At the Internet Librarian Conference in Monterey, I saw a presentation titled “Information Literacy With Videocasts, Wiimotes, and Interactive Whiteboards.” Three librarians, Shu Qian, Steve Borrelli, and
May Chang, detailed how they created a large, interactive whiteboard using only a Wii Remote, a Bluetooth adapter and an infrared pen. Using the technology in the Wii remote they were able to turn virtually any surface of any size into a whiteboard. This freed them from the tyrany of the podium. They weren’t chained to the mouse during their instruction sessions because they were able to interact with the web pages they were displaying by using the wireless infrared lightpen.
The idea behind this project came from Johnny Chung Lee, a researcher from Microsoft. Here is a video that explains how it all works:
We are going to try this out at the Pollak library. The project should cost next to nothing, because I already have a Wii Remote and all of the computers in our instruction rooms are already equipped with Bluetooth adapters. The only investment in the experiment will be time and the $18 we just spent on an infrared pen.
Once the infrared pen arrives (hopefully this week) we will load the free software on one of the instruction room computers. Then I will bring in my Wiimote and we will give this thing a go. If it is successful, I’ll show it to the instruction librarians and check on their interest in the project. If they like it then we can purchase our own Wiimote (I’ll give mine back to my kid) and some mounting hardware. Even then, the total expenditure will be in the neighborhood of $50.
I am totally stoked on this. More to come.
