How lessons from kindergarten can help everyone develop the creative thinking skills needed to thrive in today's society.
In kindergartens these days, children spend more time with math worksheets and phonics flashcards than building blocks and finger paint. Kindergarten is becoming more like the rest of school. In Lifelong Kindergarten, learning expert Mitchel Resnick argues for exactly the opposite: the rest of school (even the rest of life) should be more like kindergarten. To thrive in today's fast-changing world, people of all ages must learn to think and act creatively―and the best way to do that is by focusing more on imagining, creating, playing, sharing, and reflecting, just as children do in traditional kindergartens.
Drawing on experiences from more than thirty years at MIT's Media Lab, Resnick discusses new technologies and strategies for engaging young people in creative learning experiences. He tells stories of how children are programming their own games, stories, and inventions (for example, a diary security system, created by a twelve-year-old girl), and collaborating through remixing, crowdsourcing, and large-scale group projects (such as a Halloween-themed game called Night at Dreary Castle, produced by more than twenty kids scattered around the world). By providing young people with opportunities to work on projects, based on their passions, in collaboration with peers, in a playful spirit, we can help them prepare for a world where creative thinking is more important than ever before.

Lifelong Kindergarten: Cultivating Creativity through Projects, Passion, Peers, and Play

Education & Teaching

Resnick, Mitchel

Schools & Teaching

Mit Pr

Resnick (media laboratory, Massachusetts Institute of Technology) explores the counterintuitive world of decentralized systems and self-organizing phenomena. Drawing on ideas from computer science, education, psychology, and systems theory, he examines why many people resist decentralized ideas, and describes an innovative computer language, StarLogo, that he designed to help students from grade school and up simulate self-organizing behavior in systems. Resnick analyzes the educational ideas, such as constructionism, and computational ideas, including massive parallelism, underlying StarLogo. Annotation copyright Book News, Inc. Portland, Or.

Turtles, Termites, and Traffic Jams: Explorations in Massively Parallel Microworlds

Computers & Technology

Computer Science

MIT Press]

Lifelong Kindergarten: Cultivating Creativity through Projects, Passion, Peers, and Play (Mit Press)

The MIT Press

How does a bird flock keep its movements so graceful and synchronized? Most people assume that the bird in front leads and the others follow. In fact, bird flocks don't have leaders: they are organized without an organizer, coordinated without a coordinator. And a surprising number of other systems, from termite colonies to traffic jams to economic systems, work the same decentralized way. Turtles, Termites, and Traffic Jams describes innovative new computational tools that can qhelp people (even young children) explore the workings of such systems―and help them move beyond the centralized mindset.

Turtles, Termites, and Traffic Jams: Explorations in Massively Parallel Microworlds (Complex Adaptive Systems)

Bradford Books

FOR USE IN SCHOOLS AND LIBRARIES ONLY. ScratchJr is a free, introductory computer programming language that runs on iPads and Android tablets. Inspired by Scratch, the wildly popular programming language used by millions of children worldwide, ScratchJr helps even younger kids create their own playful animations, interactive stories, and dynamic games. The Official ScratchJr Book is the perfect companion to this free app and makes coding easy and fun for all. Kids learn to program by connecting blocks of code to make characters move, jump, dance, and sing. Each chapter includes several activities that build on one another, culminating in a fun final project. These hands-on activities help kids develop computational-thinking, problem-solving, and design skills. By the end of the book, kids will be ready for all sorts of new programming adventures!

