Systems and Self

MAS 714 and STS 445
Fall 1999, Tuesdays 1:00-3:00pm, E15-054 (MIT Media Lab)
http://lcs.media.mit.edu/courses/mas714/

Mitchel Resnick (mres@media.mit.edu)
Sherry Turkle (sturkle@media.mit.edu)

Teaching assistant: Marina Umaschi Bers (marinau@media.mit.edu)
Course administrator: Carolyn Stoeber (stoeber@media.mit.edu), E15-020A, 253-0330

This course examines how people relate to, think about, and think with new technologies. It explores how new computational movements both reflect and contribute to broader intellectual movements that are changing the way people think about mind, self, nature, and society. This semester, we will focus especially on how new "computational objects"—such as the "things that think" being developed at the Media Lab—could influence and be influenced by the way people think about "things."

Tentative Schedule

September 14: Introduction and Overview

September 21: Simulations of Things

• Starr, P. (1994). Seductions of Sim. American Prospect, no. 17, pp. 19-29.
• Turkle, S. (1995). Life on the Screen (Introduction, Chapters 1-2). Simon and Schuster.

Hands-on assignment: SimCity

September 28: Childhood Objects

• Csikszentmihalyi, M. (1993). Why We Need Things, in History from Things (edited by S. Lubar & W.D. Kingery), Smithsonian Institution Press.
• Papert, S. (1980). Mindstorms (Foreword, Introduction, Chapter 1, Chapter 7). Basic Books.
• Shotwell, J., Wolf, D., and Gardner, H. (1979). Exploring Early Symbolization. In B. Sutton-Smith (ed.), Play and Learning.
• von Glaserfeld, E. (1995). Radical Constructivism: A Way of Knowing and Learning (Chapter 3: Piaget's Constructivist Theory of Knowing), The Falmer Press.

Assignment due: In the spirit of Papert’s gears, write about an object from your childhood (see description in Course Requirements below). Be prepared to make a short presentation about your childhood object in class. Click here to see some of the papers written by students in the class.

October 5: Objects and Learning

• Brosterman, N. (1997). Inventing Kindergarten (pp. 8-39). New York: Harry Adams Inc.
• Resnick, M., Bruckman, A., & Martin, F. (1996). Pianos Not Stereos: Creating Computational Construction Kits. Interactions, vol. 3, no. 6, pp. 41-50.
• Resnick, M., Berg, R., & Eisenberg, M. (in press). Beyond Black Boxes: Bringing Transparency and Aesthetics Back to Scientific Investigation. Journal of the Learning Sciences.
• Resnick, M. (1998). Technologies for Lifelong Kindergarten. Educational Technology Research and Development, vol. 46, no. 4.

In-class: Hand out Cricket technology for assignment due October 12.

October 12: Toys to Think With

• Resnick, M., Rusk, N., and Cooke, S. (1998). The Computer Clubhouse: Technological Fluency in the Inner City. In Schon, D., Sanyal, B., and Mitchell, W. (eds.), High Technology and Low-Income Communities, pp. 266-286. Cambridge: MIT Press.
• Shenk, D. (1999). Use Technology to Raise Smarter, Happier Kids. The Atlantic, January 1999.

Assignment due: Create a "toy to think with" built with Cricket technology (see description in Course Requirements below). See the Beyond Black Boxes workshop Web site for references for using the Crickets and for a special journal to document your projects. You will need to download Cricket Logo software.

October 19: No Class (Media Lab sponsor week)

October 26: Styles and Personal Appropriation

• Gilligan, C. (1982). In a Different Voice (Introduction and Chapter 3). Harvard University Press.
• Hale, J. (??). How Culture Shapes Cognition, in Black Children: Their Roots, Culture, and Learning Styles.
• Turkle, S., & Papert, S. (1990). Epistemological Pluralism. Signs, vol. 16, no. 1.
• Turkle, S. (1995). Life on the Screen (Section III: Chapters 7-10).

November 2: Objects to Think With: Psychological Foundations

• Csikszentmihalyi, M. (1981). The Meaning of Things (Chapters 1 & 2). Cambridge University Press.
• Turkle, S. (1984). The Second Self (Chapter 1). Simon and Schuster.
• Winnicott, D.W. (1971). Playing and Reality (pp. 1-20, 47-56). Basic Books.

November 9: Relational Objects

• Pickard, R. (1995). Affective Computing. Media Laboratory VisMod Technical Report 321.
• Turkle, S. (in press). Spinning Technology.
• The Humanoid Robot Cog
• Kismett, a Robot for Social Interaction

November 16: Emergent Things
In-class field trip: We will meet at the Virtual FishTank exhibit at the Boston Museum of Science.

• Keller, E.F. (1985). Reflections on Gender and Science (Chapter 8). Yale University Press.
• Resnick, M. (1994). Turtles, Termites, and Traffic Jams. MIT Press.
• Turkle, S. (1995). Life on the Screen (Chapter 5-6).

Hands-on assignment: Experiment with StarLogo software. Read the Getting Started document, and try several of the sample projects (for example: Termites and Rabbits).

November 23: Explorations of Identity and Values
Guest lecturer: Marina Umaschi Bers

• Bers, M., & Cassell, J. (1998). Interactive Storytelling Systems for Children: Using Technology to Explore Language and Identity. Journal of Interactive Learning Research, vol. 9, no. 2, pp. 138-215
• Bers, M. (1999). Narrative Construction Kits: Who am I? Who are You? What are We?, Proc. of the AAAI Symposium on Narrative Intelligence.
• Bers, M. (1999). Zora: A Graphical Multi-User Environment to Share Stories about the Self. Proc. of Computer-Supported Collaborative Learning Conference.

November 30 and December 7: Final Project Presentations

Course Requirements

Readings. All students are expected to do the readings, and to participate in discussions of the readings in class. We will provide a packet that includes most of the readings. (The packet will be handed out in class on September 21.) Students will be expected to buy two books: Life on the Screen (by Sherry Turkle) and Turtles, Termites, and Traffic Jams (by Mitchel Resnick).

Class discussions. In general, class time will be organized as discussions, not lectures. To help get discussions started, we will sometimes ask students to describe one question or issue that they found particularly provocative in that week's reading. So you should come to class each week ready to contribute a provocative question or issue.

Software assignments. Some weeks, students will be expected to try out certain software in connection with the readings. Most of the software will be available for downloading. The software will also be available on computers in room 001 (the Cube) of the Media Lab.

Childhood object paper. Students will write a short paper (2 to 5 pages) about an important object from their childhood, in the spirit of Papert's discussion of gears in Mindstorms (see readings for September 28). Students will discuss their objects (and, if possible, bring the objects) in class on September 28.

LEGO Cricket project. Students (working in groups of three) will use LEGO Crickets to create "toys to think with". There will be an introductory activity during the second half of class on October 5. The next week, on October 12, students will demonstrate their projects and discuss their experiences working on the projects. You will need to download Cricket Logo software. (We will provide more details in class.)

Final project. Each student will write a final paper and make an in-class presentation about it on November 30 or December 7. For the final project, you should choose a computational artifact (or design a new one) and analyze how that artifact reflects and contributes to the ways people think about objects, things, systems, and self. The analysis should make use of the themes and issues discussed in the course, and it should include observations of other people interacting with the artifact as well as self-reflection on your own interactions with the artifact.