Date: | Mon, 8 Jun 2015 12:30:19 -0700 |
From: | Michael Nagle |
Subject: | Re: Working with dynamic media together |
Following a thread that was started with the "Noun Project wall" and Nagle's observations about how the chess learning community operates, I've been really interested in what it would mean to be able to make software, or make any computational stuff, together.I'll elaborate on this idea of togetherness, but I'm reminded of the passage in Mindstorms about samba schools,During the year each samba school chooses its theme for the next carnival, the stars are selected, the lyrics are written and rewritten, the dance is choreographed and practiced. Members of the school range in age from children to grandparents and in ability from novice to professional. But they dance together and as they dance everyone is learning and teaching as well as dancing. Even the stars are there to learn their difficult parts.Every American disco is a place for learning as well as for dancing. But the samba schools are very different. There is a greater social cohesion, a sense of belonging to a group, and a sense of common purpose. Much of the teaching, although it takes place in a natural environment, is deliberate. For example, an expert dancer gathers a group of children around. For five or for twenty minutes a specific learning group comes into existence. Its learning is deliberate and focused. Then it dissolves into the crowd.Papert goes on the describe the similarities and differences between LOGO and samba schools. But he doesn't point out one of the big differences, which is that in samba, the practice is extremely visible--visible to everyone in the space. If one of those spontaneous learning moments happens you can see that it's happening and join in.
And even when there isn't "deliberate and focused" learning, you pick up quite a lot of the dance just by watching other dancers. Sometimes you look for specific details (how does she do that one move) and sometimes you just pick up on overall "rhythms" (getting inspired by a dancer's quality of movement). At least this is my experience in e.g. capoeira class, breakdancing club, etc.
So, I was trying to come up with a setup where this kind of computing together could be tried out. Here's my idea: