Children, Humanoid Robots and Caregivers

This paper presents developmental learning on a humanoid robot from human-robot interactions. We consider in particular teaching humanoids as children during the child's Separation and Individuation developmental phase (Mahler, 1979). Cognitive development during this phase is characterized both by the child's dependence on her mother for learning while becoming awareness of her own individuality, and by self-exploration of her physical surroundings. We propose a learning framework for a humanoid robot inspired on such cognitive development

Jim Agard: A Retrospective

The subject of illusion has been at the core of Jim’s work from the get-go. So when he serendipitously met some guy one night who was toying with a bent hanger, insisting Jim entertain him by seeing if he could visually make the wire cube turn inside out, Jim was captivated. Moving from side to side, as instructed, Jim experienced the cube floating on an invisible axis. He went rampant. Up until then, his work had implied illusion rather than created actual illusion. A chance encounter and his discovery of the Necker cube propelled him into what would become the basis of his life’s work. Like when one learns to open one’s eyes underwater for the first time, everything becomes wildly different, just knowing there is a whole other way of seeing. Jim’s work is purely non-objective and formal, yet equally laden with profound conceptual significance. It invites an approach that is lucid and straightforward, while encouraging a willingness to let the focus blur. To hold these views simultaneously. To see and then hyper-see and be willing to not see, and in not seeing, see even more. [excerpt]https://cupola.gettysburg.edu/artcatalogs/1003/thumbnail.jp

Building sustainable learning environments that are ‘fit for the future’ with reference to Egypt

Perhaps there is no building type that has a more significant impact on our lives than the Kindergarten to high School (K-12). We continue to carry the memories of our early learning environments through the residue of our lives. It is the quality of those learning environments that play a crucial role in enhancing or hampering our learning experience. Learning spaces are complex spaces where the collective skills, knowledge, and practices of a culture are taught, shaped, encouraged, and transmitted. Comfortable/safe and creative learning spaces can inspire and motivate users, while ugly/unsafe spaces can oppress. Based on these two attitudes, the aims of this paper are to; firstly, developing Sustainable learning environments (SLE) in the Middle-East countries with reference to Egypt. Secondly, to reviewing and extending the planning and design of the internal, external and landscaping features of a proposed eco-class to collectively pass to the learners for enhancing the quality of learning space and thus education. After the Egyptian Revolution on the 25th of January, 2011 and the hopes and dreams this brings with it, for a major transformation in all life sectors, the Egyptian government needs to recognise the right of children and young people to learn in an environment which is safe, healthy and achieves the highest quality possible. We must all be committed to improving the quality, attractiveness and health of the learning and communal spaces in our schools. Environmental factors have significant effects on pupil and teacher wellbeing. In contrast, poor school and classroom design can affect concentration, creativity and general well-being; in addition, poor quality lighting, ventilation, acoustics and furniture all have a negative effect on student achievement and health. Nowadays, Egypt endure deterioration of education quality as a result of deficient learning spaces, high number of pupils in class, insufficient governmental expenditure and funding, and lack of proper research in education developmental strategies. Therefore, new learning spaces should be able to increase flexibility in order to support hands-on and outside-class learning activities. Furthermore, they intend to encourage extra-curricula activities beyond conventional learning times. Currently, these integral learning-components are crucial for socio-cultural sustainability and positive initiatives towards minimizing recent educational underachievement. Undoubtedly, comfortable, safe and creative learning spaces can inspire and motivate users, while ugly/unsafe spaces can depress. Therefore, well-designed learning spaces are able to support creative, productive and efficient learning processes on one hand. On the other hand, ecological design measures became increasingly major keystone for modern sustainable learning-spaces. Thus, learning-spaces’ design process, form, components, materials, features, and energy-saving technologies can generate well-educated, environmental-literate, energy-conscious, and innovative future-generations. (Continued

Stories with happy endings: Preventing pet dog attacks on children

A number of dog safety resources have been produced as a result of this research. Obtain a copy of the children’s leaflet (about 5-6yrs) in English from https://hdl.handle.net/10289/968. Obtain a copy of the children’s leaflet (about 5-6yrs) in Te Reo Maori from https://hdl.handle.net/10289/975. Obtain a copy of the children’s booklet (about 8-9yrs) in English from https://hdl.handle.net/10289/930. Obtain a copy of the children’s booklet (about 8-9yrs) in Te Reo Maori from https://hdl.handle.net/10289/984. Obtain a copy of the parents’/caregivers’ booklet in English from https://hdl.handle.net/10289/931. The Te Reo Maori version of the parents’/caregivers’ booklet will be available in 2009.This 2007-8 CAPFNZ Summer Research Scholarship had as its objective the identification of valid and reliable guidelines for safe interaction between children and pet dogs in their homes or known to them and their incorporation in a range of age-appropriate educational resources

Types of verbal interaction with instructable robots

An instructable robot is one that accepts instruction in some natural language such as English and uses that instruction to extend its basic repertoire of actions. Such robots are quite different in conception from autonomously intelligent robots, which provide the impetus for much of the research on inference and planning in artificial intelligence. Examined here are the significant problem areas in the design of robots that learn from vebal instruction. Examples are drawn primarily from our earlier work on instructable robots and recent work on the Robotic Aid for the physically disabled. Natural-language understanding by machines is discussed as well as in the possibilities and limits of verbal instruction. The core problem of verbal instruction, namely, how to achieve specific concrete action in the robot in response to commands that express general intentions, is considered, as are two major challenges to instructability: achieving appropriate real-time behavior in the robot, and extending the robot's language capabilities

Literacy and Thinking Tools for Science Teachers

Literacy and thinking tools, such as Venn diagrams, are construction tools for the mind. Just as carpenters use tools to construct a piece of furniture, literate thinkers learning science can use tools to construct new scientific understandings. Like tools used by a carpenter, some literacy and thinking tools are purpose-built for science education; Josephine used a Venn diagram tool because she wanted to compare her pet bird to a bald eagle. Just as a screwdriver is built to slot into the head of a screw and rotate it, you can use literacy and thinking tools for subject- and text-specific purposes. In this chapter, we examine some characteristics of literacy and thinking tools (Whitehead, 2001, 2004). A list of these tools, together with the chapters associ-ated with their use, is provided in Table 2:1

100 ways to make a Japanese house

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content: Scenes of children making dollhouses are something of a leitmotif in Rumer Godden’s celebrated doll stories. Her first children’s novel, The Dolls’ House (1947), has sisters Charlotte and Emily Dane refurbishing a Victorian dollhouse, while in 1956’s The Fairy Doll, the young protagonist Elizabeth fashions a more unassuming home for her doll. Of course, Charlotte, Emily, and Elizabeth are not alone in these pursuits, and Godden is not the only mid-twentieth-century children’s writer to detail them. One of Elinor Brent-Dyer’s Chalet School heroines, Tom Gay, creates many dollhouses in her time at the school, selling these at the end-of-school sales; the first appears in Tom Tackles the Chalet School (serialized in 1947 and 1948 before being released as a single volume in 1955). The Five Dolls series by Helen Clare is likewise full of improvised dollhouse objects and craft activities; in Five Dolls in a House (1953), for example, heroine Elizabeth converts her child-sized blue velvet ribbon into a dolls’ staircase carpet, blithely saying, “we’ll pin it on with drawing-pins as I haven’t any stair rods” (58). However, what is an ancillary, if significant, motif in Brent-Dyer, Clare, and even The Dolls’ House or The Fairy Doll becomes the defining narrative preoccupation in two of Godden’s lesser-known works, her 1961 children’s novel Miss Happiness and Miss Flower and its sequel Little Plum (1963)