I actually started to think of the issue of new literacy from Alan Kay's

old Dyna book article years ago when he talked of a device as responsive

as a flute. Squeak just brought the idea back.

Years ago I was at Berkeley when HyperCard appeared. This was actually at

the same time diSessa was working on Boxer. I was struck by the

similarities and the differences of the two projects. Both seemed to be

aiming at an interactive tool of expression. HyperCard was obviously

commercial but the big difference seemed to be the difference between Bill

Atkinson and Andy diSessa. Both very smart folks, very interested in their

respective projects. Atkinson seemed to me to be either more visual or

more artistic and this seemed to be the difference. I sat in some Boxer

meetings and was struck but the total lack of visual thinking in the

design of Boxer. While Boxer had more theory and was by nature more

spatial than a deck of cards, Boxer was an amazingly boring concept

compared to HyperCard and what was being produced with Hypercard by folks

with little theory and no real interest in deep theory. I realize one was

pure research but it was obvious that the influence of HyperCard was going

to race past Boxer just because HyperCard seemed to be the better artistic

tool of expression.

I also realize that SmallTalk seemed to be the predecessor of HyperTalk so

Squeak brought back the question of what happens when these tools are

common tools for expression in the world and schools. I realize that there

is no single tool but there seems to be a lot of visual/sound design tools

floating around for kids and folks to use and in my original list I didn't

even include Powerpoint.

I teach new media and game design at Indiana University. I constantly run

into students who are very smart, who want to do this new media but

completely freak when they can't just 'write' it down. This stuff has to

run and it has to look good in the same way that text has sound good and

read well. I know from experience that if the skills are not in place by

18 the game is essentially over. These really smart folks are run over by

the folks who for some reason did the art and music on the side while

growing up.

I'm trying to imagine a world where kids in particular can select the most

appropriate tool to express an idea or offer a solution. I'm not thinking

in terms of math or science literacy but of literacy in the sense of

reading and writing in a medium, for example Squeak. I'm trying to imagine

how these kids might become literate given this new media which is very

'multi'media. Do you stress textual literacy for the first 8 years and

then expect them to become multimedia-ists? How does it work? How are the

teachers and young folks on this list dealing with this reality?

One of the necessary parts of "literacy" is fluency. So it's not

enough to read a little, or do math a little or program a little.

There are important thresholds that have to be crossed. As with the

older thresholds of reading and writing, most children haven't

crossed the ones that would allow them to be literate.

The other consideration is that one can get fluent in lots of things

that don't confer much benefit: television watching, videogames, pop

culture, etc.

Taking both of these together, nothing really interesting has

happened yet, but the technological parts of the new literacy are

pretty close to being what is needed.

You must not have kids of your own. Has literacy changed? No, but the

tools have. 6 years ago my son was in elementary school creating his

book reports on word processors, using electronic encyclopedia's and the

web as resources for research projects. What kids have learned is that

they can learn just about anything on their own! And to that degree, I

believe that to keep up with them, we need to consider instructional

methodologies that incorporate constructivist learning theory, case base

learning, the Internet and computing as much as possible. Even my son

"the artist" has moved to using tools such as Adobe Illustrator and

digital cameras. Educators need to continue to tap the natural interests

and instincts of the students. These kids are technology savvy far

beyond most of their instructors and parents. We need to teach

instructors and parents not to be intimidated by the technical

competence of these students. We should encourage them to become masters

of the information!

> One of the necessary parts of "literacy" is fluency. So it's not

> enough to read a little, or do math a little or program a little.

> There are important thresholds that have to be crossed. As with the

> older thresholds of reading and writing, most children haven't

> crossed the ones that would allow them to be literate.

Agreed.

> The other consideration is that one can get fluent in lots of things

> that don't confer much benefit: television watching, videogames, pop

> culture, etc.

Not sure if this is actually fluency in a language-like sense. Again the

reading writing problem. I have a real interesting response from John S on

the Squeak list, actually about 3 good responses from John and a good one

from Michael Rosenblum from NYU who really blasts the illusion that

watching TV makes anyone literate and the fact that we would never

tolerate the lack of writing literacy in books that we tolerate in TV.

Also a bunch of good stuff from Howard Gardner, a bunch of his grad

students and Chris Crawford who as usual comes in so far from left field

that he changes the game completely but in a very interesting way.

> Taking both of these together, nothing really interesting has

> happened yet, but the technological parts of the new literacy are

> pretty close to being what is needed.

The phrase I keep coming back to is 'mediajazz' Since this stuff shifts

constantly and shows no sign of not shifting it makes a lot of sense to

look at it in a jazz/improv frame and just add on the fact that it is

media which is jazzing. Going back to John S I think you just shift the

focus to the aesthetics and away from the differences among Squeak, html,

Flash, Director, iShell, Blender, etc.

Big question seems to be that there are so few people equipped to deal with

this combination of technologies and this combination of arts (2d, 3d,

storytelling, video, animation, sound, music and flat out spacial design.)

> >Big question seems to be that there are so few people equipped to deal with

> >this combination of technologies and this combination of arts (2d, 3d,

> >storytelling, video, animation, sound, music and flat out spacial design.)

