Technologies for Creative Learning

By Nov 11, please post the revised draft of a short proposal describing your final project. Keep it less than a page.

By Nov 18, please provide feedback on two proposals from other students in the class. To determine which proposals to respond to, please start with the two people following your name in this list. For example, Debbie will provide feedback to Duks and Emily, and Vicky will provide feedback to Amos and April. You're welcome to provide additional feedback, but please start with those following you in the list.

Amos
April
Daniel
Danny
Debbie
Duks
Emily
Florence/Kumiko
Huang
Jenn
Jin Joo
John
Kathleen
Kent
Lass
Marie
Pol
Rita
Ryan
Sam
Takashi
Vicky

Please select a 15 minute block to meet with Mitch and I by leaving a comment. (We'll update this master list as people select times.) If there isn't a time listed that is convenient for you, please email us to arrange another time.

Tuesday, November 10: 5:00pm - 8:00pm
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Thursday, November 12: 9:30am - 11:30am
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Thursday, November 12: 1:30pm - 3:00pm
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Friday, November 13: 10:00am - 1:00pm
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This week's activity asks you to create an interactive painting using Leah Buechley's Paper Computing kit.

The webpage with documentation of the kit is available at http://hlt.media.mit.edu/paper_computing/workshop.html

If you need any assistance, Leah welcomes you to attend her office hours on Mondays (in the Media Lab, third floor, room 368C) from 10am to 12pm -- or to email her at leah@media

If you need additional resources (extra paper, more paint, multimeters) or assistance, please feel free to email me at karen@media

Please take pictures to document your painting.

Please post a draft of a short proposal describing your ideas for the final project. Keep it less than a page; just a paragraph or two is fine.

For the final project, your assignment is to design and test new features, new support materials, or new activities for a creative learning technology -- and to write a "design brief" discussing the motivations, rationale, and principles underlying your design.

You are welcome (in fact, encouraged) to work in groups. If possible, you should test your tool/materials/activities with sample users. A design brief outline and sample projects are linked from the syllabus.

In class yesterday, we reviewed the schedule of final project waypoints.

Nov 4
Draft of short proposal describing your ideas for the final project (posted on the blog)
In-class discussion of project proposals

Nov 11
Final proposal for project due on the blog

Nov 18
Peer feedback on proposals (posted on the blog)
Deadline for having met with Karen and Mitch about project

Dec 9
In-class, poster-based presentations (4' by 3', if you need any design or printing help, please let us know)

Dec 11
Papers (no longer than 10 pages, only 1 paper per group required) due on the blog

Jin Joo, Ryan, Daniel, and Kathleen provide reflections and questions on this week's reading about supporting communities of learners. Please post your response by Monday at 5pm, and add at least one follow-up comment (on someone else's response) by end of day Tuesday.

It's fine to keep the posts short (just a couple of paragraphs). What's most important is communicating your ideas clearly.

Continuing the theme of the social nature of learning, Debbie, April, Rita, and Takashi provide reflections and questions on this week's reading about situated cognition. Please post your response by Monday at 5pm, and add at least one follow-up comment (on someone else's response) by end of day Tuesday.

It's fine to keep the posts short (just a couple of paragraphs). What's most important is communicating your ideas clearly.

For this week's activity, you were asked to help someone learn Scratch.

Please add a comment to this post and describe the person you helped (age, gender, previous experience with computers, other dimensions).

In class, we'll be sharing our experiences. How did you approach the task? What were the challenges? How did it compare with your own experiences learning Scratch?

Victoria, Kumiko, Florence, and Amos provide reflections and questions on this week's readings about communities of learners. Please post your response by Monday at 5pm, and add at least one follow-up comment (on someone else's response) by end of day Tuesday.

It's fine to keep the posts short (just a couple of paragraphs). What's most important is communicating your ideas clearly.

For this week's activity, you were asked to find three examples of how the Scratch website is designed to support collaboration.

In class, we'll be discussing our experiences with this activity. For each example, we will discuss: (1) how it fosters and encourages collaborations, (2) what are the limitations, (3) how it could be extended or enhanced. What new features could further enhance collaboration on the Scratch website?