What is Perceptual Computing

With perceptual capabilities, computers can intelligently function as a part of our everyday lives, helping us make sense of what is happening as we experience and navigate through many different types of situations. In this way, computing systems can be situated when they combine machine perception with an individual's background knowledge to observe, explore, and interpret human and environmental activity in a way that supports decision-making. Many of the current, prominent situated computing solutions are consumer-focused in nature. But these systems will, in time, change the way we work as well as how we learn. Many disciplines are adapting and changing in the process, and many opportunities remain, including the use of situated computing systems for workforce education. This chapter offers many opportunities on how to innovate and improve workforce education by leveraging the power and affordances of personal mobile devices and intelligent personal assistant technologies to turn everyday situations into everyday learning opportunities.