For millennia people have wondered what makes the living different from the non-living. Beginning in the mid-1980s, artificial life has studied living systems using a synthetic approach: build life in order to understand it better, be it by means of software, hardware, or wetware. This review provides a summary of the advances that led to the development of artificial life, its current research topics, and open problems and opportunities. We classify artificial life research into 14 themes: origins of life, autonomy, self-organization, adaptation (including evolution, development, and learning), ecology, artificial societies, behavior, computational biology, artificial chemistries, information, living technology, art, and philosophy. Being interdisciplinary, artificial life seems to be losing its boundaries and merging with other fields. Relevance: Artificial life has contributed to philosophy of biology and of cognitive science, thus making it an important field related to constructivism.

Open peer commentary on the article “Creativity in Solving Short Tasks for Learning Computational Thinking” by Valentina Dagienė, Gerald Futschek & Gabrielė Stupurienė. Abstract: Computational thinking (CT) skills are nowadays strongly advocated for educational institutions at all levels. CT refers broadly to skills of thinking about the world from a computational perspective, however, not necessarily referring to programming skills in particular. There is still a lack of consensus about what CT means, and how CT should be taught. This open peer commentary briefly discusses some ongoing trends of CT in response to the target article, which reports development, field testing and piloting of an extensive set of new learning materials for teaching CT. Recent calls for interdisciplinary technology education, creativity and open-ended problem solving in CT are highlighted.

This paper reviews Constructivism and the sources of its influence over Israeli educational discourse. Then, it describes examples of Constructivists projects in the teaching of sciences and technology in Israel (Sela, Media Plus), as well as a project that is based on the Constructivist approach to teaching (Together), and several Constructivist experimental schools, followed by a summary of the obstacles to the implementation of such projects. Next, it stresses two basic flaws in the Constructivist view and introduces a post-constructivist educational paradigm, the Autonomy Oriented Education (AOE), which uses ‘reflection on experiments in living’ as its major tool and aims to enable the development of autonomous, belonging and moral individuals.

Key words: constructivism, learning, postmodernity, autonomy, motivation, rationalism, relativism, education.

Constructivist teaching is based on constructivist learning theory. This theoretical framework is based on the belief that learning occurs through what a student already knows; this prior knowledge is called a schema. Because all learning should pass through the filter of the pre-existing schemata, constructivists suggest that learning is best accomplished when a student gets actively engaged in the learning process rather than attempting to receive knowledge passively with the teacher avoiding most direct instruction and attempting to lead the student through questions and activities to discover, discuss, appreciate and verbalize the new knowledge (Richards et.al., 2001). Technology is increasingly gaining attention of those who are obsessed with improving teaching and learning. In this research attempts has been made to describe and analyze elementary teachers’ perceptions of using technology as a means for implementing classroom constructivist activities. Doing this, private schools were chosen were every classroom was equipped with a PC for the teacher as well as students. The PCs were networked so that all students could interact with the teacher and other students independently or as a group. Data was gathered through questionnaires from both teachers and students. Findings of the study show that teachers intend to look at the technology provided as an effective tools for developing constructivist practices and for gaining students’ interest. Students are given free rein to be in charge of learning experiences. This method initiates an active and positive learning environment that is technology based, including teamwork while maintaining independence where necessary, which is safe and avoids the anti-motivation effects of being judged. The results show that teachers reported an increase of test scores.

Key words: constructivist education, leadership, technology in education, technology integration

The paper recalls some skeptical comments Norbert Wiener made regarding the potential use of cybernetics in social sciences. A few social scientists were seduced by cybernetics from the beginning, but cybernetics never really caught on in sociology. The paper argues that one reason for this may lie in the mathematical theory of communication entertained by early cybernetics. This theory which maintains that there are probability distributions of possible communication is at odds with the sociological theory’s idea of a communication driven by improbable understanding. Yet the move from first-order cybernetics to second-order cybernetics, by re-entering the observer into the very systems she observes, provides for a bridge between cybernetics and sociology.

Key words: Communication, culture, cybernetics, double closure, observer, sociology, technology, understanding

Discusses the correspondence between constructivist design and the creation of multimedia projects. Argues that if students and teachers are exposed to multimedia presentations and are offered opportunities to participate in workshops or classroom activities using multimedia technology, those with interest will use it to demonstrate content area knowledge, generating further interest among faculty and students.

Key words: active learning, constructivism (learning), educational technology, educational theories, multimedia, multimedia materials, student motivation, student projects, technological literacy.

The roles of art, design, and architecture on long-duration human space missions could have deep, significant impact on the functional capabilities of human environments in space, far beyond mere form and aesthetics. Yet, today’s technology-driven paradigm of space design pays limited attention to “soft” disciplines that relate to artistic and designerly modes of operations. This current worldview is governed by engineers and project managers. “Soft” considerations are looked at as nice-to-have add-ons at the end of the project, dependent on resource availability. While sufficient for short missions, this unnecessarily constrained view of artistic and designerly modes must change for long-duration missions, as the crew spends nearly 100% of their time inside a severely limited volume, in virtual isolation. Thus, it becomes necessary for all the systems, usable objects, and artistic artifacts inside the habitat to be connected to the goal of facilitating engaging interactions with the crew. Artifacts – as boundary objects in the intersection of various disciplines – facilitate circular conversations between an observer (crew member) and the environment of the spacecraft, and have many important functions. They provide emotional connections and comfort, promote well-being, support autonomy, help thinking to evolve novel ideas, and aid discovery and entertainment. When designing for experiences and interactions in space, artists, designers, and architects are able to look at artifacts from the perspective of the crew as observers, and imagine a rich set of interactions through various aspects and stages of the spaceflight. As a result, these artifacts support the higher-level needs of the observer, beyond basic physiological, psychological, and safety needs. They are designed for the well-being of the crew members, while sustainably utilizing the habitat volume and resources. In this paper we systematically show how human-centered roles and circular conversations between the observers and their environments can be incorporated into the culture of designing for space travel through the involvement of artists, designers and architects, from an early stage of designing the mission and its elements. This process is inclusive of the people who envision and create the environments and user experiences, and those who experience, use, and evolve them. Making the case about the importance of these considerations may help artists, designers, and architects to reframe the discourse of their contributions to space exploration and, in effect, find a stronger acceptance from the decision makers of a technology-driven human space exploration paradigm.

Key words: design, art, space habitat, human spaceflight, boundary objects, cybernetics.

At a conference last month called Investigating the Mind, held here at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, neuroscientists and Buddhist scholars discussed attention, mental imagery, emotion, and collaborations to test insights gleaned from meditation.

ICT does not have the ability to integrate into the daily life of its users owing to its lack of both consensual communication commands and social skill. The daily use of multiple ICTs imposes dysfunctional communications on its users. This paper highlights the limits and dangers of ICT and focuses on its non-neutral nature. A first-order change is presented in the form of a communications secretary by introducing a top down approach to ICT centered on the end user’s needs. This change is required for humans to take responsibility for their place in the ICT link instead of passively being conditioned by the goals of technology, thus enabling a second-order shift to occur by changing the rules of ICT and hence the system itself.

Key words: ICT, communication, design, interruption, technology

The article presents a history of general systems theory and discusses several of its various aspects. According to the author, the notion of general systems theory first stemmed from the pre-Socratic philosophers, and evolved throughout the ages through different philosophic entities until it was eventually formally structured in the early 1900s. The theory has three main aspects. The first is called “systems science,” or the scientific exploration and theory of systems in various sciences. The second is called “systems technology,” or the problems arising in modern technology and society. The third aspect is called “systems philosophy” and refers to the reorientation of thought and world view.