Original post: http://beyondbitsandatomsblog.stanford.edu/spring2011/2011/05/12/geographix-a-slate-toolkit/
Geographix is a tangible toolkit designed to teach children geography. The pieces are made out of colored acrylic. We chose the South Africa region because the pieces are fairly regular in size, which is necessary when using the Slate backings. This region also works well for puzzle solving because the country borders are not straight lines (unlike in the US). This provides a scaffolding for learning what each country looks like on a map, because each country has a clearly unique shape. It also helps children learn where countries are positioned in relation to each other. We added the name of each country in each vinyl to the acrylic piece, which provides more scaffolding because this way they can realize which way is up, and can also connect the country name with the shape.
We prototyped our design in cardboard, which made us realize that our pieces were too small; Zimbabwe was not wide enough to encompass of the backing. We then enlarged our design by 150% and cut the pieces using the laser cutter.
Our toolkit is suited to Slate’s vertical surface because it mimics real maps, which are traditionally displayed on walls instead of desks, and they are drawn so up and down correspond to north and south. In addition, it is easier to collaborate on puzzle solving when the pieces are mounted vertically. Finally, it’s easier to track your progress because you can stand back from the surface and still see the whole thing.
When people feel puzzle pieces, they will gain an appreciation for each country’s distinctive shape. For example, Namibia has a distinctive “dongle” on its northeastern border.
There were a few resources missing from Slate. There were no easily programmable objects, nor were we able to make relationships between objects. For example, we originally wanted to make a simulation of a plant growing, where the tangible parts of the toolkit included a watering can, clouds, fertilizer, etc. We soon realized there was no way to make a virtual plant grow, nor was there a way to make that virtual plant react to the watering can. We also felt limited by the criterion of vertical affordance: apart from physics simulations that require gravity, there is very little that is distinctive about a vertical surface. The vertical surface worked well for Mechanix, but limited our create options when designing a toolkit meant to work with Slate.
If we had more time, we would like to add extensions to Geographix. Our challenge mode would be a timed mode, to see how fast you can put together the puzzle pieces. Another challenge possibility is to add additional, fake country pieces to the set. Children would have to sift out the fake pieces from the real pieces to put together the puzzle. For our free play mode, we would like to create a custom background that has the outline of the African continent, as well as blue for the Atlantic and Indian Oceans, as further educational scaffolding. Lastly, we’d like to add support for a 2-player mode. This mode would include pieces for 2 continents, and each player would receive a random assortment of country pieces, some from each continent. The two players would have to work together to fit their pieces in with their partner’s.
No comments:
Post a Comment