CISE/EHR/ENG/MPS Collaborative Research on Learning Technologies: Beyond Black Boxes: Bring Transparency and Aesthetics Back to Scientific Instruments

点击翻译按钮获取中文摘要

9616444 Resnick, Michael Massachusetts Institute of Technology CISE/EHR/ENG/MPS Collaborative Research Learning Technologies: Beyond Black Boxes: Bringing Transparency and Aesthetics back to Scientific Instruments Massachusetts Institute of Technology has been awarded $880,658 over 3 years for a collaborative project between MIT, Wellesley College and the University of Colorado, to develop computational tools and project materials to allow children to create their own scientific instruments, engaging them in designing and building, as well as in observing, measuring and interpreting. It is hypothesized that more students, like scientists of old, will be motivated to participate in scientific activities, and in addition the design process will help them develop critical capacities for evaluation. The project promises to provide students with deeper understanding of the relationships between science and technology, and between science and the real world. The project will develop a family of tiny, fully programmable computational devices (crickets) that students can embed in everyday objects. Crickets can control motors and lights, receive information from sensors and communicate with one another via infrared light. The technologies will be evaluated in a range of settings, including work with teachers in classrooms and a vocational-technical school. In addition to testing their hypothesis, the PI's will evaluate theoretical learning issues of balance between physical and virtual objects, and between "transparent" and "opaque" objects.