations for Windows 7. You can download a trial version from the So touch website. Minimal requirements are a 1.6GHz processor (Core2 Duo), 2 Gb of RAM, and a 512Mb graphic card.)
Here's the promotional video:
Here is the promotional information from the So touch YouTube site:
"Create your own multi-touch presentations! Discover the NEW So touch Presentation software!
Get your audience captivated and make your presentations more intuitive and entertaining than ever!
Manipulate images or screenshots of your usual documents with multi-touch gestures! Navigate multi- images format, scroll up and down long images. Then open the original file or document in one tap on the screen leveraging the usual Windows associated application!
Thank to its user-friendly visual administration interface, the So touch presentation software is easy to use and will bring to life your presentations on a day to day basis!"
For more information, get in touch at contact [at] so-touch [dot] com or visit http://www.so-touch.com
FOR THE TECH-CURIOUS "Sotouch Presentation for Windows 7 is developed using Adobe AIR and our unique AS3 framework for Adobe AIR and Windows 7 that is also available on our website! It is the first professional and transparent solution to develop Windows 7 compatible Adobe AIR applications. We are proud to be the first to announce it! There is some open source existing solutions but they don't offer the transparency and efficiency of SoBridge, the TUIO to Windows 7 C# bridge, included with Sotouch Framework." Contact Person: Julien Lescure Company Name: So touch Telephone Number: +44 20 3239 3912 Email Address: contact[at]so-touch[dot]com Web site address: http://www.so-touch.com
"NUITEQ's Snowflake Suite off the shelf multi-touch software product showcased on a 46" flat full HD multi-touch LCD. Available for purchase now.
Snowflake Suite is honored with a Stevie Awards finalist recognition for Best Product or Service of the Year 2009 in the category Media and Entertainment for the International Business Awards. Snowflake Suite is available to OEM's, SI's, VAR's, software engineers and end clients. Snowflake Suite comes with hands full of multi-touch applications, an API and a SDK.
Compatible with different multi-touch hardware technology platforms, including: 3M Touch Systems, N-trig, NextWindow, Lumio, Nexio, IR Touch, rear camera based systems, dreaMTouch and others."
"Natural User Interface Technologies AB (NUITEQ) is a Swedish technology company, that offers off the shelf and customized software for interactive single and multi-touch devices. Additionally NUITEQ executes large scale customization projects, concerning multi-touch technology hardware, software and services. In parallel, NUITEQ is working on other innovative emerging technologies within the field of Human Computer Interaction (HCI)."
Today's News: NUITEQ wins MerlT Award for development through collaboration, growth potential and innovative thinking.
RELATED
NUITEQ Flat 46'' Multi-touch LCD
Key Features
Size: 46"
Snowflake Suite life time license included
Full HD
Simultaneous detectionand tracking of up 32 touch points
Definite and reliable detection of touch points
Real multi-touch function: no specific constraints, like temporal order or position of touch points
Particularly suitable for embedded systems: Processing of complex evaluation steps via touch controller,
e.g. keyboard emulation
Sample rate: 50 frames/s
Glass: 4 mm toughened safety glass
Slim design: only 3 cm construction depth and 5 cm frame width
USB interface and separate power supply
No drift, no calibration required
Applicable to all display technologies
Protocol: TUIO
Detection of size and position of objects in the active area
2 years warranty
Electrical
Power Supply: 19 V DC ± 20 %
Power Consumption: 11 W
Interface: USB 1.1, full speed
Functional
Simultaneous Touch Points: 32
Touch Point Size: > 10 mm
Spatial Resolution: < 2 mm
Communication Protocol : Propriatary or ·· TUIO 1.0 (2Dcur and 25Dcur profiles)
Scan Speed: 55 ms
Mechanical Data
Frame Dimensions: 1136 x 680 x 28 mm
Frame Finish: Black powder coating (RAL 9011)
Active Area: 1018.1 x 572.7 mm
Window: 4 mm double-sided anti-reflective laminted safety filterglass
Weight: 11 kg (including filter glass)
Monitor: Direct fit to SHARP PN-465E (35,5 KG)
Environmental
Operating Temperature: 0 °C to 40 °C
Operating Humidity: 20 % to 80 % (no condensation)
Also available as a horizontal solution.
