I was pointed in the direction of the “office of tomorrow” website today. They have some fantastic projects that augment traditional office equipment - tables - desktops - walls and digitize them. Thus a tabletop becomes a digital workspace that multiple people can stand around and manipulate. If the more dubious claims about interactive whiteboards were true (about the affect of kinesthesis over brain activity) then surley this is also true for a.) those people that are not students in a classroom, b.) for digital interactive experiances other than with interactive whiteboards.

I am also fascinated by the possibilities in the Coeno device which enables individual laptop users to interact with a larger digital shared workspace. Firstly because this is just cool! But more importantly because it allows student owned technology (and laptops should be student owned) to be integrated seamless with technology in the classroom making these tools collaborative interactive tools in the classroom setting. Imagine having to setup such a environment if students didn’t bring in half of the connecting technology with them - it would be logistically and financially difficult to say the least. However, if students bring in the laptops its simply a matter of connecting them with the digital hub and away they go. When they are done they can save the results of that work on their machines an take it with them.