Students colloborate in hands on learning the Micole way.
Photo: © Micole project.
European researchers have made it easy for
software developers to build educational tools that let pupils collaborate
to see, hear – and now also feel – what is on the computer screen.
When you think of the solar system you probably
picture a textbook diagram: nine planets, different sizes and colours,
all circling the bright yellow sun. But how can a visually impaired child
take in this information? How can they grasp how the solar system works?
European researchers have developed a computer
program that lets sighted and visually impaired pupils explore space together.
Using a special device similar to a robotic arm, a visually impaired child
can move around the solar system and hear about the planets.
Sighted children can guide their visually
impaired partners. As they move the mouse, the pressure and resistance
in the robot arm gently nudges the visually impaired user in the right
direction.
Students colloborate in hands on learning the Micole way.
The space explorer is just one of many applications
developed by the EU-funded MICOLE project which is bringing multi-modal
interfaces into the classroom.
The software is one of the first releases
of multi-modal educational computer programs. It allows sighted children
and the visually impaired to collaborate, helping to remove some of the
barriers that the latter group faces every day in mainstream education.
Multi-modal computing is on the rise. Soon
a third sense could be added to the sight and sound that computers currently
use as their mode of output. Haptic devices, such as the robot arm, enable
users to control computers as if they were using a mouse. Such devices
also provide output – of movement, pressures or even raised bumps to deliver
information to the user via the sense of touch.
This output is exploited in another MICOLE
application. Current software drawing software allows pupils to create
pictures, but the lines are in relief.
Using the haptic device, they can actually
feel the picture. As they move a virtual stylus over the picture on the
screen the pupils can sense the raised lines through the device communicated
to their fingertips.
Collaborative design
"These applications have been very welcomed
in our test classrooms," says project coordinator Roope Raisamo. "It
has been wonderful to see visually impaired and sighted children really
working together and sharing the same experiences and opportunities.
Our aim was to allow blind people to create,
manipulate and share information using hearing and touch to replace use
of vision, and to work with other blind and sighted people. We want to
see visually impaired people take a full role in society and work at an
equal level with sighted people." |
Before MICOLE, very little was known about
how multi-modality could be used when blind people work alongside those
with full sight. But through its user-centred approach – lots of observation,
focus groups, consultation and field-testing – the MICOLE partners have
greatly added to our understanding about such collaborative work.
"Adding the sense of touch to information
and communication technology is just getting to the point where it can
be commercialised," Raisamo continues. "The first people to benefit
are people with disabilities, especially people who are blind or have visual
impairment. The more senses you can use, the more multi-modal your computer
interface, the more inclusive the technology can be."
Much of the knowledge that the team has built
up during the project's three years have been incorporated into guidelines
for software developers on how to develop successful applications for collaborative
learning.
Raisamo believes the project has increased
the potential for successful commercialisation of multi-modal software
in all fields.
A feeling for the future
MICOLE’s researchers have done far more than
publish theoretical documents and produce a few prototype applications.
Their main output comes in the form of the ‘MICOLE architecture’ and an
accompanying software development toolkit. The architecture is like a high
level programming language. It provides the virtual environment – all the
processes and mechanisms for software applications to function in a multi-modal
fashion.
It is designed so that software developers
can quickly build new multi-modal applications for the visually impaired
and can be used for applications in widespread disciplines including medicine,
education or ‘edutainment’.
"We've made it an open source architecture
to encourage more people to access it, spread it, and adapt it for their
own requirements without worrying about licenses or intellectual property,"
says Raisamo.
So far 14 organisations from outside the project
have downloaded the architecture and toolkit files in the first six months
since these were made available for download on the project's website.
"This is encouraging," Raisamo says.
"We know that several groups are working on new applications and we
hope that the market will take off soon."
Reachin Technology, a key MICOLE partner and
a distributor of the haptic robot device, could be one of the first to
sell multi-modal software based on MICOLE’s research.
Fully functional
Multi-modal interfaces can support people
with many disabilities because if one of the modalities is missing, the
system remains usable.
"If multi-modal applications are used widely
and match the needs of different users, they could narrow the gap between
sighted and impaired children," says Raisamo.
MICOLE, which received funding from the EU's
Sixth Framework Programme for research, ended in August 2007. However,
the partners involved continue to push research and development in the
field.
Raisamo's team is currently working with local
schools to develop new applications based on the architecture – one that
explores physical phenomena, another the natural sciences. |
