Changing Minds: Computers, Learning, and Literacy - Hardcover

Disessa, Andrea A.

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0262041804 ISBN 13: 9780262041805

Publisher: Bradford Books, 2000

Synopsis

Tackling the difficult question of whether students learn science better with computers at their disposal, the author discovers value in the technology far exceeding its role as a classroom "tool."

About this title

About the Author

Andrea diSessa is Chancellor's Professor in the Graduate School of Education at the University of California, Berkeley, and a member of the National Academy of Education. He is the coauthor of Turtle Geometry: The Computer as a Medium for Exploring Mathematics (MIT Press, 1981).

Reviews

Can computers really extend our intelligence? Might new "computational literacies" alter the face of education, expanding and accelerating learning possibilities? Research scholar, teacher and technologist DiSessa thinks so, and posits a future in which computers "will have penetration and depth of influence comparable to what we have already experienced in coming to achieve a mass, text-based literacy." But why should ordinary people learn about not just the function, but the structure of these new tools? DiSessa answers this question through many compelling narratives of how students actually explore sophisticated science and mathematics topics with the "Boxer" software system, a product that DiSessa and his research colleagues have developed to further their research on cognition and learning. Their findings reinforce many of our commonsense understandings about optimal education: that students learn best by doing; that tacit, intuitive knowledge is important to the acquisition of concepts; and that learning needs to be carefully tailored to an individual's domain of competence. DiSessa also concretely illustrates how to lead students toward complex technical competence and become active creators, not just passive consumers, of new technologies. While a good deal of his book is geared toward scientifically and mathematically literate readers, the personal narratives make it accessible to anyone interested in how computers may change not just the way we learn, but the way we think. (May)
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.

One of the original designers of the children's programming language Logo, DiSessa has spent most of his professional life thinking about how kids use and change technology and, ultimately, how technology changes kids. Here, he examines how computers are creating a new literacy, particularly for science education, where the computer is more than a tool for funneling instruction to students. This will fit comfortably between two books by Seymour Papert: Mind Storms: Computers, Children, and Powerful Ideas and The Children's Machine: Rethinking School in the Age of the Computer ; recommended for all libraries.
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Edition details

• Publisher: Bradford Books
• Publication date: 2000
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0262041804
• ISBN 13: 9780262041805
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 271