Thinkering Space, an Experiment in Exploratory Learning

Multimodal technologies are creating new experiential opportunities for exploring, tinkering, learning and interacting in the virtual world. Once combined with sensorial objects and open-ended activities in the physical world, they introduce a new genre of interactive environments called ThinkeringSpace. ThinkeringSpace is a hybrid system - made of networked and remotely accessible physical environments - that seeks to bring school-age children together to collaborate face-to-face and tinker with things, both physical and virtual, reflect upon what they do and discover, and elaborate their ideas in ways they can share with others. This article gives an overview of the ThinkeringSpace system and introduces some of the major concepts and interaction frameworks that have grounded its ongoing development.