Quote: “The process of making and remaking context is, in itself, an act of imaginative play (what we might call the “how” of imagination)” (Brown 96). Context is central to the purpose of learning, especially in history, where we seek to make the content relevant to modern students. Finding a way to create an environment where students are able to make that context on their own would be pretty useful.
Question: How do we convince administrators that play is useful, when it is something that has been maligned for decades?
Connection: The idea of agency expressed in this chapter ties into what we are doing by developing a digital curriculum project: using technology to shift students away from passively receiving content knowledge and towards actively exploring/creating it.
Epiphany: The shift between what and where in learning dimensions intrigues me.
Chapter 8: Hanging Out, Messing Around and Geeking Out
Quote: “The richness of experience and social agency produced by hanging out and the sense of embodiment and personal agency created by messing around, combined with the sense of making, produces what we think is the ultimate goal of indwelling: learning” (Brown 104). This quote details the end goal, which is learning, but I am not sure that it does it in a way that is measurable, and being able to measure success is still necessary to the educational system and the accountability of those within it.
Question: What is the specific process of integrating this system into a high school classroom over the course of an academic year? Learning history, math or English is not the same as killing monsters or finding treasure, so how can this be structured?
Connection: The subtitles of this chapter relate to the badges in EDSS 530.
Epiphany: The indwelling has to be collective, or it will not be effective.
Chapter 9: A New Culture of Learning for a World of Constant Change
Quote: “When we address a problem like a puzzle or a game, we engage in acts of productive inquiry, where the answers we find become part of our stockpile of information, which can then be used to find better and more interesting questions as well as to solve our future problems” (Brown 117). I believe in the potential utility of video games in the learning process, but feel that the authors may be taking the World of Warcraft analogies a little too far in this chapter; this quote is effective because it doesn’t rely on those analogies but still effectively expresses the point of this chapter, and the book at-large.
Question: Things that are not actively used tend to be lost. How can the “stockpiles” not only be built, but maintained over time?
Connection: This being the final chapter, much of the information presented connects to the previous chapters in this book, reinforcing what was previously discussed.
Epiphany: Improving future performances is far more valuable than evaluating ongoing or preceding performances.Improving future performances is far more valuable than evaluating ongoing or preceding performances.
Source:
Thomas, D., & Brown, J. (2011). A new culture of learning: Cultivating the imagination for a world of constant change. Lexington, Ky.: [CreateSpace?].