12. Making & Hacking: recap
Wireless/Ham radio/“Dxing”
Electronics + Micros
Telephony/phreaking
BBS Culture
Electronics + robotics
Internet
Making + Hacking
13. “Democratizing” learning
w/ tangibles?
Internet and communication
Online learning communities of practice +
Making & hacking
Informal, self-guided
Sharable learning designs
“Internet of Things” creates new learning
opportunities
14. The new potential in using small programmable
object technologies (SPOTs) and robotics
(“physical computing”)…
...to support embodied and kinaesthetic learning
...examined for the case of secondary
mathematics education
A 2-month exploratory project to design
hardware and software prototypes, tested in
classrooms for “proof of concept”
15. Project partners:
Dr. Philip Kent (LKL)
Dr. Nicolas Van Labeke (LKL, now LSRI)
2 month duration
Funded by Becta (RIP)
16. Educational premise
As children grow learning progresses from
physical (bodily-based) to symbolic
Presumption is that physical mode is left
behind; can the physical/kinaesthetic contribute
to symbolic conceptual learning?
As abstract conceptual content increases, the
intellectual distance from physical activity
increases - how to maintain the connections for
learners? This is where the SPOT technology
supports learning
17. A case study in mathematics
(mathematics being a subject whose abstraction is notorious)
Bodily Interaction with mathematical ideas in
non-Euclidean geometry a sphere
Problematise concepts that students would
consider obvious and beyond question:
Are there “straight lines” and “angles” on the
surface of a sphere?
If so, what do these have to do with the familiar
straight lines and angles of the two-dimensional
plane?
18. Devices and activities
1. Virtual angles
2. Spherical Geometry (great circles and
triangles)
3. DODO (double odometer)
4. Maps and journeys: translations from spherical
to plane geometry
19. Proof of concept trials
Selected Year 10s in: academy school,
independent school, G&T summer school.
Trials of 2 to 2.5 hours, 5 to 7 students in group
Can students use the devices we created?
Can students engage with the ideas that we
intended? Indications for learning?
28. Results
Students can create their own tests and
activities. What other things will they do?
Teachers can engage with this approach to
learning
Teachers’ enthusiasm to hack learning designs
and build with small programmable objects
themselves? (Mathematics meets D&T??)
Where are we with programmables/SPOTs?…
38. Useful suppliers and resources
Rapid (www.rapidonline.com)
RS Components (rswww.com)
Farnell (uk.farnell.com)
Sparkfun (www.sparkfun.com)
Lady Ada (www.ladyada.net)
Make Magazine (www.makezine.com)
Instructables (www.instructables.com)
39. Dr. Brock Craft
http://www.brockcraft.com
http:// www.lkl.ac.uk/research/SPOT_ON
http://www.tinkerlondon.com
Notes de l'éditeur
Wireless, Ham radio, DXing
Papert and Minsky were building on some of the ideas of Piaget, specifically that learning is experiential and constructed process. It is not merely transmitted, but built up by the learner as they reconstruct the concepts and build mental models of things in the world. Constructioninsm places an emphasis in engaging with tangible things in the world and physically, and consttues the learner as literally building knowledge as she makes things in the world.
Electronics & Robotics were made more possible for the average person. Microcontrollers made practical home robotics a possibility for the first time.