New website complete!

After spending a lot of time learning the Google Apps suite well enough that I can integrate all of the different tools, I'm proud to say that I've completed my professional portfolio website.

I also updated the look and feel of the blog to match the design of the site.

Really happy with how this turned out!

http://tinyurl.com/matthewschmidthomepage

Eye Tracking in Second Life using Mirametrix S2

I picked up a Mirametrix S2 eye tracking device over the summer and am just getting a chance to try it out.

I took it for a spin on the University of Hawaii's Educational Technology Second Life island.

Here's a video of the fixations and saccades:

And here's a video with heatmaps (I also reduced the size of the recording area, which made for better quality video output).

Holodeck article in this month's Virtual Education Journal

The RELATE consortium at the University of Hawaii (Research and development on Emerging Libre Applications of Technology for Education) has an article about the Holodeck mixed reality teaching and learning environment in this month's issue of the Virtual Education Journal.

Check out the journal at this link, and if you're interested, read the Holodeck article starting on pp. 77.

Open Source Eye Tracking: Lessons Learned (So Far)

I've made some progress. Since I'm short on time, I'll just summarize.

First Steps
I began with the intention of building an Eye Writer 2. While the Eye Writer 2 does appear to work reasonably well as a remote tracker (provided a chin rest is used), the solution seemed to be primarily geared towards the Eye Writer software and is very Macintosh-centric. It appears that it may be used on other systems.

Course Correction
I abandoned the idea of building an Eye Writer 2 because I want to use Ogama and ITU Gaze Tracker to do some eye tracking research (for a multi-user virtual environment we are building). It was not clear that the Eye Writer 2 would interface well with ITU GT.

Prototype 1 Build
I attempted to build a remote eye tracking setup using a hacked Sony PS Eye camera with a 12mm lens and 2 external IR LED arrays, as outlined elsewhere. While I was able to get the tracking hardware working, calibration was hit-and-miss. Binocular was less accurate than monocular.

Prototype 2 Build
I then acquired the cheapest USB webcam I could find. I removed everything from the PCB, replaced the LEDs with 2 IR LEDs, installed a visible light filter and installed a 6mm lens. I then attached it to a pair of sunglasses from which I removed the lenses. While I didn't follow these instructions to the letter, this pretty much sums up what I did. Good information can also be found here (and the full article here)

The second prototype provided greater accuracy, but the junky webcam I used has a low frame rate and the optics are noticeably inferior to those of the PS Eye. I blogged about my initial results previously.

Lessons Learned (So Far)
The first lesson is that the devil is in the details. While you can build a cheap eye tracking system on the cheap, investing in quality gear will make a difference. Spend your money on your webcam and get some decent lenses (Peau Productions has great stuff!). Everything else can be hacked together, but optics and framerate are critical to accuracy.

The second lesson is that remote tracking with webcams is hit-and-miss, very finicky, and frankly too brittle to be useful for serious research. Head-mounted eye tracking with webcams, on the other hand, can be very accurate (see this article for an in-depth analysis). Unless you can afford the ThorLabs cam, plan on head-mounted and save yourself time and hassle.

The third lesson is that head-mounted has its own set of challenges. The camera likes to shake. Head movements (even very slight) disrupt accuracy and throw off calibration. Finding the proper distance to sit from the monitor in order to get good tracking results is a challenge. Do bigger displays make a difference? What about projected displays? I'm investigating this.

Recommendations and Next Steps
Most of the discussions in this forum focus on head-mounted or remote setups. Both of these designs have their strengths and weaknesses. My recommendation is a hybrid setup for cheap webcams (not recommended for ThorLabs cam). In order to maintain low cost while achieving high accuracy, I propose attaching the webcam to a chin rest. This way, the webcam is not attached to the user's head, reducing shaking and movements and increasing comfort. In addition, the user's head is kept still, helping to increase accuracy. An illustration is provided below.

Next steps will be to build a DIY chin rest and attach the PS Eye camera to it. I will also add IR LEDs close to or on the PS Eye camera as opposed to using an external IR LED array. Stay tuned.

Open Source Eye Tracking - Initial Results

I've been working on building an Open Source eye tracking system since I worked on my first eye tracking study back in 2008. I'll discuss my experiences in a series of blog posts to follow. Today's post is all about results.

I've put together a cheap eye tracking system using a 10 dollar web camera, Ogama, and ITU Gaze Tracker. At the moment, the tracking hardware is a total hack and held together with duct tape, zip ties, and solder. After putting the apparatus together this morning, I did some initial tests. Given the very early prototype nature of the hardware, the calibration is a bit off. But the results are impressive, regardless.

Video showing saccades and fixations

Video showing spotlight highlighting

 Image with saccades and fixations

Heatmap overlay - here it is very obvious that the calibration is skewed to the left

Introduction to Free and Open Source Software in Education - Free Open Educational Resource

I'm releasing my first Open Educational Resource today.

Introduction to Free and Open Source Software in Education

This is a two-week unit focused on the practical application of Free and Open Source software (F/OSS) in education. It is suitable for advanced undergraduate learners in K-12 teacher training programs. The unit is not intended to be an exhaustive review of F/OSS. Rather, the unit assumes no prior knowledge of F/OSS and is intended to act as an introduction and a guided exploration.

Upon completion of this unit, learners will be able to:

1. Describe F/OSS in their own words
2. Provide examples of how F/OSS can benefit education
3. Provide examples of F/OSS tools
4. Explain some of the barriers to F/OSS adoption
5. Describe how instructors might start using F/OSS

I've released the unit under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 2.5 Generic License (CC BY-SA 2.5).

What prompted me to release this unit is twofold. On the one hand, I've decided to eat my own dog food. If I'm constantly advocating for open educational resources and the use of F/OSS in education, then I need to practice what I preach. On the other hand, as I was developing the two modules in this unit, I was disappointed at the paucity of resources that were readily available for introducing F/OSS for education to learners with little to no prior knowledge in this area.

Actually, there is also a third reason. I would hope that by releasing under a CC BY-SA license, if anyone does use these resources and makes improvements on them, the changes will be returned to me so that the community can benefit.

Edupunk's not dead

Time to dust off the old blog and do some spring cleaning. First things first - the blog needed a new name.

I haven't touched this blog in five years. Not because I didn't have anything to say. Just because I've been saying it elsewhere. In that time, I've finished my dissertation, completed a post-doctoral fellowship, and taken a position as an assistant professor at the University of Hawaii. Wrote some papers along the way (mandatory curriculum vitae).

I work in educational technology and special education. I'm an open source kind of guy. I hack hardware and software to build cool solutions to educational problems. I identify as an edupunk. There is plenty written on this topic, but a good place to start is at the Center for Edupunx.

I've been doing some cool things in the educational technology world that other educators might find to be of value. I've decided to change the focus of this blog from only focusing on open source virtual worlds to all of the various hacks and projects I'm working on. I'll be posting as I find time.