Hugh Bollinger / Thursday, August 11, 2011

Toys for tots, etc

What kid doesn't like playing with building blocks? The wood cubes with those big letters and numbers are the first exposures we all receive into the worlds of reading, writing, and arithmetic. So it's not surprising that these foundations to knowledge exploration would not have also evolved along with everything else in the digital age. A small company in California-- Sifteo --is changing the building blocks game by introducing toys for what might be called intelligent play. [caption id="attachment_6299" align="aligncenter" width="480" caption="Digital Moon Marbles for education and games (source: Sifteo Corporation)"]

[/caption] The new digital blocks have a small color screen, are interactive with each other, and are clickable. They resulted from communications research at MIT's Media Lab. The cubes won't be available until fall and are expensive-- $150 for 3 --but they open the door to creative learning and playing activities that could become "the next big thing" for more than just tots. WHB

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Tags: digital education digital gaming tables games kids learning Sifteo Corporation toys

Toys for tots, etc

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