Visiting Microsoft!

Last Friday (12-10-2010) we went to Microsoft in Brussels with 18 educational science students from the University of Twente. The intention was to follow a master class in which we would discover and experience Microsoft’s ‘newest’ technologies and brainstorm about how these new technologies could be used in education.  Petra Fisser also joined and blogged about it during the trip, so you can read a ‘live story’ on her blog! (in Dutch).

We gathered at 5 ‘o’ clock in the morning to drive to Brussels! Very early and still traffic jams, but with some candy, nice music and funny Belgium road signs we made it to Brussels in about 4.5 hours. Unfortunately we got lost In Brussels and needed another hour to find our way to Microsoft. Cheer for the nice road workers who drove us to the right place :)

At Microsoft, we started with a presentation about some new software (
e.g. Photosynth, Bing and software to manage cloud computing. The presentation was made in PowerPoint with the pptPlex add on tool (it works like Prezi). After that we started a tour to discover the newest technologies of Microsoft! The part I really looked forward to. Unfortunately the technologies were not as new as I expected, but maybe my expectations were a bit too unrealistic or too high. It does not mean I didn’t have fun! I like gadgets and stuff like that, so I enjoyed it anyhow! We ended with a workshop in which we thought about educational ideas combined with the technologies we saw during the tour.

The tour

Playing games on the surface table!

I will discuss a few of the technologies we came across with during the tour. We started with the surface table. This is a big touch screen table which allows multi touch (up to 58 different touch-points) and is even able to recognize chips (for example if you lay an ID card on top of the screen). This is a way to log on to a personal account, but in a more natural, user-friendly way. Of course there were also games! The table focuses on collaboration on the same device, which often is harder on a normal pc (more than two people behind one pc is getting difficult). This was not new for me, but I think these tables are fun and foster collaboration because more people are working together in the same, real life, shared space.

After that a touch screen attached to a pc was shown with the earth on it. You can zoom in and zoom out or move around by touching. The argument was that it works intuitively and is more realistic than the materials used in the classroom to show the earth. He talked about these big world maps but seemed to forget that we also have world globes. At least, that is what we used in school! But of course this touch screen has the advantage of zooming in and out to a great amount, which is great! However, this was not as new as I hoped. It would have been really cool if it could make a 3D image of the earth, one which you could walk around.

Controlling the mouse with your eyes. 

After that we saw technology that was developed specifically for less- and disabled people. There was for example a computer that could be controlled just by looking. It recognized your face and used this to move the mouse pointer around the screen. Focusing means double clicking. There was also software that could translate text to Braille and of course a speech program like the one I used before in writing a post. This was really nice!

Interactive whiteboard

Also an interactive whiteboard was present. This did not bring anything new for me. It was showed how the whiteboard could be used but it was a little shallow in my opinion. Just drawing graphs and using a digital ruler to measure distances. Well that is not much different from actually using a real life ruler to measure something, but of course this is more precise and can be saved. I think an interactive whiteboard can be used for more than that. Than the emphasis went to measures to keep control over students using computers in a classroom, for example remote control. This is not necessarily something to use with an interactive whiteboard. I remember using it when I had to help out my little niece years ago. I thought it was a pity that features like this focused so much on controlling the students instead of using this feature for collaboration or to help out. Or give students the right to remote control the computer connected to the interactive whiteboard, to for example, contribute to a concept map creating together, or report findings.

Photo made during the game

Playing a game on the Kinect 

Last I would like to discuss the Xbox kinect! That was about the newest technology standing there, which was really cool. And we could try it out! I saw other people use it, read about it, but never actually did it myself, so that was nice. After getting used to it, I think it will work pretty naturally. Actually I think this (technology reacting on you as a person) is the future. It even made a photo during the game :) 

All and all it was fun but I expected more from the technologies. It was not really as innovative as I thought, but maybe it was newer for others. I thought there would be more focus on distance flexibility; I think this is getting more common to students. For example, last week my boyfriend went shopping for a sweater. While trying it on, he sent me a picture, made with his phone, while wearing it to ask for my opinion. This is something that could also easily adapt to education. I hoped on more extreme examples of new technologies, for example technology combined with intelligent materials…. imagine a touch screen that adapts the feeling of a surface to the image it is showing, tiger, soft fur, stone, hard rough surface, etc. but that again was too farfetched of course :-). 
Anyhow I realy had a good time and it was nice that we could take a look around, so thank you for all the people who were involved from Microsoft and of course the organizers of this trip!

The workshop

The workshop started with a presentation that was focused on that education should be more learner centered, the teacher is a guide and that education should be more concrete and connected to the everyday experiences of students. Something I agree on, but of course again something we hear about everyday for the past few years.  He pushed it a little bit further by stating that the role of the teacher should change to a more coordinative one and that the student is the one determining what he/she wants to learn and when. Teachers should become a kind of ‘hatch’ that redirects students to the right places to learn by composing a tailored ‘learning package’. Then there was a Microsoft promotion talk. After that we brainstormed in groups about how the technologies we came across during the tour could be used in education. Our group had the idea of using technology to support the teacher in guiding students and making these tailored learning packages. In our worked out concept students could discover what they are interested in by, for example, playing games. Based on these interests a teacher could compose a learning package tailored to a student. We worked this out by using the surface table. Students and teachers could use an ID (chip) card to log on and see the data on the account. Teachers could add or remove data to the students. Next to that parents could also be more involved by choosing to add certain data about the student to their account. This is also something that could be used to make a study choice in secondary education.