July/August 2019 — A Touch of Tech: Learning With Tangible Devices
Parents, teachers, and anyone who’s been around children know that kids really like to be hands-on. All the time.
Touching and manipulating things, or “tinkering,” is how kids learn naturally. Tinkering has come to the forefront of educational psychology research, whether it’s crafting with art supplies, engineering a miniature bridge, or building LEGO masterpieces. Open-ended learning experiences—as opposed to linear tasks, with only one solution start-to-finish — are the best way for kids to improve their skills in creative thinking, trial and error, and just plain “figuring things out.” Tinkering lets them take risks, solve problems, and perhaps most importantly, have fun.
My mother loves to recall my first day at Merryhaven Montessori, the elementary school I attended through the sixth grade. I recall her asking, “What did you learn today?” I also remember noticing her curiosity at my response: “I didn’t learn anything — we just played!”
- Stephen P. Anderson, “Designing for the Internet of Things”
Technology is an excellent tool for tinkering and play, and can take open-ended learning to the next level — if it’s used correctly.
When we talk about touch screens and “tangible devices,” the first thing that comes to mind is probably iPads, tablets, smartphones, and computers that suck kids in with their flashing colors, fast-paced games, and immersive virtual worlds. But tangible devices can be an amazing tool in education if we avoid those rapid-fire dopamine spikes, creating a playful environment instead of an addicting, even anti-social one.
Educational games can be a great way to encourage “tinkering” in an imaginative, risk-free environment.
Take Minecraft, for example. Open-world games like the Minecraft “sandbox” let kids make their own rules, set their own goals, and direct their own miniature “project.” Minecraft can be tailored to many different kinds of curriculum that are based in tinkering, and it’s a great platform for a classroom approach called Project-Based Learning—building a tiny house, designing a zoo, planting a pollinator garden, and more. (Read more on the importance of Project-Based Learning in our June 2019 newsletter!)
This kind of digital tinkering removes all of the physical limits involved with building blocks and art supplies. Kids can explore quickly, lift astronomically huge objects, and be as adventurous and risky as they want.
However, games like Minecraft are not literally “hands-on,” like real-life tinkering. Kids lose the sensory learning that comes with feeling and handling different physical materials. So how can educators combine the risk-free, adventurous part of digital tinkering with the personal, tactile experience of real-life tinkering?
This is where the Curio Classroom comes in. Inspired in part by the philosophy of the MIT Tangible Media Group, Curio aims to combine the physical and digital world into one magical experience. With tangible devices like Curio’s “magic lens,” teachers can create a lesson that lets technology enrich the students’ tinkering experience, but without sacrificing the “touching and feeling” part.
Kids often get sucked into technology because the world is entirely contained within their computer. But by using “enchanted” objects, we can bridge the gap between the student and the computer, bringing that magical, fascinating science out into the real world.
Curio’s philosophy is that the tangible interface, instead of being a touch screen, starts with colored pencils, crayons, or paints. The kids create something with their hands, and then use playful scientific instruments — in this case, the magic lens — to interact with their creation. There’s very little need to rely on a touch screen, to tap this, or to click that.
Tangible user interfaces are making a big splash in educational technology, and not just at MIT. At Project Bloks, programmers developed a set of electronic blocks and pucks that, when connected to each other, would send instructions to devices. The pucks were basically a series of buttons that told a device to do things like switch on or off, move left, jump, or play music. By connecting the pucks to electronic boards, the whole system could be used to build your own circuit, compose music, or even control a painting robot.
Another company, Squishy Circuits, combines small motors and buzzers with the age-old favorite: play dough. Kids can learn the basics of electrical circuits, which they can then use to build their own battery-powered squishy creature or contraption that can spin, buzz, or flash its LED eyeballs.
Even electronic instruments could be considered “enchanted” devices. An electric flute, for example, is the mediator between the real-life physical world (your breath) and the digital world (the endless array of sounds that can be generated by a computer).
In settings like these, the technological aspect melts away. In science, enchanted devices can make us forget that we’re using digital tools, taking us back to our tactile roots. In fact, during demonstrations of Curio’s tools at the Pacific Science Center, the classic reaction is for educators to automatically pick up the “magic lens” and try to look through it as if it were a magnifying glass. With a solely on-screen experience, this connection to classic, hands-on tools is lost. Curio is planning a number of other enchanted devices for this very purpose, including meters, gauges, and probes.
These devices are the portals between simple, hands-on scientific exploration and the magical world we can create on a screen. They allow that world to come out from behind the glass.
References:
George Lucas Educational Foundation: “Learning by Tinkering.”
Microsoft: “Minecraft: Education Edition.”
MIT Media Lab: “Tangible Media Group.”
O’Reilly Design Library. Designing for the Internet of Things, O’Reilly Media, Inc., 2015.
