Inspired by the research of Seymour Papert and others at the MIT Media Lab, the LEGO Mindstorms robotics invention system brings constructionism -- an engineer's version of the learning theory of constructivism -- exuberantly to life in your classroom. Papert believes kids learn best by making things, and students can use this kit to build a robot in a number of different configurations with motors, touch sensors, and light sensors. To make the robot act independently and respond to its environment, students write simple computer programs and download them to the robot's brain by means of a wireless infrared link. The enchanting results -- such as a robot programmed to be afraid of the dark, or a robot that plays sports -- can make R2D2 and C3PO look bland by comparison. Robolab, a special school version of Mindstorms, is available for $325. Everyone forgets passwords, but now there's help. Digital Persona's U.are.U fingerprint recognition system allows you to protect sensitive documents -- such as student records -- wthout having to remember yet another nonsense password. Better yet, deploy the $99 device throughout your district, and your students will be able to log onto your computer network and the Internet with just one touch. You'll never hear the words, "I forgot my password" again. Requires a Windows 95/98 PC with a Universal Serial Bus (USB) port. Digital cameras are great, but getting the images out of the camera and into a computer can be real pain. Now you can throw those messy cables away, because Sony's $900 Digital Mavica MVC-FD81 saves up to 40 still images in universal JPEG format on a standard floppy disk. Shoot a photo and pop the disk in a Mac or PC, and you're ready to put the picture on a web site or attach it to an e-mail message. You can add voice memos to your images, and the camera can also shoot and store up to 60 seconds of digital MPEG video on a single floppy.

Reproduced with permission from the January 1999 issue of Electronic School. Copyright © 1999, National School Boards Association. This article may be saved to disk, printed out for individual use, or reproduced in quantities of less than 100 copies for academic use only, provided this copyright notice remains intact on each copy. This article may not be otherwise transmitted or reproduced without the consent of the Publisher. For more information, call (703) 838-6739.