surface computing and what this might mean for learning

Image taken from: http://blog.scifi.com/tech/Pics/Ripple.jpg

Microsoft recently released information on one of its latest products, "Microsoft Surface". This is basically a tabletop surface which is sensitive to human touch and contact from other objects whilst also being a multimedia projector. If you're wondering what makes it different from a regular touch-screen, like I was initially, then you'll be pleased to know that there's a very significant change which I believe opens the door to a number of interesting possibilities. It's also capable of multi-touch (here's a report with vids in which you can hear the technicians talk about it too):
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/business/317737_msftdevice30.html



You're probably just as mystified as I was when I first saw it and a bit overwhelmed by just how much there is to think about. I'm not sure if you've seen the scene in the film Minority Report which sparked a lot of thought. I found a version of it on youtube which is dubbed in spanish (I have no idea if it's actually obscenities since I don't speak spanish). Anyway, the first time I saw Minority Report it got me thinking about how we work with knowledge and what might change in times coming. In this scene rather than interacting with the interface through a keyboard, Tom Cruise wears gloves which allow him to drag images and videos around. I'm sure many have said this before I did but back then I told my friends that if I had to guess what's going to happen then I would say that in the future we will need to move more and more knowledge around so that it won't make sense to only be able to move sentences and paragraphs, we will also need to move whole ideas around.


Maybe we're closer to that than I thought and it's arrived sooner than I thought it would. So where to begin in thinking about this. Well, in the context of learning there is clearly a shift here to incorporate interaction, literally 'around the table'. Everything we knew about co-operative and collaborative learning now takes a new turn in its intersection with technology. Imagine for example what a classroom might look like if groups of students worked around a learning surface and their individual cards provided access to their digital portfolios in which they have all their work.


I'm under pressure right now to get back to what I was doing so I can't expand on this much but I'm thinking that there's also something to be said about using more of our bodies in learning and interacting with each other. There's a lot of work to be done on 'touch' here. Even the Microsoft promo site under the first link titled 'The Magic' has a subtitled which says 'Gestures and touches, stretches and spins'. There's something much more playful about that than previous interfaces.