Learning By Tinkering
I’m reading Lawrence Lessig’s Free Culture. In it he refers to John Seely Brown who was the Chief Scientist Xerox. Brown believes that we learn by tinkering. People have learned about engines by taking apart lawnmowers or motorcycles. People learned about electronics by building radios. Open source software gives people the opportunity to learn about software. People can learn about music or video through remixing. Tinkering is learning.
I like the idea. It makes sense to me. It explains my preferred method of learning. Generally, I don’t like courses. I much prefer to learn a new piece of software through trial and error. I learned iMovie by editing videos of my kids. The first “movie” I made was of my son and his friends doing bike stunts.
I learned Wordpress and Drupal by installing them on an old computer at home. I read a lot of on-line manuals and watched tutorials but not before I’d mucked around with each program first. I do read manuals but only once I’ve mucked around first. By playing with something first it gives the manual the context I need to understand it.
We need to give kids more time to tinker. In the current standards driven climate in which we practice, it’s not easy.
