Saturday, February 21, 2015

How Stanford is incorporating touch for online learning - Ron Bethke, eCampus News

A new MOOC on haptics, the science of touch, brings a hands-on element to the world of online learning thanks to a device called the Hapkit. Perhaps the largest criticism leveled at online learning is that it can be difficult for students to shake hands with, talk to, and form relationships with their peers or instructors in the way that on-campus students can. It’s also difficult for online students to participate in hands-on experiments or exercises considered critical for skill-building. In defiance of these drawbacks to online learning, Stanford University Professor Allison Okamura has created a new MOOC that teaches students about haptics, or the science of touch, and gives them hands-on experience in the field by showing how to build a programmable device as a platform for haptics experiments: the Hapkit. http://www.ecampusnews.com/technologies/hapkit-touch-online-323/