Bit By Bit

Notes on:
Dr. Mitchel Resnick: Tools for Creative Thinking

Podcast to Follow

Technorati Tags: BLC07, bobsprankle, mitchelresnick

Again… not sure if I’ll capture all of this… batteries running out
Employers frustrated… workers… when they hit unexpected problems, don’t know what to do.

What can we do to prepare our students today to help young people become creative thinkers?

Look at Kindergarten… might be one of the best places to help develop creativity… or at least use to be.

• Creative thought
• Collaborative
• Imagine> Create>Play>Share>Reflect>Imagine
• This often goes away when you get up in the years… we get the delivery approach

We’re moving towards the creative society

Use technology in the “Kindergarten Style”

Unfortunately, Kindergarten is becoming more like the rest of school. WE NEED TO DO EXACTLY THE OPPOSITE… WE NEED TO EXTEND THIS TYPE OF LEARNING UP THROUGH THE OTHER GRADES.

Develop technologies where it’s easy to get started and then able to grow with it (Papert: low floor/high ceiling)

But also, make sure that we can develop things that allow all learners to follow their own path and not get left out.

CREATE
Lego Robots… but not everyone wants to do that… There’s also PicoCRICKET… other inventions with programming. More like toys we see in stores, but this kids are programming.

Must give kids opportunities for kids to create.

Froebel’s Gifts
Kids are spending time consuming and interacting with media… but need to create it.

SCRATCH… program by giving instructions. Programming should be the same as “putting blocks together”.

Play = spirit and type of approach to interacting in the world. Not “edutainment” as a “sugarcoated layer on top of the learning… but actually Play. Experiment, trying new things, using materials in new ways.

SHARE:
Done in social context… not chatting but meaningful collaboration
Bring it together with the creating and construction

SCRATCH: has website to share creations with others. Projects can be tagged on the site. The projects will run in the browser itself. You can download these and see HOW it was created. So Cool!!!! Sharing by transforming these. Discussions happening about the projects. Reflect on the process of DESIGN. Offer advice to others… that’s the assessment.

The most important learning is when things didn’t go as expected… and then you tried again.. what did you change? what did you think about? what did you learn?