TEL it to the People: Technology Enhanced Learning and the

Making and Hacking Communities

Dr. Brock Craft

(Pappert, Minsky, 1969)

(www.processing.org)

(scratch.mit.edu)

Making & Hacking: recap

Wireless/Ham radio/“Dxing”

Electronics + Micros

Telephony/phreaking

BBS Culture

Electronics + robotics

Internet

Making + Hacking

“Democratizing” learningw/ tangibles?

Internet and communication

Online learning communities of practice + Making & hacking

Informal, self-guided

Sharable learning designs

“Internet of Things” creates new learning opportunities

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”

Project partners:

Dr. Philip Kent (LKL)

Dr. Nicolas Van Labeke (LKL, now LSRI)

2 month duration

Funded by Becta (RIP)

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

A case study in mathematics

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?

(mathematics being a subject whose abstraction is notorious)

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

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?

1 - Virtual Angles

1 - Virtual Angles

2 – Spherical Geometry

2 – Spherical Geometry

2 – Spherical Geometry

2 – Spherical Geometry

“What is a triangle?”

3 – DOuble oDOmeter (DODO)

4 – Maps and journeys

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?…

Designing tangibles for learning(www.lkl.ac.uk)

Arduino (http://arduino.cc)

LilyPad Arduinohttp://web.media.mit.edu/~leah/LilyPad/

Basic Stamp and BoeBots(www.parallax.com)

Phidgets (www.phidgets.com)

mBed(www.mbed.org)

SunSpots(www.sunspotworld.com)

Beagle Board(http://beagleboard.org/)

Bug Labs(www.buglabs.org)

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)

http://www.brockcraft.comhttp:// www.lkl.ac.uk/research/SPOT_ON

http://www.tinkerlondon.com

Dr. Brock Craft