Changing Minds
"While written at a level that anyone with a good acquaintance with high school science can understand, the book reflects the depth and breadth of the issues surrounding technology in education. Rejecting the simplistic notion that the computer is merely a tool for more efficient instruction, diSessa shows how computers can be the basis for a new literacy that will change how people think and learn. He discusses the learning theory that explains why computers can be such powerful catalysts for change in education, in particular, how intuitive knowledge is the platform on which students build scientific understanding. He also discusses the material and social reasons for the computer's potential and argues for "two-way literacies," where everyone is a creator as well as consumer of dynamic and interactive expressive forms. DiSessa gives many examples from his work using the Boxer computer environment, an integrated software system designed to investigate computational literacies."--Jacket.
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What Hacker News says
- > The whole point of the discussion around computer and computer languages/systems as tool for thought, is presuming that computing can be another form of mass literacy. Let's also not get into whether this should be the case (and my opinion here is less naive that one might think); I'm just saying that this is the debate.
Exactly right. The Jobs line is a half-baked and perhaps half-understood take on the thinking of people like Kay, Papert, et al. Anyone curious about this line of thinking -- which has fallen way, way out of the popular computing discourse -- might want to check out Andrea diSessa's "Changing Minds" for a decent summary.
- Yes, and the remark at the post's bottom, "Structured editing wasn't actually a bad idea, it was just poorly executed." seems oblivious to Boxer -- I found it usable enough (and inspiring).
diSessa's book http://www.amazon.com/Changing-Minds-Computers-Learning-Lite... has more on the philosophy and the experience with kids using it. The writing style's a bit of a slog.
