Reempowering powerful ideas: designers' mission in the age of ubiquitous technology

Abstract

The project of universal, highquality education is a new human endeavor. Not many decades ago, the mainstream view was that only a small elite required advanced education, and vocational training would suffice for everyone else. The need to educate all students in very different disciplinesmany of them quite complex and advancedis generating demands that the extant educational system cannot meet. Technology has been touted as one answer to these new demands, but has failed so far to escape a centuryold cycle of inflated expectations. Our mission as designers of interactive technologies and environments is crucial to move out of this cycle, but it will require our community to make a convincing argument that technologies in education are not simply delivery media, but artifacts that extend human cognition in multiple ways. The adaptivity of computational media enables an acknowledgement of epistemological diversity which enables students to concretize their ideas and projects with motivation and engagement. Thus, the goal of providing rich educational experiences for all students will depend upon our ability to design devices, environments, and activities that are accepting of children's multiple epistemological resources and heuristics.