Digital Manipulatives: New Toys to Think With

In many educationalsettings,manipulative materials(such as CuisenaireRods andPatternBlocks) play an important role in children’s learning, enabling children to explore mathematicaland scientific concepts(suchasnumberand shape)through directmanipulation of physical objects.Our group at de MJT Media Lab has developed a new generation of “digital manipulatives”-computationallyenhancedversionsof traditional children’s toys.Thesenew manipulatives enable children to explore a new set of concepts(imparticular,“systemsconcepts”suchasfeedback and emergence)that havepreviously beenconsidered“too advanced”for children to learn. In this paper,we discuss four of our digital manipulatives-computationallyaugmentedversionsof blocks,beads,balls,andbadges. Keywords Bducation,learning, children,ubiquitouscomputing

• Type: Conference
• Year: 1998
• Where: CHI
• Authors: Mitchel Resnick, Fred Martin, Robert Berg, Richard Borovoy, Vanessa Colella, Kwin Kramer, Brian Silverman
• Keywords: CHI 1998, Human Computer Interaction, Manipulatives Enable Children, MJT Media Lab, Physical Objects.Our Group