teaching

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Creating is Learning: Building skills and knowledge through Minecraft

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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vFuULAE6RfU

Creating is Learning: Building skills and knowledge through Minecraft.

Computer games are fun and gaming is an important aspect of digital culture. The best part about computer games is that when we play, we learn!

This video was made as part of my Masters in Education studies at Griffith University, Queensland, Australia.

Full references, citations and the supporting paper can be found here:

http://griffith.academia.edu/DavidSmeaton

Contact me or learn more about my other videos, studies and academic writing.

about.me/davidsmeaton
davidsmeaton.wordpress.com

Thanks to Notch and Mojang for making such an excellent game. Thanks also to the Minecraft community (particularly /r/minecraft) and the people who have developed original content that I used in my video.

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No End to Magical Thinking When It Comes to High-Tech Schooling – Larry Cuban

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No End to Magical Thinking When It Comes to High-Tech Schooling – Larry Cuban

It irks me that so many people are positioning themselves as tech-pocolyptics … bemoaning the view that technology is the cause of our problems and that money is being wasted trying to make schools technology hubs.

Cuban’s blog, while usually interesting, takes a view that technology is being wrongly viewed as a ‘magic bullet’ to solve all of educations problems. Cuban has asserted, mistakenly, that “many fantasize” about the notion of technology replacing teachers.

Humans are, by our very nature, social creatures. The internet is redefining the way people interact, no doubt, but not isolating people like some would suggest. The internet is creating a space, a new literacy, where people can interact in larger, less structured groups.

Teachers will be replaced by devices and robots? The idea is ludicrous. It’s even more ludicrous to suggest that many fantasize about it. There will always be teachers. Perhaps we will call them mentors or guides. But they will be educators and their space will change as new technologies emerge (which is a good thing, since education has been static for over a century). So on one hand Cuban can generalise that there’s a desire for teachers to become redundant, but educators will always have a place in society – it’s just that their role might be redefined – which is long overdue.

Cuban’s critique on Mitra’s TED talk and his ambitions for cloud learning is also unwarranted. Cuban is also quick to point out the perceived failure of the OLPC (one laptop per child) program. He alludes to Mitra’s inevitable failure as well.

Failure is not a bad thing. As an eminent academic once said to me “fail early, fail often”. This is a way of learning through experimentation. OLPC was doomed to failure but that’s not the point. Mitra’s cloud schooling in India will never be a success, but that’s not important either. What’s important is that these people are pushing at the edges of learning and technology and finding ways of making it work.

Ask any scientist how often they fail compared to how often they succeed. Why are we so afraid of failure?

While I agree that education has a tendency to shoehorn technology in the classroom and hope it’s a success. But there needs to be a differentiation between the politics of “student / computer ratios” and educational innovators who are trying to find solutions in an ever shifting technology landscape. Wasting millions of dollars on interactive whiteboards (which every teacher hates) is completely different to funding experimental programs to test ideas involving new technologies.

The OLPC concept started before smart phones, before raspberri pi, before a laptop was an accessible technology. Right now it looks antiquated but the idea was revolutionary.

Cuban would prefer that taxpayers, parents and politicians be assuaged.

I’d like to finish with a quote by Mitra himself, since he was the target of Cuban’s rant.

I said schools as we know them now, they’re obsolete. I’m not saying they’re broken. It’s quite fashionable to say that the education system’s broken. It’s not broken. It’s wonderfully constructed. It’s just that we don’t need it anymore. It’s outdated.

I think this is the most important rebuttal to Cuban’s thinking. Education and politics continues to drag its heels looking for “magic bullets” perhaps, but instituting no real change. While we defer to parents and politicians for fiscal accountability, kids sit in classrooms that they hate while being bombarded with an education they loathe.

I may not be as eloquent as Mr Cuban. However it’s easy to criticise without actually offering a productive way forward. I’m tired of deferring decision making to parents and politicians who have no clue about technology and no actual interest (beyond re-election promises) in fixing problems.

The longer we allow people to hold technology back, the worse the problem gets.

‘Bottom dollar’ thinking is stifling creativity and innovation. Politics and political point scoring are wasting money. Teaching mindsets are 19th century … and children are the ones suffering.

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Teach Creativity, Not Memorization

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Teach Creativity, Not Memorization

Sternberg’s analysis of the importance of creativity has become seminal reading for those interested in the implications of creativity and learning. Creativity, according to Sternberg, is under utilised and students need to ‘mobilize’ their creativity.

The main area of consideration, he states, is how university and the corporate world values creativity. The qualities of creativity which are so coveted are not taught in schools. The education system focuses on memorisation which is setting students up for failure. 

