Constructivist learning for special needed children

Project is funded by FCT/MCTES, the Portuguese Science Foundation. Grant no. POCI/CED/62497/2004. Project started in Jun/2005. Finished in Aug/2008.

Research team

• Fernando Lobo
• Hamid Shahbazkia
• Paulo Condado
• Stéphane Norte
• Paulo Guerreiro
• Vítor Vieira

Project summary

Constructivist theories argue that children are much more motivated for learning when they can explore the world that surrounds them in a natural way (Papert, 1980; Papert, 1993; Papert, 1996). As opposed to the traditional learning environments of our society, the constructivist approach provides tools which allow children to build their own knowledge. Children become explorers of knowledge rather than being just receivers (or consumers) of knowledge.

Researchers interested in this topic have been developing various technologies specifically designed for constructivist learning environments. Among them, the Logo programming language invented by Seymour Papert plays an important role as it has bootstrapped a number of interesting research projects. One of them involves the assembly and utilization of a non-commercial version of a programmable brick, the so-called GogoBoard, which has many features similar to the LEGO Mindstorms family of products.

The GogoBoard is a a small and low-cost electronic device that can have sensors and actuators attached to it. Its main design goal is to provide an economical solution so that students in schools around the world can develop projects following the educational theories advocated by Papert (Sipitakiat et. al. 2002; Sipitakiat et. al. 2004).

Is is our strong believe that the constructivist theory and its associated technologies also have an important role for helping special needed people (Condado et. al., 2003). For example, children are able to learn various concepts by giving instructions to a virtual turtle in the Logo programming environment. Likewise, special needed people, especially those with severe physical disabilities, can identify themselves with the turtle to learn and gain a better sense of orientation in the physical world. It is important to mention that according to specialists in the area of cerebral palsy, many children may not have a normal intellectual development precisely due to the lack of exploration caused by their own physical limitations.

In this project we will investigate ways to improve the quality of life of special needed people using a constructivist approach and its associated technologies. Specifically, we will address the following topics.

1. Investigate how devices such as the GogoBoard can be used to create useful artifacts for helping special needed people.
2. Investigate the benefits of a constructivist learning environment for special needed children.
3. Investigate better models of integration for special needed children in the educational system and in society.

References

• Papert, S. (1980). Mindstorms: children, computers, and powerful ideas. New York: Basic Books.
• Papert, S. (1993). The children's machine: rethinking school in the age of the computer. New York: Basic Books.
• Papert, S. (1996). The connected family: Bridging the digital generation gap. Longstreet Press, Inc.
• Sipitakiat, A., Blikstein, P., Cavallo, D. (2002). The GoGo Board: Moving towards highly available computational tools in learning environments. Interactive Computer Aided Learning International Workshop. Carinthia Technology Institute, Villach, Austria.
• Sipitakiat, A., Blikstein, P., Cavallo, D. (2004). GoGo Board: Augmenting Programmable Bricks for Economically Challenged Audiences. In Proceedings of the International Conference of the Learning Sciences. California, USA, pp. 481-488.
• Condado, P., Tomaz, F., Shahbazkia, H., Lobo F.G. (2003). Information and communication technologies for special needed persons: A case study with a student with cerebral paralysis. In Advances in Technology-Based Education: Towards a Knowledge-Based Society, vol. 3, pp. 1470-1474, Badajoz, Spain, December 2003.

Project Publications

2008

• S. Norte and F. G. Lobo. Sudoku Access: A Sudoku Game for People with Motor disabilities. Proceedings of the 10th International ACM Conference on on Computers and Accessibility (ASSETS-2008). In press.
• P. A. Condado and F. G. Lobo. EasyVoice: Breaking Barriers for People with Voice Disabilities. Proceedings of the 11th International Conference on Computers Helping People with Special Needs (ICCHP-2008), Lecture Notes in Computer Science, Vol. 5105, pages 1228-1235. Springer, 2008.
• S. Norte and F. G. Lobo. A Sudoku Game for People with Motor Impairments. Proceedings of the 13th Annual Conference on Innovation and Technology in Computer Science Education(ITiCSE-08), page 319. ACM Press, 2008.

2007

• P. A. Condado and F. G. Lobo. EasyVoice: Integrating Voice Synthesis with Skype. Proceedings of the Ninth International ACM Conference on Computers and Accessibility (ASSETS-2007), pages 235-236. ACM Press, 2007.
• S. Norte and F. G. Lobo. A Virtual Logo Keyboard for People with Motor Disabilities. Proceedings of the 12th Annual Conference on Innovation and Technology in Computer Science Education (ACM ITiCSE 2007), pages 111-115. ACM Press.
• S. Norte, P. A. Condado, and F. G. Lobo. Learning Logo at a High School: Constructionism versus Objectivism. Proceedings of the 11th Eurologo Conference.
• P. Guerreiro, V. Vieira, and F. G. Lobo. Disguised Programming as a Teaching Aid for Students with Special Needs. Proceedings of the 11th Eurologo Conference.

2005

• S. Norte, N. Castilho, P. A. Condado, and F. G. Lobo. GoGoBoard and Logo programming for helping people with disabilities. In Proceedings of the 10th Eurologo Conference, pages 171-178, 2005.

Technical reports

2007

• P. A. Condado and F. G. Lobo. EasyVoice: Integrating voice synthesis with Skype. UAlg-ILab Report No. 200705, UAlg Informatics Laboratory, University of Algarve, Faro, Portugal, 2007. Also as arXiv Report No. 0706.3132. (PDF)
• S. Norte and F. G. Lobo. A Virtual Logo Keyboard for People with Motor Disabilities. UAlg-ILab Report No. 200701, UAlg Informatics Laboratory, University of Algarve, Faro, Portugal, 2007. Also as arXiv Report No. cs.HC/0701199v2. (PDF)
• S. Norte. A Sudoku Game for People with Motor Impairments. ArXiv Report No. 0709.1056v3 (PDF)

2006

• P. A. Condado and F. G. Lobo. Breaking barriers for people with voice disabilities: Combining virtual keyboards with speech synthesizers, and VoIP applications. UAlg-ILab Report No. 200604, UAlg Informatics Laboratory, University of Algarve, Faro, Portugal, 2006. Also as arXiv Report No. cs.CY/0606088 (PDF)
• P. Guerreiro. Desenvolvimento de Ferramentas Construcionistas para o Ensino da Programação em Linguagem Logo. Relatório de projecto de licenciatura em Ensino de Informática, University of Algarve, 2006.
• V. Vieira. Desenvolvimento das Capacidades, de Pessoas Portadoras de Necessidades Cognitivas, com Recurso a Robots LEGO Mindstorms e Ferramentas Construcionistas. Relatório de projecto de licenciatura em Ensino de Informática, University of Algarve, 2006.

Other web pages

Additional information about the work conducted with EasyVoice, Virtual Logo Keyboard, and Sudoku Access, can be found on the following web pages.

• EasyVoice
• Virtual Logo Keyboard
• Sudoku Access