1. TEL it to the People:
Technology Enhanced Learning and the
Making and Hacking Communities
Dr. Brock Craft

4. (Pappert, Minsky, 1969)

11. (www.processing.org)
(scratch.mit.edu)

12. Making & Hacking: recap
 Wireless/Ham radio/“Dxing”
 Electronics + Micros
 Telephony/phreaking
 BBS Culture
 Electronics + robotics
 Internet
 Making + Hacking

13. “Democratizing” learning
w/ tangibles?
 Internet and communication
 Online learning communities of practice +
Making & hacking
 Informal, self-guided
 Sharable learning designs
 “Internet of Things” creates new learning
opportunities

14.  The new potential in using small programmable
object technologies (SPOTs) and robotics
(“physical computing”)…
 ...to support embodied and kinaesthetic learning
 ...examined for the case of secondary
mathematics education
 A 2-month exploratory project to design
hardware and software prototypes, tested in
classrooms for “proof of concept”

15. Project partners:
 Dr. Philip Kent (LKL)
 Dr. Nicolas Van Labeke (LKL, now LSRI)
 2 month duration
 Funded by Becta (RIP)

16. Educational premise
 As children grow learning progresses from
physical (bodily-based) to symbolic
 Presumption is that physical mode is left
behind; can the physical/kinaesthetic contribute
to symbolic conceptual learning?
 As abstract conceptual content increases, the
intellectual distance from physical activity
increases - how to maintain the connections for
learners? This is where the SPOT technology
supports learning

17. A case study in mathematics
(mathematics being a subject whose abstraction is notorious)
 Bodily Interaction with mathematical ideas in
non-Euclidean geometry a sphere
 Problematise concepts that students would
consider obvious and beyond question:
 Are there “straight lines” and “angles” on the
surface of a sphere?
 If so, what do these have to do with the familiar
straight lines and angles of the two-dimensional
plane?

18. Devices and activities
1. Virtual angles
2. Spherical Geometry (great circles and
triangles)
3. DODO (double odometer)
4. Maps and journeys: translations from spherical
to plane geometry

19. Proof of concept trials
 Selected Year 10s in: academy school,
independent school, G&T summer school.
 Trials of 2 to 2.5 hours, 5 to 7 students in group
 Can students use the devices we created?
 Can students engage with the ideas that we
intended? Indications for learning?

20. 1 - Virtual Angles

21. 1 - Virtual Angles

22. 2 – Spherical Geometry

23. 2 – Spherical Geometry

24. 2 – Spherical Geometry

25. “What is a triangle?”
2 – Spherical Geometry

26. 3 – DOubleoDOmeter (DODO)

27. 4 – Maps and journeys

28. Results
 Students can create their own tests and
activities. What other things will they do?
 Teachers can engage with this approach to
learning
 Teachers’ enthusiasm to hack learning designs
and build with small programmable objects
themselves? (Mathematics meets D&T??)
 Where are we with programmables/SPOTs?…

29. Designing tangibles for learning
(www.lkl.ac.uk)

30. Arduino (http://arduino.cc)

31. LilyPadArduino
http://web.media.mit.edu/~leah/LilyPad/

32. Basic Stamp and BoeBots
(www.parallax.com)

33. Phidgets
(www.phidgets.com)

34. mBed
(www.mbed.org)

35. SunSpots
(www.sunspotworld.com)

36. Beagle Board
(http://beagleboard.org/)

37. Bug Labs
(www.buglabs.org)

38. Useful suppliers and resources
 Rapid (www.rapidonline.com)
 RS Components (rswww.com)
 Farnell (uk.farnell.com)
 Sparkfun (www.sparkfun.com)
 Lady Ada (www.ladyada.net)
 Make Magazine (www.makezine.com)
 Instructables (www.instructables.com)

39. Dr. Brock Craft
http://www.brockcraft.com
http:// www.lkl.ac.uk/research/SPOT_ON
http://www.tinkerlondon.com