Professor Fred Martin, of MIT Media Lab's "Lifelong Kindergarten" group, must be the envy of most primary-school children. Lego supplies him with endless bricks and he gets to develop new toys. These new toys are based on the concept that the process of learning and coming to know things is an active constructive process for the learner, Martin explains. The toys are, in effect, objects to think with.

He took his programmable Lego brick, which drives motors and turns Lego creations into robotic toys, to classrooms in Rhode Island and, more recently, to classrooms in Ireland.

So, a little bit of MIT's Media Lab is already up and running in Ireland. Working in conjunction with Deirdre Butler of St Patrick's College, Drumcondra, Dublin, and the National Centre for Technology in Education, four Irish primary schools became involved in the programmable brick project. Two teachers, four children and two parents from each school received two days training at Easter last year. The teachers received a further three days instruction on using the brick, which is currently programmed from a PC, in the classroom.

Martin is now researching ways of using a GameBoy to programme the chip. The teachers had a further two days' training last summer. Classroom projects were then based on the theme of myths and legends. Children became practical computer programmers, coming up with solutions to problems. As the project unfolded, MLE was coming to fruition, says Martin. Next year, it is hoped that 12 schools will be involved.