Interconnections: Understanding Systems through Digital Design
In an era of increasing interconnectedness, knowledge — and power — belongs to those who understand the nature of the interdependent systems that organize the world — and have the skills to change those systems. The books in the Interconnections collection offer K-12 educators a curriculum toolkit for supporting systems thinking with a design-based approach to learning that aligns with current literacy, technology, and science standards and is relevant to youth interests in digital culture.
Interconnections: Understanding Systems through Digital Design is a new set of materials designed to help teachers and nonschool facilitators bring the power of making into their curricula through the design and creation of video games, digital stories, and electronic toys and fashions. We use these approaches not only to help youth learn STEM concepts, but in a broader way to develop their understanding of systems thinking.
The Interconnections collection provides readers with supplemental materials, links to resources, and related forums to enhance your experiences with the four books in this series.
The books in this collection will be available from most book sellers by October 17, 2014. Look for buying options at MIT Press:
- Gaming the System: Designing with Gamestar Mechanic
- Script Changers: Digital Storytelling with Scratch
- Short Circuits: Crafting e-Puppets with DIY Electronics
- Soft Circuits: Crafting e-Fashion with DIY Electronics
Join us at NWP Radio on October 23rd to hear more about this series and its design as well as consider with us the possibilities.
History of this work
Interconnections grew from the Grinding New Lenses (GNL) design project focused on creating modular, digital design curricula that promote systems thinking dispositions in young people. Led by the Center for Research on Learning and Technology at Indiana University in partnership with the Institute of Play, Digital Youth Network at Depaul University and the National Writing Project, the project aims to empower young people to view the world as a set of complex systems by engaging them in the process of describing, creating, modeling and making interventions in systems through using new media — game design, digital storytelling and do-it-yourself (DIY) electronics as contexts for engaging in systems thinking.
Learn more about Grinding New Lenses:
- NWP Radio—Exploring “Systems Thinking” With Grinding New Lenses, August 2011
- Curriculum, Rewired, September 2011