[Bridging_the_digital_divide] Press Release

[bridging_the_divide at touchsmart.net]

TouchSmart Publishing to Present Touch User Interface (TUI) Technology for 
Education at AACE Conference



TouchSmart Publishing LLC is presenting a paper at the Association for the 
Advancement of Computing in Education (AACE) Conference in Washington, D.C. 
regarding the Touch User Interface (TUI) technology for education.

Cincinnati, OH (PRWEB) November 1, 2004 – TouchSmart Publishing LLC, today 
announced it is presenting a paper at the Association for the Advancement 
of Computing in Education (AACE) Conference in Washington, D.C.

Where: Hyatt Regency, Crystal City, 2799 Jefferson Davis Hwy, Arlington, VA 
22202 USA, telephone 703.418.1234, Room 7.

When: 430pm EST, November 3rd, 2004.

Jason Barkeloo, President and founder of TouchSmart Publishing will present 
“Connecting to Digital Content Through Textbooks: Introducing the Touch 
User Interface (TUI) Textbook that Bridges the Digital Divide.”

This paper and demonstration will attempt to show how the TUI may bridge 
the digital disconnect as described by Doug Levin and Sousan Arafeh in “The 
Digital Disconnect: The widening gap between Internet-savvy students and 
their schools” (2002).

Barkeloo says that “the five primary reasons for the digital disconnect as 
articulated by Levin and Arafeh may be overcome with this technology. This 
paper and demonstration will attempt to show the digital divide bridging 
effect of the TUI.”

The discussion and presentation will show the promise of decreasing the 
cost of textbooks while inversely increasing the amount of content. The TUI 
can connect multiple learning styles and disabilities to digital content 
that is warehoused on optical media as well as hard-drives. The TUI turns 
the textbook into a remote control.

According to Barkeloo, “the E-Learn Conference is one of the finest 
international electronic learning forums with over seventy countries 
represented and more than a thousand participants. I am excited that we 
were selected to demonstrate and discuss the touch user interface (TUI) 
technology.” He added, “This technology may well meet many of the No Child 
Left Behind (NCLB) and National Instructional Materials Accessibility 
Standard (NIMAS) mandates.”

Co-author and TouchSmart Publishing co-founder, Kathleen MacMahon, DVM 
claims, “Many more students may educationally benefit as a result of this 
technology. Presenting science educational content by pressing pictures and 
words in a textbook brings a new meaning to ‘let your fingers do the 
walking’. When I taught college-level biology and anatomy and physiology I 
think the students would have benefited from a multi-sensory presentation 
approach. Dr. MacMahon finished by saying that “Reading about the 
four-chambered heart is taken to a new level when the student can press the 
picture of the cardiac muscle in the book and it is presented as a 
audio/video on a monitor or television.”

Barkeloo continued that, “Dr. MacMahon is a world-class researcher. I am 
pleased that she has chosen to be involved with this endeavor to make 
delivery of educational content more effective and efficient for students, 
especially those with special needs or socioeconomic disadvantages.” 
Barkeloo concluded “as Dr. MacMahon indicated, presenting an audio/video 
clip on the screen directly from the textbook has promise to make learning 
more exciting. When you consider that Braille imprint on the pages can lead 
to auditory-only content for those students with visual impairments, or 
that the audio/video can be complete with sub-captions or American Sign 
Language for those with auditory impairments, I am excited about the 
prospect of this technology bridging the digital divide.”

For further information, please contact TouchSmart Publishing at 
513.225.8765 or visit TouchSmart's website at 
<http://www.touchsmart.net>http://www.touchsmart.net.

About TouchSmart Publishing, LLC.
TouchSmart Publishing is a developmental-stage company poised to distribute 
touch-sensitive wireless textbooks to K-12 math, science, and special 
education needs students. The Company's mission is to create and distribute 
exciting and easy-to-use interactive textbooks that connect to digital 
content by using touch user interface (TUI) technology that allows a 
student to touch pages in a book that wireless connect to digital content.

TouchSmart Publishing expects to be a bridge over the digital divide for 
more students, regardless of learning style, special needs or socioeconomic 
position, than are currently connected. As a result, TouchSmart Publishing 
is the only complete No Child Left Behind (NCLB) solution poised to meet 
the National Instructional Materials Accessibility Standard (NIMAS).

TouchSmart Publishing is headquartered in Cincinnati, Ohio as a Main Street 
Ventures company, <http://www.digitalrhine.com>www.digitalrhine.com.

For more information, please visit the TouchSmart Publishing web site at 
<http://www.touchsmart.net>www.touchsmart.net.

About the Association for the Advancement of Computing in Education (AACE), 
E-Learn Conference

E-Learn 2004 -- World Conference on E-Learning in Corporate, Government, 
Healthcare, & Higher Education is an international conference organized by 
the Association for the Advancement of Computing in Education (AACE) and 
co-sponsored by the International Journal on E-Learning.

This annual conference serves as a multidisciplinary forum for the exchange 
of information on research, development, and applications of all topics 
related to e-Learning in the Corporate, Government, Healthcare, and Higher 
Education sectors. Over 1,000 participants from 70 Countries attend.

For more information, please visit the AACE website at 
<http://www.aace.org/conf/elearn>www.aace.org/conf/elearn

Contact:
TouchSmart Publishing
Jason Barkeloo, 513.225.8765
e-mail protected from spam bots

Source: TouchSmart Publishing
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://six.pairlist.net/pipermail/bridging_the_divide/attachments/20041102/69ab9d9f/attachment-0002.html