Computers & Learning
Reading Like a Computer Reads
Thursday, March 27, 2014 Comment
Spritz is a startup that wants to change how people read on small screens. The startup has created an app that feeds texts to readers one word at a time, arranged so that their eyes are not “forc[ed]…to spend time moving around the page.” You can see a demonstration in this video. The Spritz reading technique allows readers to see as many as 1,000 words per minute, and promises developers that it will make “streaming your content easy and more comfortable, especially on small displays.” When writing about Spritz, one commonplace has been to note that the technique
Creative Solutions for Tablets and the Common Core
Monday, August 12, 2013 Comment
The recent international conference of researchers on human-computer interaction CHI 2013 in Paris presented the opportunity to survey current trends in the so-called “learning sciences” and to assess new methodologies for computer-assisted education (In 2010, DMLcentral covered the SIGGRAPH conference in Los Angeles here). One of the up-and-coming HCI innovators, PhD student Derek Lomas, presented twice at the CHI 2013 conference, describing his experiences both in K-12 classrooms in the U.S. and in digital literacy projects in India. Lomas agreed to an interview to discuss his experiences in PlayPower and PlayPower Labs, now based at Carnegie