I have always found TED a valuable resource for new ideas and inspirations. So it was no surprise that I was inspired when I saw this video in 2009. The following is a clip of David Merril, an MIT grad student who helped to create tiny computerized cubes that can be stacked, shuffled and played with in your hands.
Immediately I was inspired by the possibilities of the interactive cubes and envisioned them in the hands of students in the classroom. The demonstration showed rather intuitive electronic cubes that interacted wirelessly with a computer, in addition to interacting with the other cubes. I was excited to see the way kids interacted with the cubes in the demo, and I found the Sifteo website to sign up for more information.
At the same time, my school principal and I had been looking for tools to be part of an creativity and innovation lab in our school. We both thought it would be worth trying the cubes, and we signed up to purchase them when they became available. We ordered a set of 6 cubes, and they arrived at the end of last year.
Initially the software offerings were not much, and some of the games cost money to purchase in addition to several free games that came with the software. We decided to wait until the fall to roll these out with students, but we struggled to find how we could introduce them to a classroom. However, one of the recent changes to the Sifteo software was the addition the Creative Kit, which allows users to create their own activities. While Sifteo offered the software SDK to users to create and submit games, the offering of the Creative Kit allows for teachers to customize their activities, as well as offering an opportunity for differentiation.
At this time, the Creative Kit is limited to mostly sorting activities, but there is a lot of potential to this concept. First and second grade teachers in our building are excited at the potential of using these cubes for an independent student center.
We brought in several 2nd graders after school to act as a focus group. The kids were excited to play with the new tool, and worked together to figure out how to use them with limited instruction. We designed two different levels of spelling activities for the students, and we were concerned how having a small group of students would work together on the activity. Would we have to instruct students on switching the person who is using the cubes? Surprisingly, the students worked well together sharing the cubes and working cooperatively.
One thing that I found especially interesting was when the fact that we had the answer sheet sitting on the table during the activity. Because we were using a random list of 2nd grade words, we were concerned that they wouldn’t know the all the words, so we allowed them to check the answer sheet if necessary. One of the girls picked up the sheet, checked her answer, and quickly turned the paper over. I asked her why she turned it over and she said, “I wanted to challenge myself”. I thought that comment exemplified how the students took to the cubes; they wanted the challenge. They wanted to not only learn how to use the cubes, but they wanted to excel at the lessons.
This type of student motivation and engagement were enough to convince to teacher to roll these out in their classrooms after winter break as a student center.
While I have seen Sifteo marketed as a toys and educational tools, I feel like as the software evolves these can become a very powerful tool for students. One feature that has not yet been included but was shown in the initial video was using the Sifteo cubes to control objects and elements on the computer. For example, they showed a child interacting with a virtual story where the cubes represented different story elements. This could be an exciting feature for educational purposes for a wide range of our students.
This is a very encouraging product, but it still has a long way to go before it can become a ubiquitous tool in our schools.