NUITEQ Wiki Harry van der Veen's NUITEQ Blog (I've been following Harry van der Veen's journey since he was a university student. At the time, he was a leading member of the NUI-Group, creating a DYI multi-touch table as part of his studies. This was before Microsoft Surface was born.)
I've been so busy writing reports* that this almost passed me by!
I found out about 6rounds because they use Twitter as a promotional platform. I happened to notice that this company was following me and clicked on the link.
6rounds started out as an outgrowth of a speed dating website, and the application was initially designed for people to use while waiting for speed dating sessions. According to the 6rounds website FAQ's, "6rounds is a live meeting point, offering users a variety of experiences that they enjoy together using a combination of webcams, real-time games, social activities and media engagements."
Since I'm a happily married middle-aged woman, I'm not sure 6rounds is up my alley. I think social singles, college students, and others who don't mind flashing their faces through a webcam would like it.
If I had time, I might like to play around with GixOO, the opensource API that underpins 6rounds. GixOO has the potential for developers to develop games and activities. The application allows the users to track each other as they move their mice, and also enables people to see the same things as their friends as they interact online.
6rounds looks like it might provide possibilities for collaborative projects in education, but I won't be sure until I give it a try.
So what is 6rounds?
FOR THE TECH-CURIOUS
The following information was quoted from the Openomics blog from Sun Microsystem's ISV Engineering:
"6rounds is the first product built on the GixOO live social platform, initially developped on the LAMP stack. As a member of the Sun Startup Essentials program, GixOO connected with Sun's ISV Engineering team to test the scalability of their platform on SAMP --the Solaris-based AMP stack, available in an integrated and optimized package from Sun, the Sun Glassfish Web Stack f.k.a. CoolStack. At the time, we ran the benchmark on a Sun SPARC Enterprise T5120 server --featuring the 64-way CoolThreads processor UltraSPARC T2-- running Solaris 10 and CoolStack 1.3. GixOO loved the DTrace kernel instrumentation of Solaris 10 --DTrace gives unique insights into how the application performs, live on a production system-- and the Containers technology a.k.a. Zones --this light-weigth virtualization layer of Solaris allows multiple applications to run in isolation from each other on the same physical hardware--, and quickly adopted them for their internal use.
"At GixOO, we use Sun SPARC-based server, powered by Solaris 10 for our R&D environment. The system gives us the required flexibility and components isolation that we need. Thanks to SPARC's great SMP abilities, we achieve high performance for many development environments running on one single 1U server.
Solaris Zones are very comfortable and simple to configure, and allow the full utilization of the great power hidden in this small machine, which makes Solaris 10 an excellent choice for system administrators. We are using Sun MySQL Server which gives our application high speed data storage solution, and in the future we might migrate to the MySQL Cluster solution to get even faster results."
Dmitry Shestak, CTO, GixOO"
Somewhat Related
2/26/10: Oracle bought Sun in 2009. Here were the latest results when I did a search to get more information:
Not Really Related
*For those new to this blog, I'm a school psychologist who returned to her day job full time a year and 1/2 ago, when the economy was taking a nosedive. Before that, I was working part-time and taking computer and technology classes, initially to learn how to create interactive multimedia applications and games.
Since some of the kids and teens I work with have a range of abilities and disabilities, including autism, I developed an interest in accessibility. How can universal design principles be applied to games and emerging interactive technologies? I'm also fascinated by interactive displays and surfaces of all sizes, especially ubiquitous systems that support cognition, collaboration and communication.
One of my pet projects:
My vision? A collaborative multimedia, multi-modal interactive time-line might help us to understand complex, interrelated factors and events more effectively. It would provide an opportunity for the inquisitive to view things from a broad perspective, and also explore things in rich detail. Ideally, the time-line would support multi-touch, multi-user interaction on larger displays and interactive whiteboards, and allow for people who are remotely located to participate in the process.
Now that one of my schools will be getting a multi-touch SMARTTable, I'd like to experiment with time-line concepts and interactions on a table surface. I'd also like to figure out how this can work seamlessly with the existing SMARTBoard that is in the classroom. Of course, this would have to take place during after work hours!
