Children, Computing & Creativity Gary S. Stager, Ph.D. www.stager.org/handout
Digital Handout at...
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Faculty: Gary Stager, Cynthia Solomon, Brian Silverman, Sylvia Martinez, Jeff Richardson & John Stetson Includes “Big Night Out” in Boston & MIT Media Lab reception
Sound familiar? The phrase, “technology and education” usually means inventing new gadgets to teach the same old stuff in a thinly disguised version of the same old way. Moreover, if the gadgets are computers, the same old teaching becomes incredibly more expensive and biased towards its dumbest parts, namely the kind of rote learning in which measurable results can be obtained by treating the children like pigeons in a skinner box. “Teaching children Thinking”
Seymour Papert, 1971
School is a technology!
Young people have a remarkable capacity for intensity
I’m not surprised when kids do extraordinary things...
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Some people are excited when the computer may be used to teach things we’ve always wanted kids to learn...
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Common elements Remarkable capacity for intensity Project-Based Learning Personal Computing I am not surprised when kids do extraordinary things... A belief that “things need not be as they seem�
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Guided by Respect for each learner Authentic Problems Real tools & materials Expanded opportunities A belief that learning is natural Collegiality Urgency Commitment to social justice & democracy
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Danny Hillis says, “The computer is an imagination machine which starts with the ideas we put into it and takes them farther than we could have taken them on our own. The computer is an intellectual laboratory and vehicle for self-expression (Stager)
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It is the responsibility of each educator to do whatever is necessary to maximize the potential of each learner. www.stager.org/handout
Competent Curriculum-free Children
Educational Computing is not about hardware, it’s about software Software determines what you can do and what you do determines what you learn! Knowledge is a consequence of experience.
Every student needs a personal laptop computer with open-ended creativity software.
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Why we’re still talking about 1:1 & personal computing
We DID change/transform everything
Are you really suggesting that every kid should have their own computer?
Every student should have at least two computers!
Social Isolation?
The network is not the computer!
Information access represents a tiny fraction of the educational process. www.stager.org/handout
The Role of the Computer Constructive media
Novel Greater ROI
Simulation & modeling
Productivity Information access
Common Lower ROI
Drill & practice
< learning
> learning
The DIY Revolution
Technology Matters
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Widespread availability of construction material If you can make things with computers, then you can make a lot more interesting things Seymour Papert
To understand is to invent... Jean Piaget Portable computers capable of making things Digital cameras Digital video cameras
What do you DO with computers?
MIDI instruments Robotics materials
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Making things is better than being passive
Making good things is even better!
Who has agency?
Who are the computers for?
Personal fabrication and Fab Labs
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Science Fiction?
Art vs. technology a timeless conflict
Oberammergauer Zither Trio - Josephine Polka (1915)
Robot Ballerina
Design a Video Game Not just consume them
www.microworlds.com
Engineering
Sim-Middle Ages
Build Your Own “Sketchpad”
The Technology Ecology
Invention & originality
The computer is an instrument whose music is ideas ... - Alan Kay
Finale Notepad Sibelius First ProtegĂŠ Garageband
The Technology Ecology
Build a tool for your own learning
An artistâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s aesthetic Beautiful Thoughtful Personally meaningful Sophisticated Shareable with a respect for the audience Moves you Enduring
Complexity
Connections and Crap
Nicholas Negroponte
In the spirit of Generation YES!
LESS US, MORE THEM!
Dream Bigger!
Gopher-cam www.stager.org/handout
Technology Matters
â&#x20AC;&#x153;This instrument can teach, it can illuminate; yes, and it can even inspire. But it can do so only to the extent that humans are determined to use it to those ends. Otherwise it is merely wires and lights in a box...â&#x20AC;?
Edward R. Murrow - 1958
Frank Gehry - Masterclass Preparation for the “real” world