Designing for the Internet of Things

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But there’s more to embodied cognition than simply extending our
thinking space. When learning is embodied, it also engages more of
our senses, creating stronger neural networks in the brain, likely to
increase memory and recall.
Moreover, as we continue to learn about cognition ailments such as
autism, ADHD, or sensory processing disorders, we learn about this
mind-body connection. With autism for example, I’ve heard from par-
ents who told me that learning with tangible objects has been shown to
be much more effective for kids with certain types of autism.
Our brain is a perceptual organ that relies on the body for sensory
input, be it tangible, auditory, visual, spatial, and so on. Nowhere is the
value of working with physical objects more understood than in early
childhood education, where it is common to use “manipulatives”—tan-
gible learning objects—to aid in the transfer of new knowledge.
MANIPULATIVES IN EDUCATION
My mother loves to recall my first day at Merryhaven Montessori, the
elementary school I attended through the sixth grade. I recall her ask-
ing, “What did you learn today?” I also remember noticing her curios-
ity at my response: “I didn’t learn anything—we just played!”
Of course “playing” consisted of tracing sandpaper letters, cutting a
cheese slice into equal parts, and (my favorite) counting beads; I could
count with single beads, rods consisting of 10 beads, the flat squares of
100 beads (or 10 rods, I suppose), and the mammoth of them all: a giant
cube of 1000 beads! (See Figure 5 - 3 .) These “manipulatives” are core to
the Montessori method of education, and all examples—dating back to
the late 1800 s—of learning through tangible interactions. Playing is
learning, and these “technologies” (in the anthropological sense) make
otherwise abstract concepts quite, concrete.
But why is this so?
Jean Piaget, the influential Swiss developmental psychologist, talks
about stages of development, and how learning is—at the earliest
ages—physical (sensorimotor). As babies, we grasp for things and
make sense of the world through our developing senses. At this stage,
we learn through physical interactions with our environment. This
psychological theory, first proposed in the 1960 s, is supported by recent
advances in cognitive neuroscience and theories about the mind and
body.