Lego Dacta

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Introduction[edit | edit source]

Lego DACTA was a Lego bricks product line for education, but also (from 1989 to ????) the name of the Lego Education divison.

“In comparative research studies LEGO Dacta, the LEGO Company's educational division, draws upon extensive scientific research into fields such as cognition, psychology, evolutionary psychology, and epistemology. Adding the child's universe, LEGO Dacta asks the basic question: How can we encourage children to life-long learning?” (Lego pressrelease, 2000, retrieved 16:24, 31 March 2010 (UTC))

DACTA bricks are now sold as "Lego education bricks" and are a bit difficult to find. One cannot buy educational legos in toy stores. They are only available through special educational resellers that sell to schools. Also, it's difficult just to get a list of available sets. “Our aim is to ensure that child care practitioners and teachers receive the best support and guidance possible when they choose to use our products with youngsters. This is why classroom from LEGO Education can only be purchased from dealers that specialise in learning materials.” (Lego.com, retrieved 17:03, 31 March 2010 (UTC))

In many countries, "educational" sets are probably not available or maybe just a few of them. Most "educational" sets are just standard sets in bigger quantities, but there do exist some special pieces like "mosaic" and "letters" bricks as introduced below.

Of course, there are also Lego robotics products, e.g. LEGO Mindstorms for all levels of education, but this is not the topic of this page.

See also: Doblo factory, a openScad-based script to generate DUPLO-compatible play worlds and bricks.

Early learning examples[edit | edit source]

These example are meant for illustration. Lego may repackage these any time ....

Letters set - Product no. 9530[edit | edit source]

Numbers and mosaic set - Product no. 9531[edit | edit source]

Lego education DUPLO numbers and mosaic set

Mathematics (Let's Play Math)- Product no. 9543[edit | edit source]

Set # 9543-1: Math Games Set

Large mosaic set - Product no. 9546[edit | edit source]

Set # 9546-1: Mosaics Set (Peeron)

Construction kits[edit | edit source]

... many

Animal kits[edit | edit source]

... many

Persona kits[edit | edit source]

... many

Links[edit | edit source]

Activity plans[edit | edit source]

Activities at lego.com

Lego dacta Lesson Plans at lessonplanet.com

Brick testament (the bible enacted with Legos). That could be reproduced several literature genres.

Inventories and catalogues[edit | edit source]

DACTA Inventory by peeron.com, a Lego/Duplo inventory by Dan Boger and Jennifer Finch and others. Absolutely must consult if you need to know if a given kind of part exists.
Example:

DACTA

DACTA / DUPLO

DACTA / DUPLO / Tiles

Set # 9534-1: Mosaic Tiles

BrickLink.com is a good alternative. Also includes most parts. E.g. use this to search for "Duplo base plate".

Pause Magazine's Lego Set Reference Guide - Dacta

Official Lego Early Learning Catalogue 2010

Official Lego School Catalogue 2010.

LEGO Wiki aka Brickipedia, an online LEGO encyclopedia

Commercial resellers[edit | edit source]

Since one can't buy educational Lego/Duplo bricks in normal stores, see Where to Buy at lego.com

Educatec (official swiss reseller, sells online)

Things one can buy from everywhere:

Base plate, boxes of bricks and all sorts of smaller themed sets (e.g. on Amazon)

Software[edit | edit source]

See LEGO Mindstorms for Computer-controlled Lego.

Computer-aided design programs:

LDD (from Lego)
Leocad
ldraw
Blockcad

Lego research[edit | edit source]

Lego Learning Institute is a lego division that explores new educational products. Associated researchers are Thomas Wolbers (Edinburgh University), Edith Ackerman and Mitch Resnick (MIT), and David Gauntlett (Univ. of Westminster).