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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