To promote creativity in the classroom, students need to be encouraged to define and redefine problems that they encounter. This includes things like projects, assignments and presentations. If students make a mistake, they can solve the problem to fix the error or start again if their approach was a mistake. This is all valuable learning for students as they strive to develop judgement. As such, it’s more important for students to learn what questions to ask, and how to ask them, rather than just learning the answers.

Additionally, another crucial element of creativity is selling one’s creative ideas. Ideas have value and students need to learn how to sell those ideas to others.

Having too much knowledge can also be a hindrance to creativity. Knowledge is beneficial but can also entrench thinking and attitudes. Considering this, the learning process can be a two way sharing opportunity. Teachers can share knowledge that students don’t have. Conversely, students have flexibility, precisely because they have less knowledge, and can use that flexibility to open avenues of creative process.

Creativity requires perseverance. Traditionally, creative thinking has encountered obstacles caused by resistance from others. Creative thinking, which lacks structure and discipline, often brings disappointment and disillusionment. There are a lot of grey areas and ambiguity. Creative though can be sporadic, non-linear and takes time to develop. Promoting creative though also means fostering self-efficacy. Steinberg suggests that creative thinking requires measured risk-taking, along with perseverance. By defying norms and producing ideas, creative thinking can result in innovation which is trend setting and respected by others. 

By helping students find something they love, or having them demonstrate their talents or ability, they’re more likely to act creatively. It doesn’t matter what their focus area is, just that they love the activity and feel a sense of importance but without a need for immediate rewards.

“Students develop creativity not when they are told to but when they are shown how.”

Investing in Creativity – R. Sternberg and T. Lubart

The paper on teaching creativity stems from earlier works by Sternberg in which he takes a more analytical and psychological approach to looking at creativity. Sternberg surmised in 1996 when he wrote the paper “Investing in Creativity” that not research had been conducted regarding creativity. It had been neglected as a research topic. Numerous contributors are cited as to why creativity was ignored; partly because of the ambiguity of what creativity actually meant and mostly because there were no rigid methods to study or measure creativity.

Creativity is the ability to produce work that is both novel and appropriate. It’s a broad topic that has implications on both an individual and societal level. Individually, creativity is useful for problem solving. Societally, creativity can lead to new scientific findings, art movements, innovations and social programs. 

In the 1950s creativity research increased and a few learning institutes were founded to look specifically at creativity from a psychological perspective. Intelligence, naturally, attracts more interest and research than intelligence. However, Sternberg argues that creativity is just as important as intelligence. 

It is through creativity that we can cope with significant challenges in our environments in novel and appropriate ways. Indeed, given the rate at which the world is changing, the importance of creativity to our lives is likely to increase.

Even now there are few organisations specifically focusing on creativity. Two such journals exist: The Journal of Creative Behavior and the Creative Research Journal. The former is mostly non-empirical, with a focus on how to improve creativity rather than the study of it. The latter, which has a research focus, has been published since 1988. The conclusion here, made by Sternberg, is that creativity is not an area that readily lends itself to scientific study.

An early approach called the psychodynamic approach took the view that creativity arises from tension between conscious reality and unconscious drives. The Freudian theory was that artists used creativity as a way to express their unconscious desires.

The problem is, as noted earlier, that creativity is hard to define and observe. Methods have been tried to scale creativity and measure it in a scientific way. One such method is Guilford’s “divergent thinking” tasks called the Unusual Uses test. The test required asking participants to think of as many uses as they could for a common object. They were tested on a creative scale. 

Where tests and definitions fell short were in the disparity between “Creativity” (big c) by famous artists or eminent thinkers, compared to “creativity” (little c) on an every day level. One related research paper proposed that creativity is, essentially, ordinary cognitive processes hielding extraordinary results – – referring to studies of eminent creators and lab research.

A more social-personality approach focuses on variables such as personality, motivation and sociocultural environments as creative sources. Studies comparing creative samples in eminent “Creativity” and everyday “creativity” have yielded identification of common, relevant traits: independent judgement, self-confidence, attraction to complexity,, aesthetic orientation and risk taking. Along with Maslow’s observations about creativity, there’s definitely a link between creativity and motivation. Specifically, intrinsic motivation affects creative output. This has relevance to confluence theory – that creativity is a confluence of task motivation, domain relevant knowledge and abilities, as well as creativity-relevant skills. This forms the basis of a model for creative problem solving.

Sternberg’s own research identifies the importance of personality for creative functioning. Creativity requires a willingness to overcome obstacles, take risks, tolerate ambiguity and self-efficacy. All of which are traits mentioned earlier in the paper with relation to creative obstacles. Sternberg, too, asserts the importance of intrinsic motivation for creative work – that creative people love what they do and are less focused on rewards. Finally, he recognises the need for an environment which is supportive of creative ideas. 

