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Learning for Treasure

Project: Learning for Treasure
Project team: Jackie Colarusso, Garrett Scheffler, Ricky Willems
Class: PDI Studio V (Fall 2009)

Objective: Students will learn how to design educational technologies using:

1. The social aspects of design: ethnographic techniques of data gathering, social dimensions of technology, the social background of users, and participatory design.
2. Information technology: microcontrollers and software that can mediate between different sensory modalities, different motor behaviors, analog and symbolic representations, and so and virtual and physical worlds.
3. Theories of cognition and learning: scaffolding, zone of proximal development, embodied thinking, distributed cognition, ethnomathematics, etc.

All fieldwork will be conducted with the 5th and 6th grade classes at Ark Community Charter School, 762 River Street, Troy, NY.

Project summary:
Our project is a teaching device that utilizes a Flash and a physical machine to reinforce previous knowledge and teach new concepts pertaining to the Cartesian Coordinate system. Using a pirate theme, students will search for buried treasure in a "game" that will provide them with puzzles to give them a better understanding of basic coordinates.

Teaching Goal and Components

Students will learn the basics of Cartesian coordinates through using relative or absolute points. The game will incorporate basic geography, as well as a chance to discover new things on their own. The game will use flash to control the physical component, which is powered by motors to move to an exact predetermined location and use an electromagnet to search for treasure.

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© Copyright 2007
Tiffany Hu
Product Design and Innovation 2011