Touchy Feely Affordances of Digital Technology for Embodied Interactions Can Enhance Epistemic Access There have been numerous studies since Papert on the efficacy of technological interventions on studentsu0027 learning of content, especially in science and mathematics. However, there seems to be a limited acknowledgement of all the affordances of the technology as reflected in the dominant usage to provide physical access. By physical access, we indicate how technology enables wider access by delivering content in the form of videos, animations, ebooks etc. We bring in a subtle different aspect of epistemic access and explore this in the context of vectors, a topic introduced in preuniversity (grade11 in India) physics and mathematics. Literature reports studentsu0027 difficulties with geometrical aspects of vectors. We designed Touchy Feely Vectors (TFV), a dynamic geometric environment with carefully designed (embodied and conceptually meaningful) interactions making use of the novel affordances of interaction with the content and addressing the student difficulties with the geometric aspects. This was informed by the recent emphasis in cognitive sciences on the role of the bodyu0027s interaction with the environment in cognition. We report a study in six grade11 classrooms (3 experimental and 3 control classrooms with a total of 266 students). The results show effects on their reasoning approaches and an enhanced cognitive engagement (which we call epistemic access) in the experimental group. Using this evidence, we argue for a need for further careful explorations of affordances of digital technology to provide wider epistemic access.

Collaborative Approaches to ProblemSolving on Lines and Angles Using Augmented Reality The concepts of 2D geometry are often taught in classrooms without the analysis of the learnersu0027 understanding and interpretation of the existence of the concepts in natural surroundings. To bring in active participation of the students while they realize the practical application of the taught concepts, we have designed a module on Lines and Angles of an Augmented Reality (AR) intervention named ScholAR. Using ScholAR, the students can interact with an augmented 3D object. They can recall, visualize, identify the type of angle and then mark it by drawing on that 3D object. We performed a comparative study with 21 participants (6 dyads and 9 individuals) of 8th grade. In this paper, we report: 1) the perspectives of the students on their experience of performing the AR learning activities individually and in dyads, 2) the studentsu0027 approaches while solving the AR learning activities, and 3) their motivation of using ScholAR. We found that 90.4% of the total participants preferred to perform the AR learning activities in collaboration. At xcexb10.05 (t2.21, p0.048), the performance of the dyads was significantly higher after using ScholAR. The usability and motivation level scores, however, were higher for the individuals (70.28; M4.07) as compared to the dyads (65.23; M3.94).