In many educational settings, manipulative materials (such as Cuisenaire Rods and Pattern Blocks) play an important role in children’s learning, enabling children to explore mathematical and scientific concepts (such as number and shape) through direct manipulation of physical objects. Our group at de MJT Media Lab has developed a new generation of “digital manipulatives”-computationallyenhanced versions of traditional children’s toys. These new manipulatives enable children to explore a new set of concepts (im particular, “systems concepts ” such as feedback and emergence) that have previously been considered “too advanced ” for children to learn. In this paper, we discuss four of our digital manipulatives-computationallyaugmented versions of blocks, beads, balls, and badges.

... methodology for the automatic design of robotic controllers. EE is an evolutionary robotics (ER) technique that avoids the pitfalls of the simulate-and-transfer method, allows the speed-up of evaluation time by utilizing parallelism, and is particularly suited to future work on multi-agent behaviors. In EE, an evolutionary algorithm is distributed amongst and embodied within a population of physical robots that reproduce with one another while situated in the task environment. We have built a population of eight robots and successfully implemented our first experiments. The controllers evolved by EE compare favorably to hand-designed solutions for a simple task. We detail our methodology, report our initial results, and discuss the application of EE to more advanced and distributed robotics tasks.

We introduce Embodied Evolution (EE) as a new methodology for evolutionary robotics (ER). EE uses a population of physical robots that autonomously reproduce with one another while situated in their task environment. This constitutes a fully distributed evolutionary algorithm embodied in physical robots. Several issues identified by researchers in the evolutionary robotics community as problematic for the development of ER are alleviated by the use of a large number of robots being evaluated in parallel. Particularly, EE avoids the pitfalls of the simulate-and-transfer method and allows the speed-up of evaluation time by utilizing parallelism. The more novel features of EE are that the evolutionary algorithm is entirely decentralized, which makes it inherently scalable to large numbers of robots, and that it uses many robots in a shared task environment, which makes it an interesting platform for future work in collective robotics and Artificial Life. We have built a population of eight robots and successfully implemented the first example of Embodied Evolution by designing a fully decentralized, asynchronous evolutionary algorithm. Controllers evolved by EE outperform a hand-designed controller in a simple application. We introduce our approach and its motivations, detail our implementation and initial results, and discuss the advantages and limitations of EE. © 2002 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.

When does something stop being a machine and become a creature?

: As computers are increasingly woven into the fabric of everyday life, interaction design may have to change -- from creating only fast and efficient tools to be used during a limited time in specific situations, to creating technology that surrounds us and therefore is a part of our activities for long periods of time. We present slow technology: a design agenda for technology aimed at reflection and moments of mental rest rather than efficiency in performance. The aim of this paper is to develop a design philosophy for slow technology, to discuss general design principles and to revisit some basic issues in interaction design from a more philosophical point of view. We discuss examples of soniture and informative art as instances of slow technology and as examples of how the design principles can be applied in practice. Keywords: Design; Human-computer interaction; Informative art; Slow technology; Soniture; Ubiquitous computing 1.

We introduce Embodied Evolution (EE), a new methodology for conducting evolutionary robotics (ER). Embodied evolution uses a population of physical robots that evolve by reproducing with one another in the task environment. EE addresses several issues identified by researchers in the evolutionary robotics community as problematic for the development of ER. We review results from our first experiments and discuss the advantages and limitations of the EE methodology.

The use of the computer as a model, metaphor, and modelling tool has tended to privilege the ‘cognitive ’ over the ‘affective ’ by engendering theories in which thinking and learning are viewed as information processing and affect is ignored or marginalised. In the last decade there has been an accelerated flow of findings in multiple disciplines supporting a view of affect as complexly intertwined with cognition in guiding rational behaviour, memory retrieval, decision-making, creativity, and more. It is time to redress the imbalance by developing theories and technologies in which affect and cognition are appropriately integrated with one another. This paper describes work in that direction at the MIT Media Lab and projects a large perspective of new research in which computer technology is used to redress the imbalance that was caused (or, at least, accentuated) by the computer itself. 1. Vision The last half-century of technological acceleration has yielded a massive incursion of digital technology into the learning environment, making dramatic differences, and promising even greater changes, to the practice of learning. Computers have served as tools to aid in learning at all levels from simple classroom activities to the way theorists think about thinking. The field of artificial intelligence, with emphasis on ideas such

We live in a society where concepts of self, community and "what is right and wrong " are constantly changing. This makes it particularly challenging for young people to construct a sense of self and to identify their most cherished values. Therefore, there is an amounting pressure in schools and society to create learning environments to explore these issues. Two research questions are at the heart of the work presented in this paper: What kind of learning environment will afford opportunities for young people to naturally engage in reflection and discussion about issues of identity, in particular personal and moral values? And, how can technologies have an impact on character and moral education? I propose identity construction environments as technological tools purposefully designed with the goal of supporting young people in the exploration of these issues. I first describe the design principles that distinguish these environments from other learning technologies. I also specify the learning experiences they do afford _ namely the understanding of identity as a complex construction composed by different elements, including personal and moral values. Then I present the conceptual foundations and implementation of the Zora identity

In this paper we argue that it is important to introduce liberal arts students to the essence of engineering. Toward this end we have developed Robotic Design Studio, a course where students learn how to design, assemble, and program robots made out of LEGO

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