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The invention of the GUI couple of decades ago revolutionized the
way in which people interacted with computing media. The GUI created
the desktop computer paradigm, and in turn, the present form a learning
system: the learner interacts with a digital document presented
on a workstation through the hardware forms of television monitor,
keyboard and mice, and the software form of button pushing, windows
and point and click.
With time, this form stabilized, and, increases in speed improved
the expressive capabilities of digital documents. Digital documents
began as text-centric documents, and later transformed from text
to picture documents, and ultimately from pictures to multimedia.
The improvements in document forms were mirrored in richer presentations
of content, i.e., in the ability of documents to capture and disseminate
knowledge.
However as impressive as the present form of the display technology
and the speeds of information transfer are, important aspects relating
to the physical dimensions of Man have been ignored by the modern
document. The workstation disembodied the learner. Presentations
become screen centric. The workstation becomes the focus of people's
offices and homes. While the presentations on the screens are animated
and rich, the learner's body is typically static. Interpretations
become reduced to button pushing, ignoring the expressive potential
of the human hands. The rich space of the sense of touch is reduced
to mouse clicks. In summary, the experience with the document is
static.
We believe that the new paradigms of 'beyond the desktop' can result
from the re-examination of the relationship of the human body to
physical space and to physical interfaces with digital representations.
New bridges need to be explored between the physical and virtual
spaces. New graspable, touchable and adornable interfaces need to
be explored to provide users kinesthetic engagement with the learning
content. In doing so, the document experience can change from the
present static form to a more dynamic, richer form. We term such
an expressive document experience, the "Living Document."
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