>

> The technologies are generally poorly done. That being said, there

> are fewer good drawers and painters out there than one would hope.

> There are fewer people who can play musical instruments *and* compose

> than one would hope. There are lots fewer who can do all four things

> mentioned above. There are an even smaller number that are fluent in

> math and science. And an even smaller number of those who are fluent

> in the arts. Since the first thresholds of fluency in most things is

> a 5-7 year process, we have to look to our own culture to wonder why

> people don't get fluent in more that a few things in a lifetime.

A big part of the problem has to have something to do with how we learn at

the earliest stages, grade school. Depending upon what you consider

fluency most kids coming out of grade school have fluent literacy, reading

and writing. It might not be perfect but it is mostly in place, probably

because they spend 8 years reading and writing. We get good at what we do.

Art and music are mostly dropped from schools around grade 3. This also

sends a message to parents and the rest of society that the 3 Rs are

important but the 'others' are not. John S mentioned the Waldorf schools

as different. He also mentioned that he does not push his kids toward

computers and would rather have them drawing or playing music,

particularly at the earliest years. I agreed with this but thought that if

a child should an active interest in 'computer media' of any form you

probably had to support the childs interest in learning this medium.

I also teach interactive media at Indiana University. I have noticed that

I have two kinds of students. I have students who have strong background

in art, music and storytelling who pick up the technology and totally fly.

I also have students who do not have strong backgrounds in art, music and

storytelling but have a great interest in interactive media design (Flash,

Web, Games); they can pick up the technology but they can not fly because

they are hampered by years of no art, music and/or storytelling (writing)

and this will impact them their entire life long. You can see the total

paralysis in the class when they have to demo before or after anyone in

the first group. It is the same as if I have a student who can't write but

gets to college some how. You need those 5-7 years to get good at art,

music, and/or storytelling and you need them in grade school not grad

school.

Imagine if Squeak was the common 'writing' tool in grade school for the

first 5-7 years. Imagine that Squeak also continued to develop and grow

and change over the years. Would you just write with squeak? I doubt it.

The kids would naturally use text, art, and music to tell all their

stories including science and math in the mix. To do this really well you

need 'good' art, music and writing education from the beginning.

For the Squeak community, how does this happen? Will Squeak be just a

'research' project like Boxer which does good research and produces Phds

but never gets that critical mass to actually change things? Papert with

Logo actually came close for a period of time and then it faded. I don't

think the real issue is the technology or the tool. Rembrandt supposedly

said he could make great art with mud and a spoon. Squeak is the mud and

the spoon. How do you all get to the art?

For years I was head of the multimedialab of the faculty for educational

sciences and technology.

In this faculty good old professors teach multimedia theory with books.

As counter part all the students met in workshops my staff of graphical

designers, video-experts with a art-school background but also technical

programmers and had to create at least once in their life a complete

(educational) multimedia project: slides, video, radio-commercial a website

etc...and that was hard work!

It makes that our students are very beloved by the educational industry:

they could design educational stuff in a metodical way AND can speak the

language of the artists who have to create the stuff. (Some students did

create their own art-studio, but to be honoust: that are the exceptions. Do

not try to make artists of them all...)

What most of them learn is to recognise when they need to hire a good

artist..(like I as psychologist learned in my psychometrica classes to

recognize when I needed to hire a real statistical expert during research..)

I do not think that the difference is the background in art classes, but

more a difference in personal attitude in your students: we gave the same

workshops to students from communication studies.. it was a disaster: they

were constantly looking for assistants to do the job, instead of trying and

feeling and struggling with the problem like our educational students did:

they missed completely the experience and only learned to hate these

workshops....

I think that the kernel thought in our approach is an attempt to create a

paradigm shift by bringing them in another (thinking)world: the theorist

versus the artist. The difficulty is to find the right dosis of distraction:

not to much, not to little (Vigotsky zone etc..)

Our University does this in more then one discipline: we reintroduced the

Major Minor model in academic study: A technical major student must follow a

minor study in a complete different discipline: for example psychology or

even arts... (Nothing new, When I was a student in the seventies My

University(Amesterdam) offered the same.

> "I'm trying to imagine a world where kids in particular can select the most

> appropriate tool to express an idea or offer a solution." -- from Thom's

> mail below

>

> Mostly, we adults use tools to, as perfectly as we know how, pass ideas,

> emotions, convictions from one brain to another, or to many. This is what

> we're talking about here.

>

> I think we're off base. This concept is an adult one. We need to persuade,

> to convince, to explain. These are not really childhood needs. We simply

> impose the convention on them -- "present your report on mammals" -- because

> it's the way we work, and the way we hope they'll be trained to work.

>

> Children -- my observations only, ignore me as needed -- mostly absorb.

> They read because they're interested, they create because they like the

> result. It's not for consumption by anyone else. All the praise we heap on

> them "what a nice picture, Johnny" is more or less irrelevant. I see a

> child spend happy time creating very interesting art, then blowing it up,

> with KidPix. If I say "why not use that to make thank-you notes?" boredom

> and rigidity set in.

>

> Perhaps this discussion is about the range and depth of expressive tools

> available to children as they absorb, create and consume within their own

> worlds? It's likely those tools, and skills, will still be around when the

> need to convince and explain becomes more pressing.