C4T #3 Mr. Howard Rheingold

For this C4T, I was assigned Mr. Howard Rheingold again. I was happy to see this because I knew I could share his updates on the 2012 Digital Media and Learning Conference. His most recent post are on members of the conference committee.






Mitch Resnick: The Role of Making, Tinkering, Remixing in Next-Generation Learning

The first blog that I read was entitled, “Mitch Resnick: The Role of Making, Tinkering, Remixing in Next-Generation Learning”. This blog is about conference committee member “Mr. Mitch Resnick” who develops new technology to engage people, especially children, in creative ways. His “Lifelong Kindergartner” group developed ideas that are used by millions of young people around the world. His group also developed the “Scratch” programming language and online community which allows young people to create and share stories, games, and animations to learn to “think creatively, learn systematically, and work collaboratively.” Mr. Resnick says that he and his team have seen that the best learning comes when people are actively engaged. By doing this they are able to express themselves. However, we can’t just give them the opportunity and technology to use, we must get involved also. In Mr. Resnick’s after school programs, kids who are unsuccessful in traditional settings are often very successful when give the opportunity to create something. He says that he thinks “there are lessons for schools from the ways that kids learn outside of schools, and we want to be able to support that type of learning both inside and outside of schools.”

I completely agree with Mr. Resnick. With all the technology that is available for young kids and students today, we should use these tools to help promote their learning. Technology is only going to continue to grow and the sooner the students become familiar with it and know how to use it, it will benefit them in the long run.

Democratizing Learning Innovation

The second post I read was entitled, “Democratizing Learning Innovation”. In this post Mr. Rheingold talks about “Mr. Mark Surman”. Mr. Surman is a community technology activist and is the current executive director of the “Mozilla Foundation”. This foundation focuses on finding new ways to promote opportunities on the Internet. Mr. Surman is actually leading a sub-theme for the conference called “Democratizing Learning Innovation.” Mr. Surman believes that learning can be freed from its industrial roots. Mr. Surman says that people are starting to organize their learning and the way that they do learn. He also says “Technology itself lets us create things, and creating things is a great way to learn.” He then names a perfect example of democratizing learning: “Hachasaurus”. Hackasaurus is set learning activities, like workshop, for student’s used to help them learn how to use the web productively. This process uses the idea that everyone is participating but they are also creating a learning environment that we want to model what helps us move forward.