ABSTRACT
Computers are becoming increasingly important as tools for articulating and communicating information and knowledge. At the same time, theories on human learning strengthen the hypothesis that learning is an active process during which knowledge is constructed 1 as opposed to just received via some communication channel (Fiske, 1990). This article combines both these themes as it discusses the notion of interactive model-building environments. Two aspects are of prime interest to this work: first, the development of model building tools that support learners in articulating their understanding of the (physical) reality in a machine readable form; second, for the computer, how to use this knowledge, what inferences to make, and how to communicate the results back to its users.
