Wearable Learning Environments

Evolution of Wearable Learning Environments

The first wearable computer is attributed to Steve Mann in the early 1980s, with his experiments as a high school student involving wireless wearable computing. He also experimented with a backpack-mounted computer with smart glasses and a one-handed keying input device. One of Mann’s applications provided photographically mediated reality, which was an early attempt at augmented reality in a wearable device. By 1989, the smart glasses concept evolved into the commercially available Private Eye providing the user with a 1-inch × 1-inch display worn close to the eye offering the equivalent of a 12-inch display seen from 18 inches away. Doug Platt introduced a hip-mounted computer incorporating the Private Eye and a palmtop keyboard in 1991. The standard computer keyboard was replaced by a one-handed keyboard in future versions of the wearable computer. In 1993, Platt and Thad Starner combined the functionality of the Private Eye and the Twiddler, a commercially available one-handed keyboard, into the first context-aware system. This design became the basis on which the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Lab’s Lizzy, perhaps the first fully functional wearable system, was established.

Since the initial robust innovation in wearable computers at the MIT Media Lab, iterations have continued. A current implementation of a wearable computer is Google Glass. Over 20 years after his initial work at the MIT Media Lab, Starner was requested by Google Inc. to serve as technical lead for Google’s Project Glass. While smartphones may currently offer many capabilities, these are only a part of the wearable equation. Current smartphones do not capture reality as it happens in the moment it happens. Reducing the time between intention and action is at the heart of wearable computing.

Innovation in technologies for learning continues to evolve in the context of wearable systems. Wearable computers as learning tools may have great potential for enhancing learning but research has yet to show this efficacy and positive impact in educational contexts. An analysis of the proceedings from the International Symposium on Wearable Computers spanning over 16 conferences beginning in 1997 through 2012 revealed that the number of published papers in the proceedings peaked at 47 in 2005 with 2012 being the lowest at 24 papers. The emphasis has shifted from wearable computers in earlier years to activity-sensing techniques more recently.

[Page 836]Wearable Learning Environments for Performance Support

Electronic performance support systems (EPSS) proved to be valuable in the workplace combining technology-enabled services with on-demand access. Advances in technology, reducing the hardware size and increasing computing speed and capability, spurred on advances in wearable learning environments as tools to support performance on the job. The MetaPark environment was designed to provide park employees with wearable context-aware devices capable of delivering necessary information in an appropriate format at the required level of detail. Synchronous and asynchronous communication, information recording and retrieval, and location and context awareness, including location-based messaging, offered wearers the ability to conference with other team members in an augmented reality environment. The wearable components available in MetaPark were similar to the factory automation support technology (FAST) system; the FAST architecture was more complex and included an advisor, training, and assessment components. With regard to performance support, FAST was able to provide workers with necessary information when and where it was needed anywhere within a factory. Access and use of interactive electronic technical manuals (IETMs) through wearables offers users necessary just-in-time information without referring to printed documentation that may consist of thousands of pages and hundreds of topics. The impact of wearable IETMs on learning and productivity has not yet been established, but users generally prefer the convenience of wearables over place-bound computers.

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