Abstract
Interactions between instructors and large projected displays in classrooms
often lack cost-effective and easy-to-use solutions. Instead, instructors
mostly use either a standard laser pointer, or a computer mouse or touchscreen
on a laptop or tablet computer to interact with the content of their
presentation slides on large screens. Our research investigates the possibility
of using relatively inexpensive, consumer-grade tracking devices that can be
easily installed in classrooms and inertial sensors that can be held in an
instructor’s hand to support this type of interaction. Our goal was to provide
more functionality than a simple laser pointer. We compared the accuracy and
ease of pointing performance using our new system to a high-end research system
and to a computer mouse. We used a Fitts’s law paradigm to experimentally
evaluate pointing performance and accuracy. We found that our low-cost system
is as accurate and as fast as the high-end research system and, somewhat
surprisingly, also as accurate as a computer mouse. Because of the large size
of the displays in classrooms and the small tracking volumes of most
consumer-grade tracking systems, we investigated the possibility of using
multiple off-the-shelf hardware units connected with each other to maximize the
coverage area at the front of a classroom. We present a possible design that
could be scaled to enough devices connected together to cover the front area of
a classroom of almost any size. Our investigation was not conclusive. It
requires additional research to prove the feasibility of our system in real
classroom environments.
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