Haptic Technologies to Support Learning

Haptics (from the Greek haptesthai, meaning “to touch”) involves both kinesthetic movement and tactile sensation. This active component of haptics engages the learner in making conscious decisions about what to move, how to move, and the types of manipulations that are made in a three-dimensional environment. These choices on the part of the learner are in part what makes haptics a powerful component of learning.

Throughout schooling, educators strive to create hands-on experiences in natural and simulated contexts to make learning as rich and sensorial as possible. Furthermore, educators often argue that learners need hands-on manipulation of materials in order to meaningfully understand objects and processes. This is often the rationale for using physical manipulatives to learn geometry, three-dimensional letters to learn the alphabet, raised maps in geography, and natural objects in science.

Educational technology designers are now leveraging computer-generated haptic feedback to create interactive environments that engage learners with additional sensory information gained through touch. These new technologies combine feedback from cutaneous (sensations of the skin), kinesthetic (movement engaging muscles), and haptic (active touch involving forces or vibrations) systems to create realistic learning environments. Haptic rendering generates feedback in response to the learner’s interactions with virtual objects often in virtual environments or remote systems. This entry discusses the design of haptic systems and users’ perception of the systems. It also details some of the current and potential applications of haptics in education.

Early versions of haptic devices incorporated vibrations as the mode of feedback. These devices included a vibrating or haptic mouse, vibrating steering wheels, touchpads, point probes, haptic joysticks, vibrating needles, haptic gloves, and cellular phones. The next generation of haptic devices evolved into tools that allowed users to localize the haptic interaction in a virtual environment. More complex devices allow the user to locate, manipulate, and feel virtual objects in a three-dimensional environment. Newer devices now afford an additional level of feedback by adding torque. The haptic device must always be accompanied by application software that renders feedback in response to actions. A simple example is the vibration of the cellular phone after pressing a key, whereas more complex feedback is a probe responding to a 3D magnetic field.

One of the challenges haptic simulation designers have had to confront is the problems that arise when individuals navigate in a virtual world with only a probe. It is easy to get lost or fall off an object if the virtual object is not enclosed in a set space or is limited by preset positions where users return when navigating. Another challenge is the potential trade-off between the levels of fidelity of the tactile experience, the response time of the feedback, and the stability of the device.