Abstract
In the contemporary world, the Internet and digital technologies seem to amplify the possibilities of learning for the New Generations, the "Digital Natives”. But does the so-called "augmented reality" mean increased intelligence but reduced humanism? (Benassayag 2016). The research “Embodied Education through art and theater” attempts to create an experiential (embodied) background, starting from the relationship between the artistic and theatrical languages, the neurosciences and the discovery of the MNS Mirror Neuron System (Gallese, Rizzolati 1996), in order to offer a contribution for enactive (Varela, Thompson, Rosch 1991), creative and multimodal learning. The Embodied Simulation (a common underlying functional mechanism that mediates our capacity to share the meaning of actions, intentions, feelings, and emotions with others, thus grounding our identification with and connectedness to others (Gallese 2014)) tells us that at the basis of the understanding of the world, there is the representation of the aim and the sensory-motor involvement, motor and intentional basis of learning, that art and theatre express through pre-linguistic instruments: images and actions. In the last years, the educational sciences and the cognitive sciences have intensified their connections to the point of identifying (Fischer, Daniel, Immordino-Yang, Stern, Battro, Koizumi 2007): this common field concerns the classical themes of learning, memory, attention and language, but also the themes of consciousness and the body. The theoretical and empirical research, that arise at the end of the XXth Century, and now develop in cognitive sciences, is causing the change of the research interests from the brain study itself to the study of an ecological mind, of an interdependent mind between body and environment: the focus is the concatenation of mind-body-environment, the extended mind. In the amplified reality and intelligence of the 21st century we need an "interface between digital and living model" (Benassayag 2016): during the first phase, the pilot study had the goal of identifying the experiential learning to be tested in the experimental research. E.C.O. Electronic Cooperation Online mainly supplies visual tools in a learning environment embodied, using the web and network as a creative ground: from A.R. augmented reality to M.R. material reality. The action-oriented training is integrated in the kinesthetic channel with theatrical techniques (Alschitz method). The resulting experiential training E.M.I. Experiential Multimodal Interface integrates virtual and material learning environments as example of creative education practice.