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Children, Computing & Creativity Gary S. Stager, Ph.D. www.stager.org/handout Subscribe to newsletter Digital Handout at... Faculty: Gary Stager, Cynthia Solomon, Brian Silverman, Sylvia Martinez, Jeff Richardson & John Stetson Includes “Big Night Out” in Boston & MIT Media Lab reception
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Children, Computing & CreativityGary S. Stager, Ph.D.
www.stager.org/handout
Digital Handout at...
Subscribe to newsletter
www.stager.org/handout
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...
www.stager.org/handout
Some people are excited when the computer may be used to teach things we’ve always wanted kids to learn...
www.stager.org/handout
Common elementsRemarkable 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”
www.stager.org/handout
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)
www.stager.org/handout
It is the responsibility of each educator to do
whatever is necessary to maximize the potential of
each learner.
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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.
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The Role of the ComputerConstructive media
NovelGreater ROI
CommonLower ROI
< learning > learning
Drill & practice
Simulation & modeling
Information access
Productivity
The DIY Revolution
Technology Matters
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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
MIDI instruments
Robotics materials
Widespread availability of construction material
What do you DOwith computers?
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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. technologya timeless conflict
Oberammergauer Zither Trio - Josephine Polka (1915)
Robot Ballerina
Design a Video GameNot just consume them
www.microworlds.com
Engineering
Sim-Middle Ages
Build Your Own “Sketchpad”
The Technology Ecology
Invention & originality
- Alan Kay
Finale NotepadSibelius First
ProtegéGarageband
The computer is an instrument whose music is ideas ...
The Technology Ecology
Build a tool for your own learning
An artist’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
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Technology Matters
“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...”
Edward R. Murrow - 1958
Frank Gehry - MasterclassPreparation forthe “real” world
