[Edu-sig] Interactive learning: Twenty years later

[Jason Cunliffe]

> Another is the rise of the mouse as a computer device.
> People had the peculiar idea that one could deal with the world of
learning
> purely by pointing.

hmm.. I don't think the idea of mice was that could 'do everything by
pointing'..

Begs the question how well do most people deal with the world without
looking?

Hand-eye-mind coordination is an essential part of who we are as human
beings. Mice are arguably a primitive first step towards that in a digital
domain.

The real problem as I see it is that there is crucial triangular disconnect
when using keyboards and mice:

triangle = hand eye screen

and I'll argue that disconnect its really tetral in nature :

tetra = mind hand eye screen

The main assumption of keyboard use is that you are a good typist, accurate
and can keep ones eyes [+ mind] on the screen [subject]. [QWERTY mapping is
an assumed subskill or worse if you come from Asia]. Perhaps cultures with
strong calligraphic [gestural symbolic] backgrounds like China and Japan
feel very differently about mice and their progeny.

If you are a lousy typist like me, then something has to give, spelling,
concentration, expression etc.. or even typing into the wrong focus window
on occasion. But  I have good spatial hand-eye coordination so mice come
pretty easy. I know some poets who are hopeless with a mouse. Drawing with a
mouse or even a tablet is another matter.

Though as anyone who learns to play an instrument knows - eventually one is
neither looking nor aware of doing so. Computers are instruments whose most
'expressive' interface is perhaps still the keyboard. Mice are so primitive
in design and use still.

But even small innovations make huge difference. For example, I consider
dual buttons with a scroll-wheel essential to me now, at least because they
use most of my hand.
[middle three fingers for commands, outer two fingers + wrist for position]

When we have widespread tabletPCs, as I believe we will within 10 years,
then a fundamentally more direct and natural relationship can be invoked and
designed for.  SciFi and Hollywood are already understandably  very fond of
the virtual gestural interface. The point being that you look at what you
are doing, with your hands in the right place, at the right time - and
supported perhaps by speech or even more direct eye movement 'gestural'
sensors. Aircraft and military designers are pioneering some of this.

As long as one is dealing is symbol and abstraction, there is always a
cognitive distance -- for better and for worse. That's the whole idea -
graphics, writing, math, etc. In that sense it's same difference [for
different people] whether they use mice or keyboards, or scratch marks in
the cosmic sand with string and seashells.

Jason