Chris Dawson invariably touched on a hot topic: Multitouch technology. He wondered out loud “Is it a technology looking for a solution and does anyone actually want it?” He concluded that “this isn’t a technology looking for a solution but a paradigm waiting to shift”. How did he get there? Read his blog entry.

While I agree wholeheartedly with his conclusion, I think that he and most of the commenters to his blog missed an important point. If they were looking for a shift in an individual’s human-computer interaction (HCI), they should take a look at technology developed by Mgestyk.

I think that multitouch will bring about a more important shift when it is used collaboratively! Featured below is a video I highlighted before.

I think that multitouch makes more sense when you have more than one user working on the same screen. Imagine three or four learners working collaboratively to put together a video or draft a musical performance.

In the first example, imagine one user searching for digital photos, the second user selecting MP3s for background music, and the third Googling for choice quotations or other textual information. They “flick” files to the fourth user who puts everything together in a video timeline. Collectively, they view their draft and edit it until a polished product emerges.

Consider also in the second example how one user could be writing the score, another the lyrics, yet another play virtual instruments, and still another create beats or rhythm on such a surface. They draft their music here before they rehearse and perform with actual instruments (if they wish).

The shift here is not so much the change in HCI, but the way people collaborate with other people with computer-based technologies. Educators sometimes worry (unnecessarily) that online technologies breed anti-social behaviour (I don’t believe that they do because I think they allow people to connect with one another even more, albeit not physically).

Multitouch technologies present a way for collaborators to meet in person and to use one device at the same time to solve a shared problem or to create a common artefact. They need not work on separate machines and transfer files back and forth simply because everything is one place.

I admit that it is difficult to think of the possibilities and to imagine outside our current mindsets. But this is the nature of innovation and so much of it is emergent and unexpected. Such shifts also point to the new ways our children will work in the future, so it is our responsibility to prepare them as best we can.