The Seven Types of Intelligences
This article discussed psychologist Howard Gardner's theory of the seven types of intelligences found in people, particularly children. These dictate the strengths of a child and how best they learn in an educational environment. The theory itself is fairly solid and the seven types are as follows:
Linguistic- Children with this kind of intelligence enjoy writing, reading, telling stories or doing crossword puzzles.
Logical- Mathematical Children with lots of logical intelligence are interested in patterns, categories and relationships. They are drawn to arithmetic problems, strategy games and experiments.
Bodily- Kinesthetic These kids process knowledge through bodily sensations. They are often athletic, dancers or good at crafts such as sewing or woodworking.
Spatial- These children think in images and pictures. They may be fascinated with mazes or jigsaw puzzles, or spend free time drawing, building with Legos or daydreaming.
Musical- Musical children are always singing or drumming to themselves. They are usually quite aware of sounds others may miss. These kids are often discriminating listeners.
Interpersonal- Children who are leaders among their peers, who are good at communicating and who seem to understand others' feelings and motives possess interpersonal intelligence.
Intrapersonal- These children may be shy. They are very aware of their own feelings and are self-motivated.
Gardner's theory serves as a great basis in understanding that children do learn differently and that the same standardized angle that teaching has adopted won't be effective with every type. However, not every one lies within a single type of learning, and I find even myself to have learning traits from several types, so I feel this list is better understood as a set of categories that certain aspects of learning can be sorted into.
Media Smarts: Kids Learn to Navigate the Multimedia World
This video was a great listen. It brings to light the issue that children throughout school are typically held to a reading and print based learning system. While this is important, with our digital age today and the vast amounts of media and technology that our kids are exposed to daily, kids need exposure and discussion to the information they recieve over these channels. While it might make things more difficult for the designer, it's important that they learn the process and reasoning behind decisions in the broadcasting process. Newspapers were a great example in sifting through various layers of propaganda and misleading information. As kids grow, particularly with each new generation, they will be exposed to a greater amount of digital-based channels and they need to know how to makes use of them effectively without getting bogged down and confused by media techniques of persuasion.
Web Squared: Web 2.0 Five Years On
I thought this article was fantastic. It was great insight into the evolution of the web and it's connection to the mass media and channels that have become so connected with our lives over the last few years. It amazes me that web 2.0 has turned such simple actions such as searching and communicating to each other, into a tool to further tie data together and better help humanity. With a simple twitter post or search over google, someone not only gains results or enjoyment from an action on the web, but help new technology to better and more efficiently help, and in some cases target us.
While it's true that we are now barraged with wave upon wave of ads that know our interests based on our data contributions to the web, ads are only one of many useful tools in reading trends and actions of mass populations and communities. It's a step in the right direction to speed up and better make sense of our economic condition. With companies like Walmart tracking purchases and translating that digitally to votes on a certain product, products can now be rated without spending the time to sit down and leave a rating or comment. As a collective, today's consumer can make better educated decisions in their purchases by viewing surveyed data from other consumers interested in similar products if not the same ones. The mobile device in particular has become a brilliant evolution in our digital society. With that small screen, a filter in cases of augmented reality, we can take photos of places, scan QR codes, and better attach reality with the digital world.
This passes over into other devices as well. When sensory technology is present in many products, the mobile device in particular, we become an assistant, part of the digitalization process. Our location, places around us, people we know, and things we are seeing and experiencing can all be recorded, shared, and understood by the web. A foreigner can now step foot into a country they no nothing of, and in seconds retrieve their location, where they need to go, and what they can do around them. Drivers no longer have to know the roads, and digital systems can talk with us and aid us in finding our way as well as avoid accidents and high traffic areas.
I believe that web 3.0 will certainly spread further into augmented reality territory. The web itself will likely soon exist in physical space through the camera rather than on a fictional page in digital space. I for one am excited to see the bridge and design for the world in front of our eyes. To be completely surrounded by design and information.
