Guest Blogger Fan Yang on Adrian Cheok | TCCHawaii.org

Online chat with only voice or video is outdated! Now you’re able to hug, kiss, smell, or even taste your buddies remotely! Following Adrian, we experienced a fascinating multisensory tour.

The tour started with his early study, the Real World Pacman. With a pair of glasses, real humans become Pacman picking up cookies on the real world streets. But this is just a warm-up. Buckle up, more surprises are coming!

Following the first sense, sight, one of Adrian’s students using sound transformed a regular umbrella into a katana! Different sound effects are displayed by swinging the umbrella in different ways. Certain movement combinations can trigger special sound effects, such as explosion. Added only sound, an umbrella can have much more fun!

The presentation gradually came to its upsurge when the sense of touch was brought up. With a jacket, or just a ring, you can give your loved one a remote hug. As reported by IEEE Spectrum, Adrian is making a huggable Internet! In fact, it’s not just huggable, but also kissable! Kissenger really blew away everybody’s mind last night.

The tour didn’t stop at the sense of touch. It continued blowing everyone further away by digital smell and electrical and thermal taste.

Now with these possibilities, how can we incorporate all five senses into online teaching and learning? Maybe an online “better kisser” course is a good start?  The stimulated audience had very inspiring and funny chats too. This session is definitely this year’s “must attend” one! The public can access a recording of the session here: http://squirrel.adobeconnect.com/p86lgb32brf/