EcoRaft Evaluations

Pianos Not Stereos: Creating Computational Construction Kits

Resnick, Mitchel
Bruckman, Amy
Martin, Fred
MIT Media Lab

This paper presents a few interesting and compelling theories about education and how those theories have been used to inform the design of a number of educational tools. The premise of the paper is, which would you rather your child learn to play, the piano or the stereo? The stereo is easy and gets immediate response, but the piano has more expressive range, is more personal, and ultimately more rewarding. The authors then extend this metaphor to computers, arguing, using Papert’s constructionist approach, that we should create computational construction kits that give kids the ability to create things with the computer. They present idea that construction can provide two kids of connections, and construction kits that allow both kinds are more beneficial. Personal connections link activities with users’ previous experiences, making them both more approachable since somewhat familiar and more meaningful. Epistemological connections link together domains of knowledge and encourage new ways of thinking through these connections. The authors present three examples that use these principles. Rather than give specific, low-level details, they describe the basics of each project and how it adheres to these principles.

The first project, Programmable Brick, allows kids to program behaviors into lego models. There is a personal connection, because legos, and toys in general, are part of a child’s everyday culture. There is an epistemological connection because, as the children build the devices, they start to wonder about the differences between animals and machines. For example, one child built a machine that is attracted to light. Using two photo sensors as “eyes,” if it receives more light on the right, it veers to the right, and similarly for the left, much like Braitenberg’s machines. Such feedback mechanisms are usually not taught until university level courses, but by allowing the child to make his own epistemological connections, he was able to figure out the feedback structure on his own.

The second project, StarLogo, deals with developing complex behavior using decentralized models. Rather than developing a single, overarching control structure, control is distributed among many individual elements, as with ant colonies, traffic conditions, market economies, etc. This environment makes a personal connection, because everyone is familiar with such systems, although they may not be familiar with how they work. It also provides epistemological connections by encouraging different types of thinking about behavior. For example, two high school students who developed a traffic simulation discovered that traffic jams do not always come from a centralized cause, such as an accident or broken bridge, but often emerge as the result of distributed behavior. Traditionally, such complex systems are described using differential equations, which are very abstract and deal in aggregate quantities rather than dealing with the individuals. This project makes these complex systems approachable and comprehensible to young children.

The third project, MOOSE crossing, features an online, MUD-like world where children create their own personas and locations. It features basic scripting, so that children have to learn to program in order to describe themselves and the places where they are in the virtual world. This project creates a personal connection because it allows children to describe themselves in terms that are meaningful to them; the environments created ranged from starships to islands resorts. The project also creates epistemological connections, because it integrates computer programming and creative writing. One girl, who reported that she did not like math or other analytical tasks enjoyed programming, because she saw it as just a different type of writing.

One of the key properties of these projects is that they allow for emergent experiences. No matter how much the designer tries, the user will always try to do something that was either not intended or not expected. Environments that allow for a wide range of activities, rather than restricting to a few pre-scripted ones, so that users can construct their own experiences.

I'm not certain how much of this can or does pertain to the EcoRaft project. We should definitely cite some of their ideas about constructionism, but we're not letting the users create anything from scratch or nearly as open-endedly as Papert's ideas would suggest. Maybe we want some way for kids to place seeds, within certain restrictions, so that they feel more ownership in having helped design the look of the forest. Ultimately, these are some cool ideas, but I'm not sure we'll incorporate them much in this project.

posted by Jystar @ 11:54 AM