I was delighted to receive a video this week from Andrew Hatch from Durham University and the SynergyNet Project. In it he explains and demonstrates some further features of networked multitouch desks that the team have been developing.
Just to recap what was demonstrated:
Menu hiding on student desks.
Remote load of application or content.
Synchronise content layout to student desks.
Independent updates and action on the desks.
Changes on teacher desk updated on other student desks, including adding new content.
On screen keyboard in the note application.
Lock student desk content.
Clear student desk content.
Complete synchronisation between two tables – allowing for collaboration.
Further to the simple act of passing content from one table to the next, these features really begin to structure the way a whole class might work using multitouch. Once again this is one of the main aims of this project, to explore and develop the whole environment not just one single device.
What do you think? I am excited to see these developments and it gives me a much clearer idea as to how the whole classroom may function.
Before Christmas I was lucky enough to visit the Technology-Enhanced Learning team at Durham University and learn more about their extended research into multi-touch desks and building a classroom environment that made the most of this technology.
Yesterday I returned for my second visit and caught up with their developments and also discussed my own recent experiences of using the SMART Table in my classroom.
Since I was last with them they have made some very important steps forward, including:
Installed a 10 camera/mic ceiling rig in their main laboratory to record and document students working on the multi-touch desks. (They are building their own video review software to best review, tag and explore the resulting evidence)
Conducted early primary pupil investigations, with the children completing some simple group tasks on the tables. As I said to the team in my first visit, once children are using the devices all of the bugs and glitches will be pointed out!
Finalised the build of the table hardware, unfortunately they have had trouble with the first prototype and it was on its way back to Germany so I didn’t get a chance to see it.
Completed the second build of their multi-touch software.
The most significant step for me, really illustrates the direction this project is heading – they are not just developing stand alone devices but how the environment can work together. It is about how children can work together and communicate and how the multi-touch technology can facilitate this. In this film you will see what I mean!
We talked about the potential of a mobile device for the teacher in the multi-touch classroom – perhaps adding comments and content to the children’s table on the fly. In a similar way to the iPhone contacts application Bump. Another crucial discussion was about the importance of building a framework of activity creation so that teachers would be able to quickly build appropriate tasks and make the most of this sort of environment.
I am always excited to see the work this very talented team are up to and once again I wasn’t disappointed. They have invited me to write an academic paper with them about my experiences of creating learning content for multi-touch and also to attend a steering group meeting in November. The next update about the work Durham are doing may be before then as I am hoping to get hold of their software and help them develop it over the coming months.
Since mid-April I have been working with a SMART Table in my classroom and as the term winds down I wanted to post some of my reflections about the experience so far and my conclusions to date.
I am writing this prior to any updates for firmware or for the Table Toolkit software, I am sure hope some of the issues I raise will be addressed.
At the moment the SMART Table is not worth the money you would invest in it. It is currently priced at US$7,999 which works out to be just short of £5000 here in England. Due to that high price tag it is an investment, but it falls well short of delivering value for money at the moment. There is an awful lot you could do with £5000 that would make a far greater impact on learning in schools.
In my opinion there are three things that contribute to this:poor content; poor creation software and a straight jacketed approach to multi-touch functionality.
The first two go hand in hand and I will deal with them together. To make content to use on the SMART Table a teacher would need to use the SMART Table Toolkit, but in it’s current version it is clunky and very, very time consuming.
One example is for an application called Hot Places, in which the children drag labels to different designated places on the screen. I have to make a custom background in a 3rd party app, then each of the labels has to be generated individually – it took me 40 minutes to make one screen, with about 24 labels to work with. But we are not dealing with one child here interacting with those 24 questions, we have to remember to divide our task by the total number of users at the table. In this instance 4. So children would interact with on average 6 labels – working together they got this done in under 4 minutes!
The payoff for a teacher creating SMART Table resources is woeful at the moment – and when I say payoff I mean the balance between our own precious preparation time and the time the children are engaged with the learning.
But what quality of learning is there? I am sure that it will be defended on the grounds it is aimed at younger age groups, but there is still a need for deep learning at those age levels. The current set of applications are aimed at simple right/wrong matching style activities – only one lends itself to the deep understanding or application of skills and knowledge children need. So the content is poor and this is confounded by the poor software there is to create it. Add into the mix how long it takes a teacher to make it and it does not paint a rosy picture.
Those unfamiliar with my background with multi-touch technology in the classroom, may assume I am giving it a good knock here – but I believe in the medium, it definitely has something to offer the way children interact with media and digital resources, essentially the way they learn. This pilot is helping me and hopefully others understand more fully how that can be realised.
The third reason I mention is that the SMART Table seems a very straight jacketed environment, at odds even with the multi-touch way of working. The children intuitively engaged with the content available but there is no range of gestures across all of the applications. The process of opening one application and going through the steps to complete it closes off the environment in my opinion.
For years now I have watched creative people express themselves through multi-touch displays and applications that harness the open, fluid nature of the medium. The SMART Table misses a trick here, it seems to be boxing well below it’s weight – I referred to it recently as a Ferrari in a car park, unable to get out of first gear and really flex its multi-touch muscle. There seems to be too much residual SMART Notebook thinking and not enough innovative software design. Maybe the product has preceded the necessary thinking behind it all. This ties in with the fact that Durham University have a 4 year research project about this exact train of thought, what is multi-touch pedagogy going to look like?
The one shining ray of light that emerges from amidst this all is the Media application. I have posted videos of some of my children working with this program in the past. It remains the only application that offers teachers and children an open environment to learn, and couples it with a unique interface with media. When you use this application you actually feel like you are using something innovative, multi-touch, gestural driven. As a teacher there is the capacity to use rich content of your choice (video) and then layer on top questions that engage the children in a much deeper way.
