MTClassroom: Multi-Surface classroom

The MTClassroom is a novel, enriched multi-interactive tabletop classroom environment that captures aspects of students’ activity as they work in small groups. The MTClassroom is composed by a number of interconnected multi-touch interactive tabletops (4 or 5 were used in our studies).

Picture1Each tabletop consists of a 26 inch PQlabs multi-touch layer placed over a high-definition display of the same size. Each tabletop is enriched with CollAid, an over-head depth sensor that detects the student who is touching the interactive surface at any time. In this way, the host applications running at the tabletops recognise and log differentiated actions performed by each student.Picture7From a data capture perspective, the system automatically differentiates students’ actions at the tabletop according to their seating position. This data is crucial to capture multiple simultaneous inputs and therefore the collaborative physical contributions. The logging system of each tabletop records all actions to a central repository that can be accessed in real time to generate indicators of group activity to be presented to the teacher. Additionally, observation consoles can be directly connected to the repository to capture synchronised qualitative data. In our study, two different observers submitted standardised annotations of the teacher’s attention and interventions. More details about these are described in the next sections.

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From the teacher’s perspective, MTClassroom offers functionalities for orchestrating the tabletops through a controller dashboard that allows teachers to send commands to the host applications to trigger actions such as blocking the touch input or moving to the next learning phase. Additionally, the system incorporates a connected wall projector that the teacher can use to display the artefact being created at a determined tabletop to lead reflection at classroom level.

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Related publications:

R. Martinez-Maldonado, J. Kay, K. Yacef, M. Edbauer and Y. Dimitriadis. MTClassroom and MTDashboard: Supporting Analysis of Teacher Attention in an Orchestrated Multi-tabletop Classroom In International Conference on Computer-Supported Collaborative Learning, CSCL 2013, pages 320-327, 2013 (Nominated to Best Student Paper Award).

R. Martinez-Maldonado, K. Yacef and J. Kay. Data Mining in the Classroom: Discovering Groups’ Strategies at a Multi-tabletop Environment In International Conference on Educational Data mining, EDM 2013, pages 121-128, 2013.

R. Martinez-Maldonado, J. Kay, K. Yacef, M. Edbauer and Y. Dimitriadis. Orchestrating a Multi-tabletop Classroom: from design to enactment and reflection. In ACM International Conference on Interactive Tabletops and Surfaces, ITS 2012, pages 119-128, 2012.

A. Kharrufa, R. Martinez-Maldonado, J. Kay and P. Olivier. Extending tabletop application design to the classroom. In ACM International Conference on Interactive Tabletops and Surfaces, ITS 2013, pages 115-124, 2013.

R. Martinez-Maldonado, Y. Dimitriadis, A. Clayphan, J. A. Muñoz-Cristóbal, J. Kay, L. P. Prieto, and M. J. Rodríguez-Triana. Integrating orchestration of ubiquitous and pervasive learning environments. In Australian Computer-Human Interaction Conference, OZCHI 2013, pages 189-192, 2013.

 

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