CAREER: Tangible Interfaces for Collaborative Learning Environments

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This is the first year of funding of a 4 year continuing award. The PI will explore new ways that technology can enhance education without becoming the focus of the educational experience. The central goal is to help teachers get students interested in or even excited about careers in math and science. To this end, the PI will develop strategies and software that support the development of tangible interfaces for collaborative learning environments. Such interfaces enable the computer to "watch" as children work together on puzzles and other educational tasks in a physical environment, and to then act as a "guide on the side" that encourages and prods much as a teacher would. The PI will build on her earlier effort that produced a prototype Tangram puzzle which uses computer vision techniques to track the puzzle pieces and offers encouragement and guidance as is appropriate. Issues to be addressed in the current project include tracking multiple objects simultaneously using low cost technologies, and expressing 3D topological relations uniquely. Evaluation of this prototype and its extensions, conducted at the Goudreau Museum of Mathematics in Art and Science, will guide the evolution of the ideas and software, in this effort, which will ultimately create tools that enable instructors to develop their own tangible interfaces for collaborative learning environments. This software will be made publicly available via the world wide web.