Multi-touch introduces two new key features: a new kind of interface and a new social context.
Both are specifically relevant in an educational environment.
A touch-based interface means that users can directly interact with software.
With touch comes gesture.
Children can grab, move and manipulate objects on screen like they would do in real life.
They can even throw them aside.
This triggers the curiosity and invites children to explore and experiment.
It is tempting to say that there are no limitations to this way of interacting, but there are.
The objects are still virtual so, for instance, you can't put them in your mouth.
Limits aren't necessarily a bad thing.
There is also however a dimension of hyperreality: you can do things with these virtual objects you wouldn't be able to do in real life. In that sense there are no limits.
You can break objects apart, put them together again, turn them inside out, bend them, stretch them or make them disappear.
All this still with simple touches and gestures and with bare hands, no tools required.
Another major feature is the social aspect.
A multi-touch interface means that all of a sudden, more then one person can interact with the same device at the same time.
Especially in a setup like the
Surface, users can sit around a screen as if it were a table and interact with it.
Noone is necessarily the prime user, everyone has the same level of access.
This means that an important part of the actual experience is what happens
over the table: users interacting with each other, not just with a piece of software.
Good applications should encourage and support this, but children will automatically engage in conversation and play when they're in small groups.
Simply put there are two types of social activity involved: competition and cooperation.
A competitive setup will pitch users against each other, encouraging them to improve their skills.
They can also decide to combine forces against another user or a virtual opponent.
Another approach is to make this cooperation the focus of social interaction.
In such a cooperative setup users can be challenged to work together to achieve certain goals or be encouraged to help each other with certain tasks.
Both types of social interaction are part of standard educational practices.
Competition is mostly found in sports, quizzes or games, but also in test results, where cildren will measure their performance against their class mates.
Cooperation, for instance in peer-to-peer learning, (children learning from each other), is a also very common approach in all kinds of education.
If a person helps another with a certain task, both profit.
The first will reflect on what is already known and train the knowledge, the second might learn something new or gain more understanding.
The instructor in such a relationship is traditionally the teacher, but often it will also be another pupil.
On a multi-user device educational software can move to a new dimension and create an environment where users can be encouraged to help each other.
November 2008 Onwijs got the chance to start working with a new technology, the multi-touch interface, as can be found on the 
For this purpose Onwijs developed a set of Surface-applications, partly in cooperation with students of 
Onwijs participated in this project and created a series of Surface-applications about a part of the math curriculum: fractions, decimals and percentages.
There were also a couple of Surface applications that were made especially for this occasion (with drawings of the Clipper pupils) and a number of educational programs and some demo's by 
Play Together, Learn Together is the catch phrase for a project where Onwijs will introduce Surface technology in (primary) schools.
