Posted: February 14th, 2013 | Author: champika | Filed under: Assignment 1 | No Comments »
Mastery and Mimicry
Some of the key ideas that stood out to me in this reading and that I think are the most important to keep in mind when designing technologies for learning are:
- The fact that technology has the power to shape how we live our lives and so we should be very thoughtful about the broader impact of our designs. In ‘Self-Limitation: Mastery’, he talks about how the invention of the mechanical clock has had a pervasive impact on society and how our perceptions of it have changed as a result.
- Look for upstream tools that are powerful and work to make them more accessible. I think this should be a core goal of technologies for learning – making learning more accessible, tactile, and relevant for the individual and giving the learner more agency.
- Cyclicality – Open Loops. “The bike strengthens the rider to do other things than just peddle a bike”. I think a truly powerful tool for learning supports learners in a similar way.
- Our job as builders is to create the world as it could be.
Augmenting Human Intellect
A concept that resonated with me in the Engelbart reading is this idea that a ‘direct new innovation in one particular capability can have far reaching effects throughout the rest of your capability hierarchy’. An example he uses is the impact on human thought and creativity that the ability to easily, quickly and flexibly edit a piece of writing has. As we think about designing tools that ‘augment’ our intellect I think the most elegant designs will consider and design for these ‘far reaching effects’.
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