Lego MindStorms as a Training Tool for Software Development Methodology in Multimedia Education.

This paper outlines an approach to educating multimedia practitioners utilizing Lego MindStorms® which evolved out of a desire to bridge the technical and aesthetic worldviews. The approach focuses on three aspects of the development process. First, it examines the linguistic model of code production. In order to convey the act of writing code as a linguistic task, the students are introduced to several aspects of linguistic theory, with examples illustrating their application in spoken, programmed and Lego MindStorms® based languages. The second area of focus is object theory. Adopting a similar approach to the previous section, but giving only Lego based examples. Finally, the focus shifts to prototyping, discussing how Lego MindStorms® can be used to nurture an iterative development style. The conclusion then discusses the results of this approach, as it was applied at the Hypermedia Research Centre (HRC) in the University of Westminster between 1999 and 2002