Tuesday, August 9, 2011

Collaborative haptic-integrated instruction

As explored in earlier posts, for any number of reasons, HICP work has been restricted to engaging but culturally "tasteful" touching of one's own hands, deltoids (or clavicle) and quadriceps. The "collaborative music controller" developed at Stanford, would, in principle, function like the "haptic mirror neurons" in the brain, guiding and synchronizing the hand of the other.

Clip art: Clker
Imagine the possibilities: being able to quickly train learners in the correct pedagogical movement patterns (virtually) without touching them. As it is now, if a learner is having difficulty picking up a pattern, given the right setting and relationship with that learner, I might occasionally physically guide a hand or arm momentarily--but do not recommend that as a regular classroom practice. If necessary, brandishing a pointless, "guiding" pencil will usually be sufficient.

Were EHIEP  to be imported into a virtual reality system, much of the basic training could probably be done using similar haptic-mirroring technology. By that point it would also be far easier to persuade the "haptically challenged" to "mirror-ly" get with it as well . . .

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