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Computer technology has become integral to the learning process. According to the National Center for Education Statistics, at the end of the last decade, some 97 percent of U.S. teachers had one or more computers located in the classroom every day, and the ratio of students to computers in the classroom every day was a little over 5 to 1.
With the advent of tablet and hand-held computing devices, this ratio is fast approaching 1 to 1. Up until very recently, mainstream educational software for computing devices in the classroom has been designed based upon a style of interaction utilizing the traditional WIMP (window, icon, menu, pointing device) paradigm. Student engagement is then an isolated one-on-one experience, individual student to individual machine. To better engage students with their environment through educational technologies, researchers have begun exploring a variety of solutions that provide more embodied and tangible interactions -- ranging from collaborative activities surrounding an interactive tabletop to interactive robots that teach language learning.Image credit: Pete Zrioka, Ira A. Fulton Schools of Engineering, Arizona State University
