Michael, 

Our expectations were that the haptics would increase curiosity in the subject and potential increase the students understanding of the topics that we were presenting. We are still in the process of going through the data. I am not sure that we are going to see the results support that, but since this was a exploratory project, we are hopeful that the lessons learned throughout this project will have the chance to be addressed. 

It is interesting that we felt as though, through each subject area, that we needed to be stepping back a little and teaching about forces. Now I am not sure how this would work for grade school students, but potentially a haptic environment that taught forces and balancing forces would be a great tool for teaching Statics at a college level. 

We have not thought about the inclusion of VR yet, but that is certainly a very interesting area that will need to be explored. Maybe the haptics is not enough for the idea of "embodiment" to take real effect, maybe the VR is necessary?

Thank you for these thoughts. 

Yes, half of the students could feel the weight of the blocks in and out of the water, they could feel the force of the magnet pulling (or not) on an object, and also the attractive forces of the molecules under different temperatures. While it was not a perfect representation of the forces, it worked well in most of the cases. 

The other half of the students did not have the haptic feedback. Part of the analysis this summer will be looking at if there is a difference, and if so in what simulations was the difference greatest. 

Chris, 

We were not able to do the comparison that you are asking about. Our comparison was between two different sets of students within the simulations. One set of students got Haptic feedback, the other did not. 

That simulations is one of the least interesting when it comes to our ideas of haptics, because it is very easy to set up that simulation in the classroom. The efficiency argument is a compelling one for this one and for some of the buoyancy simulations. 

I think that we were more excited by the simulations that seemed to integral to really understanding the subject, but were "impossible" to set up or see in the classroom. 

However, your question about what is lost or gained from interacting or not with real objects is one that needs more addressing. 

We did eventually, in the third year, put students in pairs and let them work in groups on the simulations. We are excited to see what the differences were as we look at the data. 

I agree. THe important thing here is not to build the be-all and end-all haptic experience; at this point in time, I think we  need to be learning what the affordances of haptic elements are, what elements of the haptic technology and experience each contribute (or contribute in packages), and how to take advantage of those affordances to foster sense making and, ultimately, learning.