Geeknology

I was looking at my feedburner stats today and I saw a blog at beamlog.blogspot.com referring to me (Thank you Beamlog!). While it is in another language, it's plain to see what gets that blog owner excited... I enjoyed these youtube videos about a MultiMouse concept created by Microsoft Labs. I like human computer interaction topics, but I especially like seeing them applied to education.

I think the real tough part with a brand new interaction method is that some of the old teaching methods may go out the window. To truly see the value of a mouse at each desk, new concepts in teaching are probably necessary - I'd hope enablement from a new tech is an exciting challenge for a teacher. Some obvious value - a computer (especially when it's a rarity, 1 per 100 students) would certainly bring excitement to learning. I'd love to see concepts created that really make the mouse's (mice?) as useful as #2 pencils.

I had an instant gripe with this though, some of this video looks like they've unnecessarily replaced the simple task of walking up to the chalkboard in an expensive (and electricity using) way. I hope they're packing advil in their lunchbox as some of the apps looks like superstimuli, I can feel my old Unreal Tournament headache coming on now.

Unfunny jokes aside, my kudos to the developers for creating and staying on such a path.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i8Jt2HBDJE0