The Learning Turtle (Robot)

Turtles can be teachers.

 

UPDATE: Project complete! Check it out here.

 

At Georgetown, I'm exploring a number of things that could be lumped under the heading of educational technologies. I'm trying to get both a broad and deep view of what's out there and what could be integrated into non-educational educational environments to help people develop problem-solving and critical-thinking skills. These things range from scalable and inexpensive tech like video games and simulations that don't require serious processing power to the less accessible world of VR headsets to the principles of human-computer interaction, user interface design, and more.

I'm particularly excited that I get to take a closer look at Seymour Papert's work in education this semester. Papert, among other things, is famous for creating the Logo educational programming language and accompanying floor turtles, which children could use to learn by doing. Much of his work was focused on children, but his ideas have been widely applied and have influenced many, including Alan Kay's Dynabook. 

For the next couple of months, I'll be working with a group to dig into Papert's constructionist theories and see how they're being applied in educational robotics today. If you're curious, I've included my project proposal below.

Big Ideas and Small Revolutions

That time Becky got really interested in stuff that happened at Xerox PARC half a century ago.

I took a class last semester with an intimidating title: Semiotics and Cognitive Technologies. It ended up being a revelation. 

Bear with me for just a moment while I spew some words that might not be familiar. We covered a lot of ground, moving from humans' first use of tools through extended cognition and Engelbart to embodied technologies and artificial intelligence. Along the way, we applied the theories of a really smart, pretty eccentric guy named C. S. Peirce. He operated in the field of semiotics, along with many others, and was set on figuring out a system of signs and symbolic logic that could be applied all forms of human behavior. 

All that basically means we looked at how humans make sense of the world around them. More specifically, we looked at how humans use things that they have created to learn, share memories, and build up the communal store of knowledge for current and future generations. That includes stone axes and beads as well as early computers and virtual reality technology.

The whole class shifted the way I think about the world. But I found myself especially interested in the application of these principles to interface design, particularly the work of Alan Kay at Xerox PARC and his influences. They looked at computing devices not just as tools humans could use to do work, but as partners of a sort in a symbiotic relationship. That was the beginning of personal computing and the drive to create devices with which humans could interact. Machines that could be integrated more seamlessly into normal human life than, say, room-sized computers that performed a series of calculations using punched cards.

More on all this later. For now, though, feel free to take a look at my final project for the class: "Big Ideas and Small Revolutions." It's just a first draft. I plan to work and rework this base as I move through my studies at Georgetown.