Aligning Design of Embodied Interfaces to Learner Goals

Aligning Capabilities of Interactive Educational Tools to Learner Goals Tom Lauwers CMU-RI-TR-10-09 Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Robotics The Robotics Institute Carnegie Mellon University Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania 15213 Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements of the Program for Interdisciplinary Education Research (PIER) Carnegie Mellon University Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania 15213 Thesis Committee: Illah Nourbakhsh, Chair, Carnegie Mellon Robotics Institute Sharon Carver, Carnegie Mellon Psychology Department John Dolan, Carnegie Mellon Robotics Institute, Fred Martin, University of Massachusetts Lowell Computer Science c 2010, Tom Lauwers. ABSTRACT This thesis is about a design process for creating educationally relevant tools. I submit that the key to creating tools that are educationally relevant is to focus on ensuring a high degree of alignment between the designed tool and the broader educational context into which the tool will be integrated. The thesis presents methods and processes for creating a tool that is both well aligned and relevant. The design domain of the thesis is described by a set of tools I refer to as “Configurable Embodied Interfaces”. Configurable embodied interfaces have a number of key features, they: • Can sense their local surroundings through the detection of such environ- mental and physical parameters as light, sound, imagery, device acceleration, etc. • Act on their local environment by outputting sound, light, imagery, motion of the device, etc. • Are configurable in such a way as to link these inputs and outputs in a nearly unlimited number of ways. • Contain active ways for users to either directly create new programs linking input and output, or to easily re-configure them by running different programs on them. • Are user focused; they assume that a human being is manipulating them in some way, through affecting input and observing output of the interface. Spurred by the growth of cheap computation and sensing, a large number of educational programs have been built around use of configurable embodied interfaces in the last three decades. These programs exist in both formal and informal educational settings and are in use from early childhood through adult and community education. Typically, configurable embodied interfaces are used as tools in three major and sometimes overlapping areas: computer Science education, creative and engineering design education, and traditional science and math education. This work details three examples of collaborations between technologists and educators that led to the creation of educationally successful tools; these three examples share a focus on creating a configurable embodied interface to tackle a specific cognitive and affective set of learning goals, but differ completely in the location of the learning environment, the age and interests of the learners, and the nature of the learning goals. Through the exploration of the methods used, an analysis of the general and context-specific features of the design processes of the three 2 ABSTRACT accounts, and a comparison of the process used in this thesis to a conventional engineering design process, this work provides case studies and a set of guidelines that can inform technologists interested in designing educationally relevant embodied interfaces. 3 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I would first and foremost like to thank my thesis advisor, Dr. Illah Nourbakhsh. He has been the ideal advisor for me. Illah is extremely helpful, especially at resolving the inevitable roadblocks that occur during doctoral studies. He encourages his students and staff to maintain a healthy work/life balance, something that as a new father I greatly appreciate. He has been considerate and fully supportive of my personal interests and pursuits (one of which resulted in a chapter in this thesis). On top of all of this he has a moral compass that I try hard to emulate, and a sense of humility that will cause him to reflexively dismiss this entire paragraph. My thesis committee has contributed significantly and substantially to this thesis. I would like to thank Sharon Carver for exposing me to curricular design and alignment through her class, Educational Goals, Instruction, and Assessment, and for offering to meet me with me consistently throughout the thesis process. Fred Martin’s detailed comments, both in writing and during extensive phone conversations, have strengthened the concluding analysis significantly. Thanks as well to John Dolan for a detailed read, catching numerous spelling and grammatical errors, as well as for high-level comments on alignment in both the proposal and thesis that have strengthened my treatment of that subject. I enjoyed the good fortune to work with interdisciplinary teams of engineers, designers, and educators in each of the projects described in the thesis. For the Braille Tutor project, I would like to thank Nidhi Kalra, for initiating