Sunday Morning Keynote (Karen Brennan)

Transcript

1. Computational Creativity: 
 What Kids Learn as 
 Designers of 
 Interactive Media Karen Brennan Harvard University PyCon Canada 2013
2. What do people do
 with computers?
6. consumers,
 not creators
8. Everyday life is increasingly regulated by complex technologies that most people neither understand nor believe they can do much to influence. Bandura, 2001
9. code
12. We cannot afford to ignore code or allow it to remain the exclusive concern of computer programmers and engineers. Hayles, 2005
13. Programming is the sweet spot, the high leverage point in a digital society. If we don’t learn to program, we risk being programmed ourselves. Rushkoff, 2010
14. The 4th R … provides an alternative to fact-based mastery and proposes, instead, iterative, process-oriented, constructive, innovative thinking. Davidson, 2012
15. not just for some kids
16. ALL kids
17. Everyone should learn how to read and write our computational world.
18. But how can we support kids’ participation as computational creators?
26. Female 37% Male 63%
28. What are kids
 learning?
29. Learning concepts
 Learning practices
 Learning perspectives
30. Learning concepts
31. sequences, loops, parallelism, events, functions, variables, conditionals, etc.
32. Low Floor High Ceiling
33. Low Floor High Ceiling Wide Walls
35. 3.3 million projects shared since May 2007!
41. They say that teaching is the highest form of learning or understanding. I think that making math projects has actually helped me understand math concepts better than learning in school. “ ”! Sonia, 16 years old
48. Learning practices
49. Many children are held back in their learning because they have a model of learning in which you have either “got it” or “got it wrong.” But when you learn to program a computer you almost never get it right the first time. The question to ask about the program is not whether it is right or wrong, but if it is fixable. Papert, 1980
52. What’s your process
 for fixing your programs?
53. 1.  Read through your code. 2.  3. Reorganize your code. 4. Try writing your code again. 5. Tell/ask someone about the problem. 6. Look for examples that work. 7. Take a break.
54. 1. Read through your code. 2. Experiment with your code. 4. Try writing your code again. 5. Tell/ask someone about the problem. 6. Look for examples that work. 7. Take a break.
56. It’s like Bananagrams – you get so far into the program, or into the game, and then you realize, “I’ve got these other letters, how do I get them in?” You have to be able to take apart parts of your project and remix it up and put it back in. Jenson, 11 years old!
57. 1. Read through your code. 2. Experiment with your code. 3. Reorganize or rewrite your code. 5. Tell/ask someone about the problem. 6. Look for examples that work. 7. Take a break.
60. 1. Read through your code. 2. Experiment with your code. 3. Reorganize or rewrite your code. 4. Tell/ask someone about the problem. 6. Look for examples that work. 7. Take a break.
61. projects
62. comments projects
67. 1. Read through your code. 2. Experiment with your code. 3. Reorganize or rewrite your code. 4. Tell/ask someone about the problem. 5. Look for examples that work. 7. Take a break.
68. projects remixes
72. 1. Read through your code. 2. Experiment with your code. 3. Reorganize or rewrite your code. 4. Tell/ask someone about the problem. 5. Look for examples that work. 7. Take a break.
73. 1. Read through your code. 2. Experiment with your code. 3. Reorganize or rewrite your code. 4. Tell/ask someone about the problem. 5. Look for examples that work. 6. Take a break.
74. Sometimes, I get myself so dug in a hole that I have to just get myself out of Scratch for the day and then start it up another time because after a lot of programming, your head hurts. It’s not easy to program with a hurting head! “ ”! Jenson, 11 years old
75. Learning perspectives
76. It is creative apperception more than anything else that makes the individual feel that life is worth living. Winnicott, 1971
77. It’s really great to express yourself creatively. You could do anything with Scratch. You can make video games, music, art, anything. The possibilities are endless, no limitations, really. “ ”! Lindsey, 12 years old
78. I loved the challenge. I was persistent. I had grit.
79. It gives you that sense of accomplishment when you finally finish your project. It boosts your confidence when you finish something that you never thought was possible. “ ”! Bradley, 12 years old
80. Now I have what I call a ‘programmer’s mind’. That is where I think about how anything is programmed. This has gone from toasters, car electrical systems, and soooo much more. “ ”!
82. What are kids
 learning?
83. Learning concepts
 Learning practices
 Learning perspectives
84. Learning learning
87. Scratch lets you explore your imagination. You design your own stuff, and once you start, you just don’t want to stop. Because as you learn more, you can see there are more possibilities, and the more possibilities there are, the more you want to expand on what you just learned. “ ”! Bradley, 12 years old
88. karen_brennan@gse.harvard.edu http://scratch.mit.edu/ http://scratch-ed.org/