So I have emerged from the depths of research and work. We have this great program at UNC-CH that allows staff to take classes for free. I decided to take advantage of that this past semester and enrolled in a Human Computer Interaction class taught by Gary Marchionini in the School of Information and Library Science. Overall, it was an AWESOME class. I was able to explore some interesting interfaces and really look into the academic side of what I do every day. In describing this class to my friends I called it the “Gadget Class” because we got to take a look at a bunch of different gadget’s including the Wii and the iPhone. How cool is that?

You long time readers will recall an article I wrote back in March about haptic force feedback in learning. It was my introduction to haptics and I was quite excited about it. My organization purchased two haptic devices (Novint Falcon’s) and when it came time to pick a final project for the class I suggested we do some research into developing an educational interface for the haptic device. We published the progress we made on this webpage: http://haptic.edutechie.vanswebsites.com. This is taken from the front page to give you an intro to what we include on the website.

“Haptics” are any device that provides a touch-based system of interaction with virtual environments. In education this is important because we learn as we touch and interact with objects and data (Jain, 2003). We learn using as many of our five senses (sight, hearing, touch, smell, and taste) as possible (Gardner, 1983). Until recently only the first two of those senses, auditory and visual, have been used in forms of digital education (Laycock & Day, 2003). Now, with a selection of inexpensive haptic devices and a growing awareness of the potential of haptics, we can begin to feel those digital objects as well.This webpage will focus on how educators might use these devices to augment the sense of presence that a student perceives while working in virtual worlds or on digital assignments (Van Shaik, et al., 2004). We have created several sections in order to facilitate this learning and attempted to organize it in a useful way.

First we have attempted to layout an explanation of what haptics are and the theoretical foundation for haptics in education.

Next have done an extensive literature review of haptics devices to this point in time and written a proposed study on the use of haptic devices in education.

Third we have laid out the basic functionality of the Novint Falcon, the primary haptic device we have worked with, as well as all the technical research we have done to this point. We have also laid out the possible uses of these devices in other areas of study.

Finally we have included an extensive bibliography for those interested in researching further on the topic, as well as some useful downloads for those working with haptic devices.

We also took all the information on the webpage and published it in a whitepaper “Use of Haptics to Augment Presence in an Experiential HCI Environment.”

I did all the technical research and created the webpage, but the resources my colleagues put together are phenomenal. I highly recommend them. Cary Gillenwater put together the theoretical foundation, Amit Kumar worked with Cary to create the fantastic literature review, and Brian Moynihan put together the study proposal for a haptic frog dissection in a high-school classroom. Overall I think it will be a great resource for educators looking to get into haptics. Please feel free to pass the information along and send me any suggestions/thoughts.

Where does the project stand now?

Probably most important to note is where the project stands now. We originally tried to program the haptic device to work in the virtual world Croquet, but that proved beyond my technical skills, so we ended up just making it navigate the virtual worlds. You can see a video here (sorry, you’ll have to turn the sound way up).

Most important though, is the recent announcement by Novint that they are working on drivers that will work with not only Second Life, but World of Warcraft as well. That should be a huge step forward in this haptic study. We (or someone else) can then build our objects (like a virtual frog) and see how students react to using haptic devices to education. Ooooh… this is exciting.