EXP: Hands-on Haptics Laboratories for Classroom and Online Learning

网络学习和未来学习技术计划资助的工作将有助于设想下一代学习技术，并推进我们对人们如何在技术丰富的环境中学习的了解。网络学习探索（EXP）项目通过设计和构建新型学习技术并研究其促进学习的可能性和有效使用它们的挑战来探索新型学习技术的可行性。该项目的技术创新是一个触觉（力反馈）工具包，用于学习涉及力的科学和工程内容。该团队正在开发的工具包将允许学习者（K-12及以上）通过触摸感应设备操纵模拟和模型，并直接感受到产生的力。学习和使用力的科学是相当复杂的，因为力实际结合和产生影响的方式并不总是与人们的经验一致。然而，对于工程、康复医学和建筑等各种各样的追求，以及理解生物、化学、物理和工程领域的概念和现象，理解力是必不可少的。提议的工具包将允许在微观层面上与力量直接接触，这有可能促进对整个领域的更好的科学理解。在这种技术创新的背景下，研究的重点是在何种程度上以及在何种条件下，这种对现象的具体体验能促进更深入的理解。具身经验在学习中的作用既是学习如何更好地促进学习的一个重要问题，也是学习技术的一种新兴可能性。在这个项目中，pi研究了触觉技术扩展和改变学生学习的潜力。正在开发的触觉界面是一种机电一体化设备，用户通过触觉体验的力-位移关系。该项目旨在展示编程和使用触觉设备作为实验室体验的一部分可以影响学习的方式。PI是一位精通材料和器件的机械工程师。co-PI是一位学习科学家，与创客运动密切合作，帮助学习者从模拟和建模经验中学习。通过一种迭代的、基于设计的研究方法，新的触觉设备和伴随的视觉编程软件正在被创建，以实现生物、化学和物理的交互式动手虚拟实验室，并且正在进行实验，以了解如何很好地使用这些设备来促进学习，以及触觉在学习力相关概念中的启示及其在建模和仿真学习背景下的附加价值。

The Cyberlearning and Future Learning Technologies Program funds efforts that will help envision the next generation of learning technologies and advance what we know about how people learn in technology-rich environments. Cyberlearning Exploration (EXP) Projects explore the viability of new kinds of learning technologies by designing and building new kinds of learning technologies and studying their possibilities for fostering learning and challenges to using them effectively. This project's technology innovation is a haptic (force-feedback) toolkit to be used in learning science and engineering content that involves forces. The toolkit the team is developing will allow learners (K-12 and beyond) to manipulate simulations and models through touch-sensitive devices and to directly feel resulting forces. Learning and using the science of forces is quite complex, as the ways forces actually combine and have effects are not always consistent with what people experience. Understanding forces, however, is essential for pursuits as varied as engineering, rehabilitative medicine, and construction and for understanding concepts and phenomena in biology, chemistry, physics, and engineering fields. The kind of direct engagement with forces at the micro-level that the proposed toolkit will allow has potential to foster better scientific understanding across this whole set of fields. Research in the context of this technological innovation focuses on the extent to which and the conditions under which such embodied experience with phenomena fosters deeper understanding. The role of embodied experiences in learning is both an important issue in learning how to better foster learning and a newly-emerging possibility for learning technologies. In this project, the PIs examine the potential for haptic technology to expand and transform student learning. The haptic interface being developed is a mechatronic device programmed with force-displacement relationships that a user experiences through the sense of touch. The project aims to demonstrate the ways the programming and use of haptic devices as a part of lab experiences can impact learning. The PI is a mechanical engineer who is expert in materials and devices. The co-PI is a learning scientist engaged closely with the maker movement and with helping learners learn from simulation and modeling experiences. Through an iterative, design-based research approach, new haptic devices and accompanying visual programming software are being created to enable interactive hands-on virtual laboratories for biology, chemistry, and physics, and experiments are being carried out to understand both how to use such devices well to foster learning and the affordances of haptics in learning force-related concepts and its added value in the context of learning through modeling and simulation.