"We all design naturally when we make decisions about what to wear, how to personalize our living spaces, or how to fashion our appearance." -Vande Zande (2011)
Design Thinking
Design thinking can be thought of as the creative process. Anyone can use design thinking when creating something new; it can be a meal, an outfit, renovating your home, or switching up your hairstyle. The process can be thought of in 6-7 steps that aren't always the same. Primarily it will always begin with an a problem or prompt with restrictions. This is the ask process. Queuing our imaginations to start brewing up thoughts and ideas that could be possible solutions. The next step is designing. We can sketch or explore the best solution to communicate an idea. Then we build or create the design by adding layers, prototyping, or a technical approach. We can then assess our design to see if we're satisfied with the outcome or direction our project is heading. This is the evaluation process which sometimes can need some backtracking to rebuild and recreate or refine before we share our design with others.
Computers and Computer Cultures
“The model of successful learning is the way a child learns to talk, a process that takes place without deliberate and organized teaching, The goal set is very different. I see the classroom has an artificial and Inefficient learning environment. That society has been forced to invent because it's informal environments failed in certain essential learning domains, such as writing or grammar or school math.” -Seymour Papert (1980)
It is astounding the predictions that Papert made in 1980 about the use of technology for education or replacing a form of education. In at the beginning of his book Mindstorm, Papert argues that a child’s learning happens innately without the organized instruction or effort of a teacher or adult. He refers to the relationship to the world around him as Gears and how these gears helped mathematics enter his life because they were present in the lives of his parents as well. Helping him to interpret the gears in his own way Until they became integrated into his overall way of thinking, Papert refers to this process as turtle.
He draws comparisons in the ways that children have their own turtles in it’s how they process information. Once a child It’s given information and it is processed in their own way and construct their own turtles as their “objects to think with” (Papert p11) In the case of computers and digital learning the turtle becomes the program. As children explore with their basic understanding of the tools they’ve been given by adults they can “learn that the computer can be programmed to make music as well as move turtles and combine the two activities by programing turtles to dance.
He accurately projects that the use of computers for educational purposes And it will enhance intellectual development amongst children. Drawing on distinctions to Piaget's pedagogy of concrete and formal thinking he argues that “It is unique in providing us with the means for addressing what Piaget and many others see as the obstacle which is overcome in the passage from child to adult thinking. I believe it can allow us to shift the boundary separating concrete and formal." (Papert,pp.21)
In the reading where he mentions believing technology can provide children who is new possibilities for developing cognitively; I agree with his statement to an extent the caveat is that through this pandemic and the reliance of online instruction we have seen the negative effects that computer-based instruction can have on children and adolescents. I agree it has enhanced the classroom environment has a tool for instruction. However, technology serving as a replacement for a learning environment I would have to disagree with; a classroom provides a form of stability that many students need to stay on task. They can use technology for research and digital art while working with each other. In many ways technology has enhanced learning and also served as a distraction with heavy use of social media. It then becomes more about the information they are processing through technology as opposed to technology enhancing their cognitive thinking.
Digital Equity
“Increasing digital access without transforming the fundamental systems at play will lead to the same social structures and inequities,” says Amouzou. “We might see more students of color and low-income students (increasingly white) on computers, but will they still be at the bottom of the totem pole?”
The use of Macs, iPads and chrome books have enhanced the educational system in the wealth of information and varied forms of creating content for projects. It is an invaluable resource for a classroom. It provides familiarity with technology for their future careers. With this in mind, it goes without saying that not every school Culture is the same, not every neighborhood receives the same funding, leading to inner City Schools or low-income communities having digital inequity.
Through the perspective of mathematician, and educational researcher he describes. As an object to think with to describe formal systems such as the system of Education.
References
Digital Equity: It’s More Than Just Student Access, TechLearning.com Oct.2018, NewBay Media, LLC
Papert, S. (1980) Mindstorms, New York, NY: Basic Books.
Watson, D.A. (2015) Design Thinking for Life, Art Education, (pp.12-18)