Kinect TEAM: Kinesthetic Learning Applied to Mathematics Using Kinect

Abstract

The human interaction with computer can be used to create a wide range of learning technics that can be visual, animated, or interactive. Kinect can support kinesthetic pedagogical practices that can benefit students of mathematics, having also the potential of increase classroom participation, and improve the motivation of learning math. Kinect is a device development by Microsoft, originally designed for the Xbox 360 but later making a new version for pc and xbox one. Kinect is able to provide skeletal tracking, audio recognition and provide the developer with a depth camera and a normal camera and is able to capture movement up to 2 people simultaneously. With this capacity the Kinect makes a perfect hardware piece for Kinesthetic learning. Our main objective is to develop a set of tools involving augmented reality and virtual reality for the understanding and learning of Calculus for students in High School and College. The purpose this work is to show the progress made at the time in the application we have called “Playing with DOT”. In it, students can interact visually and using gestures with the graphs of functions of a real variable. A character (DOT) is the way that represents the interaction with Kinect through the fist of the student. The gesture that occurs with the fist will result in a graphic representation of motion in a straight line it has been simulated with the fist. The student will identify different characteristics of movement performed by the graphics functions and their derivatives in a coordinate system. With the challenge that the game presents, it is expected that the student arrives to swiftly identify different behaviors of graphs. Features of growth or decrease and concave up or down will be associated with increasingly fast or slow movements, left or right.