- LEarninG and tHinkinG witH tHinGs (^) | 123
know my 1 ’s. so i move over 37 single beads. now, you have 37 and i
have 37 , and maybe in a traditional learning environment we will both
go to the next lesson. but should we?
By observing how a student arrives at an answer, by monitoring move-
ments of the mouse and what students “drag” over, the system can
determine if someone has truly mastered the skill(s) needed to move
on. This is certainly an inspiring example of adaptive learning, and a
step forward toward the holy grail of personalized learning. But, it was
the two words that followed that I found jarring: she described this
online learning program, using a representation of the familiar count-
ing beads, as virtual manipulatives. Isn’t the point of a manipulative
that it is tangible? What is a virtual manipulative then, other than an
oxymoron?
But this did spark an idea: what if we could take the tangible count-
ing beads, the same kind kids have been playing with for decades, and
endow them with the adaptive learning properties Woolley-Wilson
describes? How much better might this be for facilitating understand-
ing? And, with the increasing ubiquity of cheap technology (such as
RFID tags and the like), is this concept really that far off? Imagine get-
ting all the sensory (and cognitive) benefits of tangible objects, and all
the intelligence that comes with “smart” objects.
EMBODIED LEARNING
You might wonder, “Why should we care about tangible computing?”
Isn’t interacting with our fingers or through devices such as a mouse or
touchscreens sufficient? In a world constrained by costs and resources,
isn’t it preferable to ship interactive software (instead of interactive
hardware), that can be easily replicated and doesn’t take up physical
space? If you look at how media has shifted from vinyl records to cas-
sette tapes to compact discs and finally digital files, isn’t this the direc-
tion in which everything is headed?
Where learning and understanding is required, I’d argue no. And, a
definite no wherever young children are involved. Piaget established
four stages of learning (sensorimotor, pre-operational, concrete oper-
ational, and formal operational), and argued that children “learn best
from concrete [sensorimotor] activities.” This work was preceded by
American psychologist and philosopher John Dewey, who empha-
sized firsthand learning experiences. Other child psychologists such
nandana
(Nandana)
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