Tablets, smart boards, and interactive kiosks can help librarians provide multi-sensory learning experiences.  Many students today come to academic libraries for discovery tours and instruction sessions lead by librarians. Tablets and smart boards can support tours and sessions that appeal to visual, auditory, or kinesthetic preferences. In addition to active learning, tablets and interactive kiosks can add aesthetic sensory elements to passive programming.  

Tablets are inherently mobile and allow students to move about or position themselves in various ways as they learn about research.  Image by geralt from Pixabay.

 

 

As a bonus to their instructional value, tablets can be placed in sensory spaces and loaded with apps that offer virtual sensory items, fidget helpers, multisensory relaxation tracks, and visual stimming videos.

 

 

 

Visual stim on a tablet.  Image by geralt from Pixabay.

 

Please check out our Tech Gallery to see how we’re implementing mainstream and niche technologies in our sensory rooms.

Further Reading

Aspiranti, K. B., Larwin, K. H., & Schade, B. P. (2020). iPads/tablets and students with autism: A meta-analysis of academic effects. Assistive Technology, 32(1), 23-30. https://doi.org/10.1080/10400435.2018.1463575

Bi, T., Lyons, R., Fox, G., & Muntean, G. M. (2020). Improving student learning satisfaction by using an innovative dash-based multiple sensorial media delivery solution. IEEE Transactions on Multimedia, 23, 3494-3505.

Walling, D. R., & Walling, D. R. (2014). Using tablet technology for multisensory learning. In D. R. Walling (Ed.), Designing learning for tablet classrooms: Innovations in instruction (pp. 89-95).  Springer.