You can currently upload 20 media objects, pictures or video and the user then manipulates them in a light box style application. I hope that the potential is recognised here and more is made of this in the future. A media app of this sort is not new, we were using it on the Philips Entertaible a few years ago – but the open activity stands out clearly from the others.
It is early days and there is still much to learn about this type of medium in the classroom – I hope that the device I signed for in April will not be the same as the one I give back later this year. In the sense that it has evolved in light of current practice and the content/software has along with it.
Content is king, after all it is what you do with these tools that counts the most – learning needs to be put back squarely in the centre of the table.
Three more pieces of video footage to help illustrate to you the ways we have been using the SMART Table in my classroom. In this post I also explore some of the topics arising from what is displayed.
This is a simple little activity I created based upon our Street Child, Victorians unit. I used SMART Notebook and the line tool to lay a square grid over an image. I then copied parts using Notebook screen capture and the guidelines to help. I then pasted these into the Media application. Simple jigsaw. Unfortunately the default setting in the Media application is to have magnification or zoom and ideally for the jigsaw idea I wanted none. This is not currently possible, however I set it to the lowest I could.
It was amazing to watch this pair of children take such care over the placement and size/rotation of each part. They showed great skill and engagement with the activity, all the more interesting as there were no instructions nor have they had any sort of training in manipulating the images.
In this video a small group of children are using the Hot Spots application to identify the names of different musical instruments. The application allows the user to move word labels (you see in the first part for the video) and also pictures. Once one set of hot spots have been completed it moves onto the next set if available – once finished it returns to the main screen.
In my experience four children is the maximum for junior children to work together. Ideally it would be less because you have to divide the space, the screen real estate and the number of questions by your users. Too many people around it and engagement dwindles.
These are simple activities but they take a long time to create – unfortunately the time the learners are engaged is reduced because of the multi user scenario. Four children working on a task takes less time to complete then just one child. The payoff for the teacher in this example is small. I have to generate lots of activities and examples to engage all of the learners for a significant amount of time. Currently the SMART Table Toolkit does not allow me to quickly create high quality content in Hot Spots.
Perhaps this is another unforeseen situation arising from multi user learning activities, that it is not sufficient to generate the same amount of content for a single user and then just expect it to be divided up by the children at the table. Content creation needs to be streamlined so that you can quickly make a large range, with depth, that will engage each learner adequately.
I like how this application encourages children to work together. Even though the maths is simple, they have to rely on each other to be successful.
Interestingly what tends to happen is one person from the group takes the lead and directs others. Not something they are told to do, but some just take charge and solve the question quickly and instruct others what to do.
Such a group dynamic makes users passive or active, so it is possible that children don’t engage with the maths directly but engage with the person who tells them what to do. I have seen this application being used by lots of groups of different children from my class (ages 9 or 10) and a leader always emerges. In those instances when the group does not have a leader then two scenarios tend to play out:
Children look at the problem, solve it themselves and each take the lead to solve it, this conflict then leads to confusion with the input of the answer. Individuals place their fingers on the table at the same time and then without really saying much expect others to adapt to what they have inputted.
The group talk about the solution and then between them they each contribute something towards the answer. I believe that this scenario is clearly the best to engage all learners and comes with experience from using the application. Those who have used the activity before tend to add one or two fingers when the answer may well be small enough to answer on their own – thus drawing in other members of the group to complete the solution.
Over the rest of this term I will be exploring in more depth how the group dynamics of learners are effected by working with this multi touch, multi user interface. It appears to be a fairly unique area as there has not been much experience of such technologies in the classroom.
We have been using the table for about four weeks now and I think this post touches on some really important aspects that have become clear:
Group dynamics when using the table need to be carefully considered, not just as the activity takes place but when generating content as well. Are all the learners engaged?
There seems to be no learning curve to some applications of multi touch. There is a powerful intuitive element that allows children to engage with the learning without any barriers. The technology has transparency.
The novelty wears off quickly. It is what you do with the medium that counts. Content generation will be a crucial aspect over the next year or so. A catalyst to the maturity and sustainability of multi touch devices in the classroom will be how quickly teachers can make high quality content.
Ignore the shapes on the background which I mistakenly added – this Addition Application activity is about answering the addition and subtraction sums appearing in the centre. Children need to add the correct number of fingers onto the table to answer the question.
Watching my Year 5s using it I was surprised at how engaged they were, it is after all simple addition or subtraction. The unique nature of the “finger count” setting is it causes the children to rely on their peers to help them answer the question. If we don’t work together we don’t progress. The collaboration from even just 2 or 3 kids was great to watch.
This application is not new, I have seen and used it before on the Philips Entertaible. Which allowed any object placed on the surface to count as “1”. This was a good feature of that device as it allowed more flexibility to support early counting strategies etc. Not so with the SMART Table which needs a firm finger press.
The size of integers and answers increase as the number of learners set to use it does. (this is done in the admin screen) More finger presses are needed and higher numbers correspondng to the maximum of that group.
Another setting for the Addition application is to show answers using currency – which for British currency is frankly woeful, no colour, incorrect sizes of coins. Canadian and US seems to be in colour not surprising really. Counters or counting blocks can also be used and I will look into this next week.
I was most pleased with the level of engagement from the children and although on the surface this seems to be a simple application, it definitely requires a level of teamwork that you often do not get.
It is intriguing watching the children’s first attempts and how they realise they need to work together. As the challenge is small scale, once they have been successful they begin to refine their approach, communicate better and so get to later answers quicker.