Official Scratchjr Book: Help Your Kids Learn to Code

Children's Books

Bers Ph.D., Associate Professor Marina Umaschi

Turtleback Books

The digital revolution necessitates, but also makes possible, radical changes in how and what we learn. This book describes a set of innovative educational research projects at the MIT Media Laboratory, illustrating how new computational technologies can transform our conceptions of learning, education, and knowledge. The book draws on real-world education experiments conducted in formal and informal contexts: from inner-city schools and university labs to neighborhoods and after-school clubhouses. The papers in this book are divided in four interrelated sections as follows: * Perspectives in Constructionism further develops the intellectual underpinnings of constructionist theory. This section looks closely at the role of perspective-taking in learning and discusses how both cognitive and affective processes play a central role in building connections between old and new knowledge. * Learning through Design analyzes the relationship between designing and learning, and discusses ways that design activities can provide personally meaningful contexts for learning. This section investigates how and why children can learn through the processes of constructing artifacts such as games, textile patterns, robots and interactive devices. * Learning in Communities focuses on the social aspects of constructionist learning, recognizing that how people learn is deeply influenced by the communities and cultures with which they interact. It examines the nature of learning in classroom, inner-city, and virtual communities. * Learning about Systems examines how students make sense of biological, technological, and mathematical systems. This section explores the conceptual and epistemological barriers to learning about feedback, self-organization, and probability, and it discusses new technological tools and activities that can help people develop new ways of thinking about these phenomena.

Constructionism in Practice: Designing, Thinking, and Learning in A Digital World

Science & Math

Kafai, Yasmin B.

Behavioral Sciences

Routledge

Have you ever wondered how birds flock or forest fires spread? For thousands of years people―from daVinci to Einstein―have created models to help them better understand patterns and processes in the world around them. Computers make it easier for novices to build and explore their own models―and learn new scientific ideas in the process. Adventures in Modeling introduces you and your students to designing, creating, and investigating models in StarLogo.
Using models to explore complex, dynamic systems or events (like predator/prey interactions or traffic jams) is a powerful learning experience. It can help you see the world in new ways and demonstrate how complex patterns can arise from many simple interactions. Modeling and simulation are finding a rapidly growing audience among teachers in middle and high school science and mathematics classes―especially since the NCTM and AAAS standards advocate their integration into the curriculum. This valuable resource:
<ul>
<li> helps educators and their students learn to build their own models (not just use models constructed by others) even if they have no previous modeling or programming experience</li>
<li> cuts across traditional disciplinary boundaries, helping illuminate the connections among different sciences, social sciences, and mathematics</li>
<li> combines computer activities with “in-the-world activities,” providing teachers and students with the best of both worlds</li>
<li> introduces the study of “complex systems,” a field that has attracted great attention in the scientific community during the past decade</li>
<li> provides explicit links to state and national math and science content standards</li>
</ul>
As computer use gains in currency and value in the middle and high school classroom, Adventures in Modeling will give teachers and students an effective way to build curiosity and boost learning outcomes in a standards-based curriculum.
This full-color book includes a CD-ROM with StarLogo and many fascinating classroom projects!

Adventures in Modeling: Exploring Complex, Dynamic Systems with StarLogo

Klopfer, Eric

Stevens Colella, Vanessa

Teachers' College Press

ScratchJr is a free, introductory computer programming language that runs on iPads, Android tablets, Amazon tablets, and Chromebooks. Inspired by Scratch, the wildly popular programming language used by millions of children worldwide, ScratchJr helps even younger kids create their own playful animations, interactive stories, and dynamic games. The Official ScratchJr Book is the perfect companion to this free app and makes coding easy and fun for all. Kids learn to program by connecting blocks of code to make characters move, jump, dance, and sing. Each chapter includes several activities that build on one another, culminating in a fun final project. These hands-on activities help kids develop computational-thinking, problem-solving, and design skills. In each activity, you’ll find: –Step-by-step, easy-to-follow directions –Ways to connect the activity with literacy and math concepts –Tips for grown-ups and teachers –Creative challenges to take the learning further By the end of the book, kids will be ready for all sorts of new programming adventures! The ScratchJr app now supports English, Spanish, Catalan, Dutch, French, Italian, and Thai.

The Official ScratchJr Book: Help Your Kids Learn to Code

Bers, Marina Umaschi

Humor & Entertainment

No Starch Press

Lifelong Kindergarten: Warum eine kreative Lernkultur im digitalen Zeitalter so wichtig ist

Bananenblau UG

Tortugas, termitas y atascos de tráfico

Gedisa

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