As Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) generate a huge amount of learning activity data through its thousands of users, great potential is provided to use this data to understand and optimize the learning experience and outcome.
The microprinter is an experiment in physical activity streams and notification, using a repurposed receipt printer connected to the web.
I use it for things like reminders, notifications, and my day at-a-glance, but anything that can be injected from the web and suits text only, short format messaging, will work.
M. Koch, A. Rancati, A. Grasso, and D. Snowdon. Proc. Human Computer Interaction International 99 Volume 2, page 417-421. London, Lawrence Erlbaum Publishers, (August 1999)
J. Bardram, J. Bunde-Pedersen, and M. Soegaard. CHI '06: Proceedings of the SIGCHI conference on Human Factors in computing systems, page 211--220. New York, NY, USA, ACM Press, (2006)