Projectors with Built-in IWBs

Tech directors were talking early this week about an article in eSchool News concerning Epson’s new line of projectors that serve double duty as interactive whiteboards (IWBs). Another company called Boxlight has a similar projector called the ProjectoWrite2/W.

This is potentially disruptive technology if it catches on, because it eliminates a major component of IWBs, namely the board itself. The new projectors run a couple thousand dollars, or about half what a low-end IWB costs. With downward pricing pressures on technology the way they are, it’s possible prices could sink lower, perhaps pressuring IWB prices down across the board.

One of the big benefits to going with an established IWB company is the included interactive software. Some of the educational games included with the SMART products are outstanding. There is also an established base of acceptance with existing products and add-ons that may hinder even a far less expensive product from catching on. The article indicates the Epson BrightLink 450Wi will come bundled with RM Education’s Easiteach interactive lesson software, which seems to be a good start if Epson intends to become a major player in this market.

While a boardless IWB seems to be a new market ripe for harvesting, there has long been a hunger for inexpensive IWBs. Johnny Chung Lee wowed the ed tech world a while back by adapting the Wii-mote and an infrared pen to make an IWB for under $100.

Update:
I watched a presentation on the new projectors at the Epson booth this week at TCEA 2010. One neat thing: they have “short throw” models, which can be mounted on the wall, and project sharply downward. The presenter showed how she had to stand literally touching the wall before she cast a shadow. This is a superb improvement over typical IWBs where the projector hangs down from the ceiling 10 feet or so from the board.

The presenter also stressed any wall can be used, and talked about a school that had windows all along their desired IWB wall. The school simply mounted heavy flat poster board over the windows, and voila: instant IWB space. I think Epson has a winner here.

References:
Stansbury, M. (2010, January 13). New projectors make any wall an interactive whiteboard. eSchool News. [Online.] Available: http://www.eschoolnews.com/2010/01/13/new-projector-makes-any-wall-an-interactive-whiteboard/

Study: Wiimote Good for Measuring Cognition

The Wii, with its connection from real life physical actions to virtual world videogame actions, continues to fascinate, and has opened up a slew of research possibilities. This week saw another intriguing research study using the Wii, more specifically the Wiimote, from Dr. Rick Dale at U. Memphis along with Jennifer Roche, Kristy Snyder, and Ryan McCall.

Dale and colleagues hooked up a Wiimote to a computer, and used it to measure physical motions taking place during learning tasks. The study showed that as subjects grew more proficient in their learning tasks, their body movements change, becoming more confident and pronounced.

It makes sense that body movement gets better with learning tasks that require fine motor control: a golf swing, for instance. However, this research opens up the possibilities in measuring body movement for other cognitive tasks. It may point to the day when a computer program can measure feedback from its users to gauge how well objectives are being learned.

The Wiimote is a cheap alternative to more expensive three dimensional input devices. Most famously, Johnny Chung Lee showed us how to create a cheap interactive whiteboard using the Wiimote. With this new study, Dale and colleagues have shown how the Wiimote might be used to inexpensively measure body motions. Below is the abstract for their paper.

Much evidence exists supporting a richer interaction between cognition and action than commonly assumed. Such findings demonstrate that short-timescale processes, such as motor execution, may relate in systematic ways to longer-timescale cognitive processes, such as learning. We further substantiate one direction of this interaction: the flow of cognition into action systems. Two experiments explored match-to-sample paired-associate learning, in which participants learned randomized pairs of unfamiliar symbols. During the experiments, their hand movements were continuously tracked using the Nintendo Wiimote. Across learning, participant arm movements are initiated and completed more quickly, exhibit lower fluctuation, and exert more perturbation on the Wiimote during the button press. A second experiment demonstrated that action dynamics index novel learning scenarios, and not simply acclimatization to the Wiimote interface. Results support a graded and systematic covariation between cognition and action, and recommend ways in which this theoretical perspective may contribute to applied learning contexts.

References:
Dale R., Roche J., Snyder K., McCall R. (2008) Exploring action dynamics as an index of paired-associate learning. PLoS ONE 3(3): e1728. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0001728. [Online.] Available: http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%
2Fjournal.pone.0001728

Using the Wiimote as a Cheap Smart Board

Uber-blogger Will Richards notes that Johnny Chung Lee has devised a nifty hack to take an ordinary Wiimote and turn it into a Smart Board replication device, all for about a hundred bucks.

Although the links to Lee’s pages over at Carnegie Mellon were not working last I looked, the YouTube video where he shows how to do the trick is still up and working on Richards’ site. Some of Richards’ commenters discuss other ways to leverage inexpensive laser technology this way.

In the video, Lee connects the Wiimote to the computer that is being projected, then uses a laser pen to create an instant interactive white board. Besides walls, he demonstrates on a table and a common LCD screen.

Richards attests that educators watching the video get very excited about the possibilities for creating cheap interactive whiteboards on the fly. We’ve seen this appropriation of common videogame hardware for ulterior purposes before, mainly with the military using Xbox controllers to guide robots. These days, gaming hardware is off the shelf compatible with regular computers and software, using standards like USB, and can be repurposed for other things. It will be nice to see more educational uses in the future.