Mitch Resnick – Sowing the Seeds for a More Creative Society

How can we help young people learn to express themselves with new technologies so they can be active participants in tomorrow’s Creative Society?

Key Questions and Comments:

• (6:50) Your research group at the MIT Media Lab is called Lifelong Kindergarten. Why is that?
• (16:13) How do we take these great ideas and move them out into the rest of the world?
• (17:04) I’d be curious to hear how you feel your work intersects with the [Maker] movement?
• (18:51) Do you find that it’s sometimes challenging to maintain that more playful approach or are there particular things that you do that encourage that?
• (21:10) After you have the one workshop…do you see that [the Maker community will] continue this type of practice after you’re gone?
• (22:48) How have you seen different sorts of kids bringing different sorts of material culture to the table and working with that?
• (24:13) What, in your opinion, does it mean to be fluent with “digital” technology?
• (35:15) How can these ideas related to lifelong learning and tinkering apply to High School and College level learning?
• (37:43)The “kindergarten spirit”, is that alive and well? This notion of how kids learn and explore regardless of socioeconomic place?
• (39:20) The institutional settings actually discourage the “kindergarten spirit”…I wonder if you’ve thought about how to try to change that more institutional dynamic that can be so hard to move?
• (41:56)What are some of the assessments you wish people were assessing, and in what ways or how would you do that?
• (47:05) How can we cultivate and support communities of creative learners the way you have?

View the Conversation
During the broadcast, the conversation also took place on Twitter using the hashtag #connectedlearning.

Guests for this webinar included:

• Kylie Peppler
• Erin Reilly
• Christo Sims
• Karen Brennan
• Jeff Brazil
• Mimi Ito
• Howard Rheingold
• Mitch Resnick: Mitch Resnick directs the Lifelong Kindergarten group at Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Media Lab, which specializes in developing new technologies to engage people (particularly children) in creative learning experiences. His research projects include Scratch, Programmable Bricks, and Computer Clubhouse.

Resources for this webinar:

• MIT Media Lab
• Lifelong Kindergarten
• SCRATCH software
• Warrior Cats book series
• Warrior Cats adventure game
• Warrior Cats SCRATCH projects
• LEGO Learning Institute
• LEGO Robot Competition
• The Intel Computer Clubhouse Network
• The hacking/making space at Calgary’s TELUS Spark Science Centre
• Mitch’s HASTAC.org post, “Still a Badge Skeptic”
• The “Maker” movement – Wikipedia article
• Maker Faire – Wikipedia article
• MAKE Magazine
• The ConnectedLearning.tv Feedback Form