In this paper Sternberg has established the importance of creativity, despite the lack of research on the topic, as well as obstacles to creative output. He considers a variety of definitions and concludes that creativity is a vaild field of study. Using confluence theories offer a methodology to study creativity which allows for experimental testing.

Sternberg is an advocate of creativity as a method of promoting learning and critical thinking. While it’s an under-developed field of research, creativity (and particularly motivation) is a desired skill in the buisness world and plays an important role in learning.

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Education as a dying and outdated system – M. Pireddu

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Education as a dying and outdated system – M. Pireddu Pireddu’s discussion about education is a timely and relevant critique. Computers have chanced the social landscape and the world in which students are immersed.

Pireddu talks about the death of education in terms of the rise of technology. From the perspective of constantly evolving technology, Pireddu discusses areas such as social learning and participatory learning. The paper also talks about the battle between technology as a tool and technology as an environment. Finally Pireddu gives a definition and overview of what he calls ‘convergence culture’ and how youth culture has positioned itself as an early adopter of technology.

Education and new media – New technologies have always been used to enrich education. Starting with the literacy, the printing press, television and now computers, technology has had a central position in education. However with the emergence of the internet, technology is able to transform education by no longer being a part of the educational environment. Traditionally technology has always been the tool of education and now it has the ability to become the environment of learning – particularly online learning and virtual learning. These kinds of areas have validity when considering the potential for experiential learning. This change echoes the shift in technology’s position in people’s personal lives. There’s now a dichotomy between the technology in the classroom and personal technology. Technology at school is still entrenched within centuries old Taylorism models of “one size fits all” learning. While at home, people interact with technology in a way which is less structured and more fluid.

Such a move towards a more technology and communication driven environment changes the way in which we acquire knowledge. Instead of needing to memorise, learners can focus on researching and skills such as analysis, critical thinking and creation of original content. A shift in paradigm from knowledgable to knowledge-abled.

Media literacies – Pireddu introduces the idea of convergence culture – how the internet has converged all forms of media and a flow of media across different platforms. Society, culture and technology are all connected by convergence, greatly reducing the cost of creating and sharing digital content. Evidence cited by Pireddu suggests strongly that younger generations are enormously engrossed in convergence culture, producing vast amounts of original content, as well as participating, sharing and discussing content online. Through social networks, information is now consumed and shared, mashed-up and remixed. Websites, social networks, gaming and mobile media technologies have become fixtures of youth culture. Young people are embracing the internet and making it their own.

This has lead to the development of a more participatory culture. Through creation and expression, people feel important and connect to others through common interests. The focus has shifted from knowledge acquisition to participation in collaborative problem solving, distributing knowledge, sharing and discussing. The knowledge itself is no longer the focus, but how that knowledge is used, shared, mixed and mashed and then redistributed.

Teachers might argue that such technologies are disruptive, when students are tweeting or updating their status on Facebook. Yet, students are more likely to be interacting with knowledge in new and innovative ways. If the education system cannot adapt to students’ needs, in terms of their preferred methods of using technology and consuming information, then education will continue to be chaotic and antiquated.

Toward a new learning potential – The role of education is to prepare students for society. Yet how can education be successful when the system itself is not up-to-date with the changing world. This begs to ask whether schools are still relevant . Technology has reached a stage where it can increase and evolve at an exponential rate. Yet education systems, bogged down by bureaucracy, languish and are reactionary in terms of technology. Students are already redefining their own learning and new learning methods are emerging daily. Learners are moving toward less rigid and organic learning styles that are at odds with the Taylorism model. Through social networking, students prefer to cooperate and participate in information sharing. As technology obstacles are removed, it becomes easier and easier for students to network on a global scale, working as a collective to build knowledge. The shift is away from formal learning and towards a amateursed process of collaboration.

Learning is no longer about teachers disseminating information to students. Learning is about communities. New medias and technology will create even more learning communities in what has been described as anti-teaching – creating of learning environments where students are empowered to ask the questions and find the answers themselves.

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EDUpunk

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EDUpunk

Are you edu punk? Edupunk (2008-2011) is an approach to teaching and learning practices that result from a do it yourself (DIY) attitude. The New York Times defines it as “an approach to teaching that avoids mainstream tools like PowerPoint and Blackboard, and instead aims to bring the rebellious attitude and D.I.Y. ethos of ’70s bands like The Clash to the classroom.” Many instructional applications can be described as DIY education or Edupunk.

The term was first used on May 25, 2008 by Jim Groom in his blog, and covered less than a week later in the Chronicle of Higher Education. Stephen Downes, an online education theorist and an editor for the International Journal of Instructional Technology and Distance Learning, noted that “the concept of Edupunk has totally caught wind, spreading through the blogosphere like wildfire”.

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