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Discussion of the role of user interfaces in the K-12 environment.

A high school student devised an augmented reality interface to transform medical education--the phrase "kids these days" doesn't even begin to cover it.

This could be used as an alternate means of interacting with computers. From an educational standpoint this does not appear to be dated, but rather creating opportunities for people with limited means of motion.

Interesting look at the limited menu of viable open source LMSs that are out there. Moodle is by far the most popular, but as anyone who has ever developed any online courses on Moodle knows, the interface is clunky and it is overall pretty uninspiring (although adequate). Sakai sounds like an interesting competitor to Moodle and it sounds like it's gaining traction in the market- Rhode Island schools use it. From what I have read about it, it sounds like it is much more user friendly than Moodle and the students surveyed preferred the interface and design of Sakai to Moodle significantly (81% vs. 53%). Would love to hear any posts from people who have used any of these systems.

LuminAR is another project out of the Fluid Interfaces Group at the MIT Media Lab that combines a camera, projector, and computer into the currently available infrastructure of lamps and sockets to augment reality with additional information.

trying to understand the affordances for learning of gesture interfaces

Microsoft Courier Booklet

The Microsoft Courier is a two screen folding tablet device that allows for user interaction via gestures and/or stylus. The user interface looks to be the Courier's strongest point, but I'm curious to see if the stylus-heavy interaction will provide for any major advantage over a typical laptop and the already existent tablet pc market for anything other than art programs. In an educational setting, this could potentially be used as a library reference device and/or collaborative art device, but just as has been the case with many educational products in the past, may not be novel enough to sway education (or any other market) into preventing the Courier into becoming vaporware. However, this still poses as an excellent example of new devices coming onto the market that focus on new or perfected methods of Human Computer Interaction (HCI).

Now this service/interface seems to offer real potential -- it's flexible, it's based on a dynamic interplay of different applications -- it's been around for a few years now -- anybody have first-hand experience with it?

Being a 2nd year part-time student, I already took David Rose's UDL course last spring. My group project for UDL was exploring VoiceThread-- understanding its current feautres and capabilities, testing it out in a real world situation with some students, and envisioning changes to fix shortcomings plus new features. Overall, we thought VoiceThread was really cool! Could allow students to communicate in different kinds of ways (text, voice, submitting video statements, drawing-- whatever someone preferred or was comfortable with) and enabled a growing transcript of student dialogue in reference to a piece of content. But there was a real learning curve- in figuring out how (as a 'teacher') to create an original VoiceThread using our media. And then students had to figure out the interface and tools available to them as they used VoiceThread to browse a stream we created and comment on it. As of last spring at least, I felt it was a bit cumbersome. Really wish it was more intuitive so both creators and viewers could jump right in and get right to communicating. Haven't gone back to using it as of late, but I hear they now have iPhone/iPad access!

A great example of a new immersive interface that Microsoft is developing

A good demo of the DTP user interface and classroom engagement.

In light of our recent Blackboard Collaborate class during Sandy, I got curious as to what other good online delivery platforms are out there. I am preparing to teach the MIT App Inventor curriculum to some high school girls on the other side of the world and am wondering if maybe there's a better alternative to Skype. I came across Piazza, which is free and seems to be gaining traction in higher ed. I also once took an online course with Kaplan and really liked their interface, but don't remember what it was and now it seems they are moving toward a platform called "KapX." If anyone can recommend additional platforms, please let me know.

A former Apple interface designer critiques Microsoft's 'Productivity Future Vision (2011)' video that has been spreading on the web (and a couple of you have shared here on Diigo).  The Apple guru's biggest gripe? Microsoft portrays a future dominated by single finger interaction with touch-enabled devices. But we are already seeing more elaborate Human-Computer interaction involving more of  our bodies and communication modes-- full body (Kinect, Microsoft), and voice & hearing (Siri, Apple). Mr. Victor says that Microsoft's vision wasn't as revolutionary as it seems.

I agree with the author on Microsoft's lack of vision about future technologies (which I also ranted about on facebook). At the same time, we have to note that Microsoft currently has devices that enable 'full body' communication and Apple does not. And their latest wonder 'Siri' was acquired, not developed internally. I respect Apple for their innovations but we haven't seen any 'vision' from Apple yet and I am curious to know what they might be thinking.

This is a new interface for taking notes -- what are the implications for studying and for content mastery?

Hey Prof! Funny you tagged this article. I was just searching for advanced note-taking software and was having a difficult time finding anything that would resemble my handwritten notes. Also, I came across a similar device that is described in your article today at my internship at Soup2Nuts. Since all of the animators/artists use Flash to create the cartoons, they have something similar to this "magical pen". However, they need to use a specific type of tracking pad to draw. The idea of applying this same technology to any piece of paper is a useful idea (if you are one of those people who remember to bring paper and pads to class).

Reference sheet with keyboard shortcuts for using Gmail's webmail interface.

Here are just a few topics that we will cover… 1. Brain-machine interfaces to control computers, exoskeletons, robots, and other devices with thought alone; 2. Mind-reading devices that will project the conscious contents of one's brain onto a screen as if it was a movie; 3. Devices to enhance intellectual ability and to increase concentration; 4. Devices to enhance creativity and insight; 5. Mechanisms to upload the mind to a machine, thus preserving it from bodily decay and bodily death.

Interesting visual history on the evolution of classroom technology. Particularly like that they used a slightly interactive interface in designing this. It's intriguing to see how far we've come--and at the same time how similar some things are.

A nokia future technology video, much like that of the Microsoft one we watched earlier featurying nanotechnology

It's about time! "The Google Dashboard aggregates all of a user's Google service accounts - for sites such as Blogger, the blogging platform, and Picasa, the photo-sharing site - in to a single interface, providing one-click access to privacy settings and account-management tools. "

Possibility of gesture-interface technology on forthcoming ipads. 

Using mobile technology as a tool for financial support... could this be geared toward education? (Has it been?)

Fantastically simple interface! It doesn't appear as though any funding is going to education, but more to households. But if this takes off, it would be great if the leaders of this non-profit lead school building initiatives, or other types of education initiatives.