nsquared Educational Apps Demo

re: nsquared educational apps demo on Microsoft Surface

Quikboy — Sat, 17 Jan 2009 10:44:44 GMT

I think Letters is too simple. How does a child know if he or she has made a word, by just pushing letters to each other?

Instead, when a child makes a real word, a little picture should show up, representing the word. Like if a child puts the letters c-a-t together, a picture of a cat should pop up. The child might have an easier time acknowledging words this way. Perhaps there could also be a little sound button, to hear the correct pronunciation of the word. As the child plays around some more, and creates more words, he/she might actually learn more.

The science examples are pretty neat. I have tons of ideas and concepts floating in my head about other applications and interactions that could happen on Surface. I just wish the screen was more larger, and there was a way to make the unit smaller.

re: nsquared educational apps demo on Microsoft Surface

peterguthrie — Sat, 17 Jan 2009 21:36:02 GMT

I think that there are some truly astounding opportunities presented by Surface technology in education and it is the one stand out technology at the present time that I can honestly say can revolutionise teaching and learning for our students.

It would be fantastic to have some opportunities to work with see, and understand surface in action in the classroom. I have put this firmly at the top of our list in my school for the 'must have' technology over the next few years. Sadly, the pricing kind of puts schools out of the market at the moment - some incentives for early adopters capable of developing the software and working with ideas to create some truly innovative examples of practice using surface would be nice.

Like the previous writer, there are literally thousands of ideas banging around in my head to get out (again, no way to get the SDK and find out what we can develop for the platform), though I would like to see smaller screens that can be integrated into desks - while this is primarily a collaborative tool right now, it would be nice to see a form factor built into the school desk directly to replace the traditional one. It would also largely negate the need for a traditional IT suite to reduce a schools cost base. Then all we need to do is come up with an HCI that isn't as clunky as a keyboard and is quieter than voice!

re: nsquared educational apps demo on Microsoft Surface

Eric Havir — Wed, 21 Jan 2009 02:31:09 GMT

These are great comments. I’ve addressed a number of these in a follow-up post. I would like to address one of these here. Form factor and price will evolve over time. We are very committed to what Microsoft Surface represents in its current design. The size of the device is very intentional as to provide for a social platform allowing multiple users to interact together. To make the Microsoft Surface screen much larger separates the social space that has been created. We believe that social space is a very important development in the progression of technology.

re: nsquared educational apps demo on Microsoft Surface

Dr. Neil @ nsquared — Wed, 21 Jan 2009 23:18:51 GMT

Thank you for the great comments and I love the ideas of adding features to the letters application.

One of the points being made here though is that simplicity can be really important. Creating an environment for free form creativity is an important aspect of learning. It is not always critical to have a directed goal or validation of correctness. Sometimes there is no _correct_ answer.

Engineers, geeks, techies tend to want to have more features in software. Sometimes less is more :)

Surface in Education

lynnmarentette — Sun, 25 Jan 2009 21:07:04 GMT

There is a long history of research that supports cooperative learning in the classroom. Many cooperative learning activities take place around a table, so "Surface" table built to accommodate about 5 or so students wouldn't a stretch.

The fact that the Surface is a computer is a plus, since it has the capacity to track and analyse data regarding student interaction and progress over time.

Imagine what could be done with cooperative educational games on the Surface!

It is good to see that Microsoft is now recognizing the importance of this type of technology in education.

Correction-

lynnmarentette — Sun, 25 Jan 2009 21:09:06 GMT

I meant to type:

"There is a long history of research that supports cooperative learning in the classroom. Many cooperative learning activities take place around a table, so a "Surface" table built to accomodate 5 or so students wouldn't be too much of a stretch."