A new age in tangible computational interfaces for learning

Tangible computational technologies for education have evolved from research prototypes to the mainstream, led by the wide adoption of commercial kits such as the Lego Mindstorms platform. Despite their success, researchers have pointed out four main issues that have limited their adoption. First, most toolkits were marketed for a particular gender and age group. Second, they had standardized parts and proprietary connectors, which limited the types of projects that users could build. Third, they had programming environments with limited features. Lastly, they were difficulty to connect with school curricula in science and mathematics, which segregated robotics to after-school activities. In this symposium, we will: (a) investigate these limitations in light of current research in the field; (b) showcase several new designs for tangible computational artifacts for education which try to overcome these limitations; (c) discuss possible implications of the widespread use of these new computational artifacts. Overview of Symposium Panel and Demonstrations Over the past 15 years, tangible computational technologies for education, inspired by the constructionist tradition (Papert, 1980), have evolved from prototypes in research laboratories (for example, Martin, 1993; Resnick, et al., 1998; Resnick, Ocko, and Papert, 1991) to the mainstream, led by the wide adoption of commercial kits such as the Lego Mindstorms platform, the VEX Robotics kits, among several others. Despite the success of this first generation of digital manipulatives, particular design decisions had to be made to make them viable. First, most of these toolkits were marketed for middle-school boys (mostly robotics kits), which limited their use by young women. Second, their standardized parts and proprietary connectors made it easier for users to get started and backgrounded much of the complexity in building mechanical structures, but limited the types of projects that more advanced users could build, and made the integration with traditional materials difficult (textiles, paper, crafts, cheap electronics, scrap materials). Third, the limitations of extant programming environments and the intrinsic difficulties of mimicking complex physical behaviors with computer code also narrowed what students could accomplish, and made the activities especially hard for younger learners. Lastly, the difficulty in connecting the activities with school curricula in science and mathematics segregated the use of computational manipulatives to after-school activities. The authors in this symposium are representative of a new generation of designers of computational tangibles for children. Each of the papers will discuss one novel emergent design framework which addresses many of current design issues in existing digital manipulatives. Michael Horn will discuss limitations of on-screen-only programming interfaces for children and show new designs in tangible programming artifacts, with which children can program using physical blocks. Paulo Blikstein will discuss the difficulties in connecting computational artifacts with scientific topics in physics and chemistry, and present the bifocal modeling platform, which enables learners to build their own scientific lab, collect empirical data, and match them to data from their own computer models. Leah Buechley will describe her work creating computational platforms out of paper and textiles, and how this has blurred the boundaries between traditional and computational media, and made tangibles less directed to just one gender. Finally, Hayes Raffle will show how his work with programmable-by-example computational tangibles (““Topobo””) made them more approachable to younger audiences, and enabled children to program complex physical behaviors by constructing and moving robotic creatures. These four emergent design frameworks are pointing to new directions in the use of computational tangibles in education: 1) A wider palette of materials: more materials and building techniques are being made available to children. In particular, low-tech materials with which students are already familiar can now be platforms for computation, as well as a wider selection of sensors, probes, and actuators. 2) More diverse projects: breaking away from the tradition of the gender-biased uses of robotic technologies to make robots and cars, these platforms allow children an entirely new array of expressive possibilities, since the toolkits are composed of much more flexible and customizable parts. Projects such as interactive art, ““animals”” with realistic motion, sensor-enabled prototypes, scientific inquiry apparatus, and electronics sketchbooks are made possible and technically more approachable. 3) More flexible programming modes: traditional programming for computational tangibles has been based on text or block-based coding. The new platforms presented in the symposium enable for much more diverse modes of programming. Students can use ““smart parts”” that can remember motion (thus children can program a creature by example), physical smart blocks which can be combined together to create a program, or real-world sensor data for code optimization. These three novel directions, as the individual papers will discuss, could point to a new age in the use of computational manipulatives for learning. Some of these technologies have already been tested in schools or afterschool environments, but we believe that their collective presence in a symposium will enable researchers to have a more comprehensive view of where the field is going, and allow for rich discussions within the research community. In the symposium, authors will talk about their latest designs and research findings, and also do demonstrations of the actual devices and technologies. Abstracts of Panel Participants Topobo: programming by example to create complex behaviors Hayes Raffles of Panel Participants Topobo: programming by example to create complex behaviors Hayes Raffle Topobo is a 3D constructive assembly system embedded with kinetic memory——the ability to record and playback physical motion. Unique among modeling systems is Topobo’’s coincident physical input and output behaviors. By snapping together a combination of passive (static) and active (motorized) components, users can quickly assemble dynamic biomorphic forms like animals and skeletons with Topobo, animate those forms by pushing, pulling, and twisting them, and observe the system repeatedly play back those motions. For example, a dog can be constructed and then taught to gesture and walk by twisting its body and legs. The dog will then repeat those movements and walk repeatedly. Figure 1. A Topobo Moose (left): to program motions, you just manipulate the toy; and Topobo pieces (right). Topobo is a class of tools that helps people transition from simple-but-intuitive exploration to abstract-andflexible exploration. The system is designed to facilitate cognitive transitions between different representations of ideas, and between different tools. A modular design approach, as well as an inherent grammar, helps people make such transitions. With Topobo, children use enactive knowledge, e.g. knowing how to walk, as the intellectual basis to understand a scientific domain, e.g. engineering and robot locomotion. Queens, Backpacks, Remix and Robo add various abstractions to the system, and extend the tangible interface. Children use Topobo to transition from handson knowledge to theories that can be tested and reformulated, employing a combination of enactive, iconic and symbolic representations of ideas. In the past, systems for children to model behavior have been either intuitive-but-simple, (e.g. curlybot, Frei, 2000) or complex-but-abstract (e.g. LEGO Mindstorms). In order to develop a system that supports a user’’s transition from intuitive-but-simple constructions to constructions that are complex-but-abstract, I draw upon constructivist educational theories, particularly Bruner’’s theories of how learning progresses through enactive then iconic and then symbolic representations. Bruner (2004), after Piaget (1976, Cole & Cole, 2001), described a sequence of stages all people seem to progress through as they represent and acquire knowledge, moving from enactive, to iconic to symbolic representations of knowledge (Figure 2). Bruner’’s framework suggests that certain ideas can be made even more accessible, and at a younger age, if they can be grasped and manipulated physically. In this work, I show how tangible programming and interaction can provide an enactive mode of interacting with computers, where tangibles provide a bridge from computers’’ iconic and symbolic representations to enactive ones, and allow for more intuitive expression and access to certain ideas. My hypothesis is that physical, and especially spatial or 3D problems, are best approached first in the tangible domain, where simple behaviors can be prototyped and manipulated tangibly. Figure 2. Sequence of stages of representation and acquisition of knowledge In presenting the design and development of Topobo, I will talk about how more than 100,000 children have used the system through workshops and outreach, and how commercialization of the technology is putting tangibles for learning into young children’s hands worldwide, helping them to climb a mountain of ideas about technology, robotics and the natural world.