Education Law

New kid on the blocks

Old-school wood blocks

As Ars Technica notes, blocks are often a child’s first toy, and stacking those blocks is one of our earliest forms of play. But something new is just over the horizon. What if those old wood blocks could be more? Well, MIT graduate student David Merill has reenvisioned the block. He wants them to think and play back. He calls these 21st century blocks “Siftables.”

What are Siftables?

According to Merrill, Siftables are cookie-sized computers with motion sensing, neighbor detection, graphical display, and wireless communication. They act in concert to form a single interface: users physically manipulate them?piling, grouping, sorting?to interact with digital information and media.

Merrill demonstrated just what Siftables can do at a TED presentation last month. Each block is a bundle of rather impressive technology: a 3-axis accelometor that allows for gesture-based control and an OLED touchscreen that allows direct user input. They also have four infrared communication modules?one in each direction in the horizontal plane?and a Bluetooth radio.  “They can talk to each other side-to-side, or to a computer or other Bluetooth-enabled device,” he explained. Developed in MIT’s Media Lab, the blocks communicate based on proximity, meaning their function can change based on their spatial relationship with one another. Merrill says this type of physical UI is better suited to the way the brain works, which makes it more intuitive.

During his presentation, Merrill shows off a number of applications for the device, including language, math, and logic games for kids. The video shows a music sequencer application toward that was impressive despite its brevity. BoardBuzz is left wondering how such devices could be applied to education. Oh, the possibilities…

“The technology was developed as a new, general-purpose platform for tangible human-computer interaction,” Merill told Ars. “We have a lot of ideas for more serious apps in addition to the fun/playful/educational applications that I showed in my TED talk. However, as you noticed, the simple and playful applications seem to be the most powerful examples of what makes Siftables great.”

The Siftables concept draws a strong reaction in everyone who watches the demo. You can see the moment when the crowd finally “gets it” in the video below. David Merill invites interested parties to sign up for updates at Siftables.com. Siftables have yet to be finalized, but BoardBuzz is interested to see what the future holds for the new 21st century block.

Full post as published by BoardBuzz: NSBA's Daily Weblog on March 17, 2009 (boomark / email).