I, Robot: An Embodied Action Adventure Story of Collaboration, Playing Robot, and Perspective Taking

• In Event: A Framework to Understand the Impact of Technology on Collaborative Learning

Abstract

Advancing technology is changing the way we interact with each other. Mobile handheld devices allow for collaboration at any time, anywhere. Our interest in bringing the affordances of handheld mobile devices into computer programming instruction lead to the development IPRO, a programming environment where students program virtual robots to play soccer against each other. IPRO runs on the iPod Touch, freeing students from being tied to desktop computers while learning to program. The mobility aspect of IPRO offers two main affordances to students: they can easily collaborate with their peers and they can physically enact their programs. We originally focused most of our thought on this second affordance. In IPRO, students can pretend to be their robots and act out their code, which is much like Papert’s concept of “playing turtle” (1980). We hypothesized that playing robot would be helpful to students giving them easy access an egocentric or first person perspective on their program.
In our initial studies with IPRO, we did indeed see that students embody their robots and think about their programs from a first person perspective, but we also saw that the collaboration aspect of IPRO afforded translating to an exocentric or third person perspective. This led us to hypothesize a cycle of translating between first and third person perspectives that can lead to more advanced programs and better computational thinking skills. In this cycle, embodiment helps students access a first person perspective and collaboration affords translation into a third person perspective.
In this paper, we present two case studies: one of a student who can successfully translate between perspectives and one who unsuccessfully translates between perspectives. The first student alternates between first person and third person perspectives when programming. When she embodies her robot, she adopts a first person perspective and moves her body in different directions to test out possible code to add to her program. When she collaborates with her partner, she is able to successfully translate the insight she gained from embodying her robot into a third person perspective leading to a more advanced program.
The second case is of a student who also uses embodiment to access a first person perspective; however, he has difficulty translating from the first person perspective to the third person perspective that he adopts when collaborating with his teammates. There is a mismatch between what he says to his teammates and his gestures and actions. This disconnect results in a faulty program.
As we continue our research with IPRO, we are looking deeper into the ways programming on mobile, handheld devices affords taking different perspectives while programming, and we are further investigating how this impacts students’ programming and computational thinking skills.

Authors

• Carmen Petrick Smith, University of Vermont

• Taylor Martin, Utah State University

• Matthew W. Berland, University of Wisconsin - Madison

• Tom Benton, The University of Texas - Austin