A Global Learning Curve
The future of learning uses activity theory to develop and engage the material in a way that holds context to the student. On the side is an example from Dr. Barab and his partner's research using activity theory to design games that instruct using the Englestrom triangle. Using the game to employ the three-fold integration of creativity, problem-solving, and modality he shows how the game community engages the learner and the interrelationship between the subject and object.
Further, the idea of activity theory can be applied to communities around the globe, instead of using one theory for different cultures, multiple activity theory models cross cultures and blend differences into visible engagement and provide context for the users. It also identifies areas where cross culture can be enhanced to create a new or rewarding context to the information. For example, historical or sociological context is easily enabled when directing modes of learning, for example speaking with another culture affected or learning about the history of another civilization by realizing their point of view. Using the global community as an offering of context helps students and teachers alike explore new ideas and new ways of understanding the information presented.
Moreover, this level of engagement offers a new way of seeing our differences and implores empathy as students realize humanity across the globe. Sharing ideas and connections through learning closes the gap on equality and offers a peaceful and goal-oriented global world means hope that our children will find peace. The global learning curve of equality may be made a reality simply by playing with our children.
Image Source: "ACTIVITY THEORY AS A LENS FOR CHARACTERIZING THE PARTICIPATORY UNIT" from sashabarab.org
From Users to Creators
The slip from user to creator in this age is by far the fastest movement in history. It's easy to see how engaged our children are and then suddenly they are engaging their friends and then adults. When you think about it, I would contend it is simply because their language skills exceed our own ideas. We think of language as words, methodology, communication principles, etc; but it is not just these letters on a page or a voice in a video, or even a sign or symbol. Our children see data as language and speak a new language in the digital age, code. They transcribe data and use it to make another world they can play in. How our children understand code affects how they communicate in written and verbal languages also. I want to go further and offer my opinion here on this page, that language as we imagine is spatial in the way it conveys data. I often thought of math as a language in that it transcribes the world and makes sense of it in a new way, a way that you cannot communicate with words. Code does this for data and technology uses this language to understand information and recall it in a format that we can understand.
If you think about it more, we can see that we understand very little about language and how it is conceptualized in our brain. Equating pictures and text to create meaning, but is that the only language you know? I understand a number idea with a symbol, a sound with a letter, a thread of symbolic text with a data set or conversion, a function of a problem with an answer. These concepts feel linked, if there is one idea that you take going forth from this reading that it is all linked. Linking these languages together creates more and more connections to the user, more and more context and understanding, and creates a reasoning outlier. That outlier is our thought.
Architects of Play
The future of learning invites educators and also students to be architects of play, creating a foundation for learning by developing new ways to understand and convey material. A teacher may understand and convey a student the information, but the student may widen our understanding and create new areas to question. I can see now that learning scientists like Dr. Gee and Dr. Barab show us how important play is to learning and creating new ideas. Transformational play is like structuring a building, placing the information and content in areas where context can be created, and building upon already learned concepts. Their game architecture sets the stage for a new way of understanding teaching and engaging our future.
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