Learning via Gaming: An Immersive Environment for Teaching Kids Handwriting

Bruce Maxim and Nicholas Martineau

Abstract

Immersive learning via animation, virtual experiments, and simulations is an attractive concept. As the complexity of educational content increases, its delivery methods and pedagogy must improve as well. While the efficacy of immersive environments for education and training is well established, their use with elementary and middle schools students is negligible. Hardware costs and long development times are two major factors impeding development of such environments for younger students. Computing technology, specifically tools for human machine interface development, has come a long way in the past few years. The authors are making use of this emerging technology to develop an immersive gaming environment for teaching handwriting to elementary school children using a tablet PC delivery system.