Abstract

A research initiative funded by the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation.

Project home page: http://www.thinkeringspace.org

This project is based on the notion that, as Gary Stager puts it, "a child comfortable tinkering with familiar items and playing with ideas will gain the confidence and self-awareness required to solve a wide variety of problems."€�

No Child Left Behind, in its aim to improve basic skills, is narrowing what many schools teach. Annual testing requirements in math and reading have absorbed much time and energy at the expense of other aspects of curricula, and performance improvements in the lower grades are often not reflected later. There appears to be a "complexity gap" when kids are confronted with more conceptual thinking in higher grades (Toppo, 2007).

Concurrently, the new digital landscape is radically changing how and where kids learn, play, interact and experience the physical environment. As physical activities are increasingly exchanged for play in the virtual world, the opportunity for learning from the physical world is diminished.

Digital tools are changing how kids socialize and how they experience each other. New modes of interaction enabled by technology, such as multi-tasking, communicating on the fly (anywhere, anytime, remote, synchronous, asynchronous access), and co-located editing and authoring are already pervasive. While these behaviors link this digital generation, their knowledge of digital media and tools often separate them from teachers and other adults who have become accustomed to more traditional technologies.

Technology, in addition, is creating new experiential opportunities for exploring, learning and interacting, both inside and outside of homes, schools and other institutions. Importantly, these opportunities for open-ended, self-directed discovery are valued for the process of discovery, not the product of discovery that is important. Kids actively engaged in the process of making, experiencing and reflecting on their work is a viable outcome in itself.

Tinkering for the sake of one's own discovery promotes more than just learning about the topic of inquiry. Tinkering further promotes the development of critical thinking skills that will prepare kids as they encounter future, more-complex scenarios. The trends resulting from the digital revolution indicate a demand for all kids to develop more progressive skills for future success. In particular, the following list of competencies, formerly seen as niche skills sets, is forecast to be of major importance for today's kids in their adult futures:

- Creative Thinking (developing intellectual independence and multiple perspectives)
- Systems Understanding (seeing meaningful relationships in complexity)
- Innovative Problem Solving (framing problems in unconventional ways and connecting ideas through lateral thinking)
- Information Management (knowing how to find, organize and use resources)
- Interdisciplinary Teamwork (collaborating effectively across disciplines)

By providing kids with opportunities to develop these competencies they will be better equipped to face future issues. The experience of tinkering, self-directed discovery, and peer engagement within both physical and digital environments can help kids to develop these competencies. The ThinkeringSpace initiative aims to support and nurture children in their exploratory activities to help them develop these important skills.

Thinking while tinkering inevitably leads to "thinkering"€� a semantic conjunction noted in the work of Michael Ondaatje. In The English Patient, Ondaatje uses the term "thinkering"€� to "suggest collecting a thought as one tinkers with a half-completed bicycle."€� Educational theorist Eleanor Duckworth (1996) observes that: "Making new connections depends on knowing enough about something in the first place to provide a basis for thinking of other things to do - of other questions to ask - that demand more complex connections in order to make sense."€�As one tinkers and begins to make additional and more complex connections, building on one's current knowledge base, the original query is likely to be replaced by more advanced initiatives that are more meaningful to the tinkerer.

In ThinkeringSpace, the word "space"€�is used both literally and figuratively. At the core of the concept is self-directed inquiry, supported by environments rich in resources; that are computer mediated, collaboration intensive, and multimodal. The goal is to better understand how these environments could be developed to offer a hands-on, exploratory and experiential approach to understanding the physical and virtual worlds.

ThinkeringSpace acknowledges the value of connecting head and hands in the discovery process. While focused on experiential, interactive, exploratory and informal learning principles for individuals and collaborative groups, the "tinkering paradigm"€� is still neither well defined nor widely understood. Further, the needs and requirements for environments, or "spaces"�, that support tinkering are even less well known.

Additionally, the nature and role of institutional settings such as schools, museums and libraries in support of new ThinkeringSpaces is still in the process of being envisioned and described.

Overview

A Brief Look at Libraries

In the traditional sense, libraries have generally been understood as either private or public physical storehouses of knowledge where archives or collections of books and periodicals are arranged and cataloged in specific ways. Throughout their history, libraries have been impacted by changes in media, information and communication technologies, all of which have played a central role in defining how knowledge is recorded and disseminated.

Largely as a result of the Carnegie Endowement, libraries are now broadly distributed in the US and have become a major information resource channel throughout the nation. Of the over 115,000 in the United States, about 9,200 are public libraries. All major cities have library networks serving a wide cross section of the citizenry.

Founders and early leaders of the Chicago Public Library believed that the library, as an educational institution, and in the spirit of democracy, should provide an opportunity for intellectual growth to the local citizens by providing books and related reading material for popular education, civic awareness and scholarly research. This goal has expanded over time and now includes assistance in navigating and analyzing tremendous amounts of knowledge with a variety of digital tools.

The World Wide Web has brought both new opportunities and challenges to libraries. While physical printed media and virtual digital media now exist side by side, the old is gradually losing ground to the new. In an increasingly virtual world, public and private libraries are re-thinking their role in both providing how and where to access information as well as in helping users develop new access skills. Libraries seem to not have adequate human, facility, technical and other resources to deal with exploding information and media, rapidly changing technology and the need for expanding new public programs. They are probably underbudgeted, understaffed and overworked.

Changes in the technological landscape are forcing libraries to think seriously about their future. For example, the strategic plan of the Chicago Public Library 2010: A Vision of Our Future (Tan 2005), as representative of other libraries in the United States, has analyzed its position in the community. Among its identified strengths: a welcoming and safe physical infrastructure and presence in the community; current and diverse collections; dedicated, well-trained personnel; and innovative programming. Among its identified opportunities: enhance and expand programs and partnerships; increase access to information in all formats; and heighten awareness of the public library.

Strategic studies like this provide support and guidance for managing resources and pursuing new strategic areas of opportunity. Public libraries increasingly recognize their role in not only providing access to information and the development of access skills, but also in providing innovative programming and expanding programs and partnerships, both in the local and world community.

Why Libraries and ThinkeringSpaces are a Good Idea

With over 115,000 libraries nationwide, and over 9,200 of these public (American Libraries Association, 2005), libraries present a unique opportunity to integrate ThinkeringSpace installations into the broader community.

While most libraries have integrated computer technology at some level, there is clearly the potential to expand both capabilities and facilities, and to extend reach into their respective communities through new program offerings.

Research (Bertot, McClure, Jaeger and Ryan, 2006) has shown than a high number of libraries now provide computer stations with internet access to their patrons, along with other basic amenities such as printing and scanning. Few libraries provide services that go beyond these basics, and, while the number of these in-library computer stations varies widely, they are often in scarce supply due to their high demand within their community.

As an open access resource for information, media, artifacts and learning materials in and for the community, libraries provide a highly distributed, ubiquitous channel with an existing bricks and mortar infrastructure and a growing Information Technology (IT) infrastructure with very rich potential. There are numerous libraries that are quite technologically advanced and serve as guideposts for the future.

For ThinkeringSpace, partnerships with libraries as existing and highly distributed channels having rich content resources would reduce the startup investment for rolling out a program of this scale.

© 1995-2010 IIT Institute of Design Contact us | Email this page