the dialogue with teachers at the Mathru school for the blind, thinking of the idea, and, crucially for me, asking me if I would like to help her design the hardware for the project. The project’s growth and funding are attributable to TechBridgeWorld, especially Bernardine Dias, whose management of the project and guidance in how to dis- seminate it have provided me with useful examples to follow, and Sarah Belousov and Ermine Teves, who quickly resolved any day-to-day problems that came up. I’d also like to thank Tom Stepleton and Daniel Dewey, for their work advancing the tutor software, and the many students in TechBridgeWorld internships that have tested the tutor in numerous locales. Lastly and most importantly, I’d like to thank the teachers and students at the Mathru School for the Blind. For Robot Diaries, I would like to thank Emily Hamner and Debbie Bernstein, without whom Robot Diaries would never have begun or been sustained. We have worked together on the project for four years now, and I am glad to be blessed with such good friends and colleagues. I would like to thank Carl DiSalvo for his work in the early years of Robot Diaries and for being the only one of us capable of employing an effective ‘parent’ voice during the workshops. Though her participation in the project was brief, Kristen Stubbs made a permanent impact by helping us formulate the learning goals and curricula for the second round of 4 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Robot Diaries. I thank Chris Bartley for his work on the TeRK software framework and for his heroic efforts to keep the software one week ahead of the girls in the fall 2006 pilot. I would like to thank the teachers who have worked with us during the project, especially Dana Wettergreen and Kim Winbush at PALS, Barb Bianco at Falk, Ann Shoplik and Pam Piskurich at C-MITES, and Christine Nguyen at the Sarah Heinz House. Finally, a major thank you to the Heinz Endowments for supporting the program financially. The CSbots project would not have been possible without the involvement of Don Smith of CCAC, who worked with me to design assignments, and piloted the alpha and Finch robots in his courses for three semesters. Emily Hamner helped with the initial evaluation of CS textbooks and with organizing the high school pilot. It would have been very difficult to organize a two day, thirty teacher workshop without her help. I would like to thank the teachers who participated in CSbots, especially participants of our initial pilot year: Carolyn Stewart, Norm Messa, Di- anne Meskauskas, Mari Hobkirk, and David Opfer. The CSbots project was funded through the Heinz Endowments, the Arthur Vining Davis Foundation, and the Na- tional Science Foundation’s CCLI program. I enjoyed participating in two vibrant communities during my graduate studies at CMU: PIER and the Robotics Institute. The PIER program influenced me in a number of important ways. The courses and ed-bags exposed me to education research that has shaped many of the ideas in this thesis. The program itself funded half of my graduate studies, and by so doing, allowed me to move the scope of my thesis somewhat outside the bounds of a traditional robotics Ph.D. Finally, I’d like to thank members of the community for interesting and topical conversations; Jamie, Ruth, Matt, David, Jack, and many others. The Robotics Institute has been my intellectual home since before I entered the doctoral program. I’d like to thank the many who have made this journey the most enjoyable and stimulating time of my life: Brian, Rachel, Martin, Sanjeev, Marek, Jonathan, Pras, Brad, Dean, Anna, Liz, Alex, Matt, Jean, Karen, Suzanne, Ralph, George, and many others. My parents I thank for providing me with an idyllic childhood and all of the intellectual and moral resources needed to make my own way. I could not have accomplished this without their love and support. My wife Krissie I thank for her understanding, patience, and support, and especially, once again, her patience. No one should have had to listen to so many complaints about writing, and few could have done so and responded in a sympa- thetic way every time. My daughter Lena I thank for being the perfect antidote to the thesis writing blues. 5 DEDICATION For Lena, and all tomorrow’s students. 6 Contents Contents 11 1 Introduction 17 1.1 Definitions of Educational Technology............... 17 1.2 Configurable Embodied Interfaces................. 19 1.3 Thesis Statement and Contributions................ 20 1.3.1 Statement.......................... 21 1.3.2 Contributions........................ 21 1.4 Organization of the Work...................... 21 2 Configurable Embodied Interfaces in Education 23 2.1 Computer Science Education.................... 23 2.1.1 Manual Programming................... 24 2.1.2 Visual and Textual Programming.............. 26 2.2 Creative and Engineering Design.................. 27 2.2.1 Controllers......................... 27 2.2.2 Programs.......................... 29 2.3 Science Education.........................

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