David Pogue, a technology writer for the New York Times, recently wrote a detailed, entertaining post about pocket projectors, also known as pico projectors. According to Pogue, the LG Expo cell phone comes with an (almost) built-in projector. The Aaxa, another pico, uses lasers to generate high-resolution images, comes with speakers, and allows for projecting from a range of sources, including DVD players, TiVo, camcorders, laptops, computers, and soon, iPods & iPhones.
According to Pogue, "pico projectors have a very bright, high-resolution future".
For the tech-curious:
DLP Pico Projector Developoment Kit-Part 3- Another Geek Moment "Part 3 of Another Geek Moment series on the DLP® Pico™ Projector Development Kit provided by Digi-Key and Texas Instruments. In this episode, Jeremy explains some of the capabilities of the Pico projector and how to manipulate them."
Chris Yanc, of Cyan Design, has been creating multi-touch applications for a while. His work, "Multi-touch Experiments" was included in the Collider Exhibition Series in Akron, Ohio. Below is a video of his experiments, a video of a demo app for an interactive touch conference map, info about his work with the 36 Views of a Bridge project, and links to his tutorials and code.
About the Collider Exhibition Series (info taken from the website): "The Collider Exhibition Series examines the impact, implications and inspi- ration of the phenomenon generally categorized under the umbrella term New Media within the design practice and fine arts.Collider: Interactivity and New Media is an initial exploration into this realm. The exhibition seeks to provoke an awareness of the pervasive nature of New Media as it is applied in every function of our society and immerges as a forum for the highest expressions of our contemporary culture. It explores the results of collisions between humans and machines, biology and com- putations, art and technology, thought and process. What is New Media? And what are the implications to artists and designers when worlds, cul- tures and even identities collapse, build and collide."
Chris Yanc's Multi-Touch Demo App: Tokyo Game Show 09 Conference Map
Chris was involved with the 36 Views of a Bridge at the Bridge Project in Cleveland, Ohio. His post, 36 Views of a Bridge, explains in detail how his work was created, and also observations of groups of people interacting with the multi-touch table that was part of this project.
The sliding list widget demonstrated in the above video was created using Flash and can be downloaded from Chris's website: Sliding Lists ~ TUIO Flas App Widget. The link will take you to "how-to" information, a code example, and also to a link to download the widget.
Chris was kind enough to share his repository of tutorials and code: http://www.cyancdesign.com/tutorials/ His tutorial page has lots of good links!
I'll be highlighting more work by innovative individuals, groups, and companies from time-to-time in future posts.
I've come across more news about telepresence and video conferencing lately. The technology is getting better, and businesses are finding that this provides a great way to save money and time.
Here are some videos and pictures from the Telepresence Options Network about ways large displays are used in a variety of settings.
Starwood Hotels & Resorts and Tata Communications are installing telepresence meeting suites in a variety of settings. Public rooms can connect with public rooms anywhere, any time.
Here is an excerpt from the promotional materials:
"Providing a user experience similar to industry-leading mobile devices (like smart phones, mp3 players, etc.), the Polycom Touch Control's seven-inch color screen allows casual and power users to easily navigate key functions from basic dialing and content sharing, to advanced features using finger gestures to touch and slide universally recognizable icons and navigate intuitive arrows and tabs. The graphical interface makes it easy for users to locate contacts and dial video calls using a corporate directory, local address book, or presence-enabled contact list. The Polycom Touch Control also makes it easy for anyone (even visitors without network access) to share content during a video call or to present content using the room's audio/visual systems during a non-video meeting. Multiple content sharing methods are available with Touch Control to allow users to quickly and easily share content using the integrated USB ports."
The Human Productivity Lab is hosting the Inter-Company Telepresence and Videoconferencing Conference and Working group on Thursday, April 22, 2010, in Reston, Virginia.
Several high schools in my school district have distance learning sites. I noticed that Polycom video encoders are part of the package. The following is information from the UCPS Distance & Online Learning website:
"In Union County Public Schools, distance learning students are located in traditional classrooms throughout the district's high school distance learning sites, connected via conferencing to a teacher and students located in a distant classroom (the host/sending site).
Our distance learning labs feature modern Polycom equipment designed to enhance students' learning experiences. Our distance learning classrooms include:
3-42" NEC plasma displays, 1serving as a rear monitor
