Siftables – All I can say is “unbelievable”

After catching these references to Siftables in my RSS feeds.
Siftables. New Technology for Learning? by Will Thalheimer
Necessity is the mother of invention by Clive Shepherd
Serious Gaming With Thinking Toys
Siftables: digital information on our terms by Garr Reynolds

I finally watched the video myself. I am absolutely amazed by these things. Making technology small enough and smart enough to be manipulated and rearranged by had and change the way they interact and function is incredible. The functions that were demonstrated, math, word construction, and music generation showed an incredible versatility. The design of the “games” that the testers were playing were simple, effective and engaging.

One question I have is how easily the functions of these tiles can be changed. Are they reprogrammable? Can you change the functions of of a tile, like from a letter to a number tile easily?

Siftables are quite interesting and I look forward to seeing how they are being used in real classrooms and what advances this group continues to make.

Here is the summary of the talk and what Siftables are followed by the video.

David Merrill: Siftables, the toy blocks that think

“MIT grad student David Merrill demos Siftables – cookie-sized, computerized tiles you can stack and shuffle in your hands. These future-toys can do math, play music, and talk to their friends, too. Is this the next thing in hands-on learning?”

Siftables are cookie-sized computers with motion sensing, neighbor detection, graphical display, and wireless communication. They act in concert to form a single interface: users physically manipulate them – piling, grouping, sorting – to interact with digital information and media. Siftables provides a new platform on which to implement tangible, visual and mobile applications.