Cognitive Constructivism:
Construction Kits/SimulationsCognitive Constructivism:
Construction Kits/Simulations*Content adapted from Wilson, B. (1995). "Metaphors for instruction: Why we talk about learning environments." Educational Technology, 35(5), 25-30. (http://carbon.cudenver.edu/~bwilson/wils95)
Perkins (1993) defines phenomenaria as "areas" for presenting, observing, and manipulating phenomena (such as aquariums, physics microworlds, etc.) The key idea is that aspects of the world are brought and made available to student inspection and exploration. Some researchers argue that phenomenaria are roughly parallel to instructional simulations. Perkins's term emphasizes the instructional nature of the simulation in contrast to non-instructional simulations intended for scientific or technical purposes.
Construction kits are similar to phenomenaria, except they are less tied to natural phenomena. Construction kits are packaged collections of content components for assembly and manipulation but unlike phenomenaria, they may have no clear counterpart in the "real" world. Examples include Legos, learning logs, math-manipulation software such as the Geometric Supposer, or authoring tools such as HyperStudio (http://www.hyperstudio.com/).
The sections below explain several popular types of construction kits/simulations. The explanations are, however, very brief. You may want to explore the links in each section that take you to examples of the different types of software. "Playing" with the software will give you a much better feel for what construction kits/simulations are.
ExamplesCreate, direct and perform your own mystery plays! Developed with the Nationally acclaimed Children's Theatre Company Of Minneapolis, Opening Night from MECC puts kids in charge of a life-like multimedia theater with actors, props, scenes, sound effects, and musical selections. This software kit is packaged with a large collection of content components for assembly and manipulation. The following screen capture is one of the over 100 scenes for users to choose from.
The next screen capture shows two of the over 40 photo-realistic costumed actors for users to choose from. The four portraits at the bottom of the screen allow users to preview and make selection.
The four portraits at the bottom of the following screen allow users to preview and select an action for the actor or actress.
Imaginative structure, backstage tours, and endless possibilities for creativity and learning. And the mystery theme has broad appeal to a wide age range, so kids can enjoy it for years. Users may experiment with different sound effects and light sources. For example, the following screen illustrates the effect of a left spotlight.
As shown on the following screen, the Opening Nights also features backstage tours to users interested in things behind the scene.
This section tells the users the different roles play by people to make a successful play.
The Opening Nights even comes with a illustrated theater glossary. The following screen explains "the acting area" and "actors:.
To try out this demonstration program you must click on openingd.exe in the programs/open/ subdirectory on ET-IT CD-ROM through File Manager or Windows Explorer.
Click here to know about download and installation.
SimTown by Maxis (ages 09 to adult) is a software program that lets the users build their own dream town and and then try to administer the town so that it doesn't fall apart or get overrun by disaster. Users can built their town from a colorful variety of houses, businesses, infrastructure resources, and parks. And SimTown is open-ended -- players explore the fun and challenge of town planning as they add homes, business and recreation. This software simulation is packaged with a large collection of content components for assembly and manipulation.
The following is the designer character screen. Each designer can be assigned with a name, a job or school, and some favorite things. The first thing users need to do is pick what kind of person the character to be: a girl, a boy, a woman, or a man. The picture in the following screen show a boy.
The simulated town needs places for people to live -- homes. There are special places and buildings in every town that make it a better community. For example, the town needs a movie theater where people can all go to see movies.
Simulations are not real, but there are many things in SimTown that are like real towns. One of these is that you have to preserve resources and use them wisely. For example, once natural resource supplies are low, designers have to plant some trees and some crops, and raise water level. Eco-villains and disasters can add lot of challenge to the town designer. House-to-Business balance is another important issue. For example, if the business side is too heavy, there will not be enough people in the town to work in the business. Then more houses are needed. This is the natural resources screen.
Additional InformationDuring the past few years, a group of researchers at the Media Laboratory of Massachusetts Institute of Technology has been working on the development of a new generation of construction kits. Whereas first-generation construction kits allowed children to build structures, and second-generation kits allowed them to build mechanisms, our third-generation kits allow children to build behaviors. Children (and adults too!) have used the new construction kits developed by MIT to build a wide assortment of "behaving machines," such as: a robotic creature that "wants" to move toward the light, a hamster cage that keeps track of the movements of its occupant, and a kinetic sculpture that responds to the movements of a person -- or the movements of another machine.
URL: http://el.www.media.mit.edu/groups/el/Papers/mres/BCK/BCK.html
This web page raises the question: "Does skill in using construction kits reflect competence in technology?" Reading the latest Lego Christmas catalogue made my blood pressure rise. The Toy Council has published literature saying toys manufacturers intend to correct the apparent misleading impression that certain toys are for girls and certain toys for boys. However, Lego appear not to have sorted out their own criteria for removing the stereotypes from their products. For example, girls pictured in the catalogue (nine compared with twelve boys) are playing happily with houses and people and ponies and dogs. The boys are shown flying Lego aircraft and watching a Lego train.
URL: http://www.rmplc.co.uk/orgs/asehq/psr2.html
The learning experience section of this web page examines the types of learning experiences made possible by new computational tools. The examples focus on two tools that the author helped develop: LEGO/Logo and StarLogo. LEGO/Logo is a type of creature construction kit. With LEGO/Logo, children can build robotic "creatures" out of LEGO pieces, using not only the LEGO building bricks but also newer LEGO pieces like gears, motors, and sensors. Then, they write computer programs to control the behaviors of the creatures. StarLogo is a massively-parallel programming language, designed especially for nonexpert programmers. With StarLogo, people can write rules for creature-environment interactions.
URL: http://el.www.media.mit.edu/groups/el/Papers/mres/ALife/ALife.html
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