Multiple Intelligences Genius Howard Gardner-- Are Apps Producing an App Generation?

My guests tonight are Howard Gardner and Katie Davis

authors of  The App Generation; How Today's Youth Navigate Identity, Intimacy, and Imagination in a Digital World

Howard Gardner is a rock star-- to hundreds of thousands of teachers, to psychologists and to me,  because of his development of the Multiple Intelligences theory. Dr.  Gardner is Hobbs Professor of Cognition and Education at the Harvard Graduate School of Education and senior director of Harvard Project Zero, an educational research group. He is renowned as father of the theory of multiple intelligences. 

Katie Davis is assistant professor, University of Washington Information School, where she studies the role of digital media technologies in adolescents' lives.

My very rough interview notes-- mostly questions. 

A transcript will become available eventually.

Bottom up radio--- 

Goals-- discuss your theory of multiple intelligences, which is what drew me to your book, Apps Generation,  talk about your book and how it is related to multiple intelligences.  and bottom-up aspects of the ideas. 

I was drawn to this book because I've been a great admirer of your ideas about multiple intelligences-- Can you briefly describe your model of multiple intelligences, including your latest thinking on it?

first book was Frames of Mind

new small technologies-- a boon to multiple intelligences thinking. 

How many kinds of MI are there and what are you newest thoughts on the MI model, since 

naturalist intelligence-- 

existential intelligence

pedagogical intelligence

Can you each tell me a story that exemplifies the message of your book

        Katie-- senior high schools going on Facebook and marrying freshman boys

        performance and identity as brand-- comes at cost of focusing inward. 

       Howard: Many kids have never gotten lost.   "Helicopter parents"    Super App

App is a simple way of getting something done online-- 

Tendency to see life as a set of apps. 

" The DIgital explosion/revolution is as disruptive as the invention of writing and  the invention of print." 

"The disruption in education, which I never thought would happen, has happened and is different."

P 192

Theodore Berger U, Southern CA, LA https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hippocampal_prosthesis

has developed a working  "cognitive prosthesis," a piece of hardware working with rats already, and soon on monkeys-- that was presented at a conference on creating hardware aimed at enabling immortality. 

The end of big. 

 

David Eggers new book-- The Circle-- one huge company called the circle that controls every aspect of life and people like it. 

efforts to record everything and to be immortal are ". fountain of youth kinds of dreams"

Katie: we're not there yet but it's important to think about where we're headed. 

Whitehead Quote:  155

Danger if we are outsourcing our agency.

Can you talk about what the word Agency means, because I think it's very important in terms of this book. 

  App enabling and app dependence

agential vs giving up agency. 

You have the three Is -- how did you come up with them, then go into each one. 

          the three I's-- identity, intimacy, imagination

       Katie: interviewed 40 veteran teachers and asked how teaching had changed over the years. 

       Identity is an important developmental task

       packaged self, like polished brand icons for Apps.

       

        Howard: work of Erik Erikson-- different crises

Internal vs external locus of control, communitarian vs individualistic values, increasing levels of narcissism, and libertarianism?

Katie: narcissism is associated with an insecure sense of self-- constantly outward focusing, getting validation from outside yourself instead of inside of yourself. 

Howard: study of kids paintings  and literary output from 20 years ago and from 2010--

  stories now more flat and humdrum

Donna Tart on goldfinch-- Dickensian

Tolerant vs

Can you talk more about empathy and how the app generation is being affected?

Katie: less risky and easier to talk online rather than face to face, seeing immediate reaction. 

Howard-- I had a few really good friends and that's all I needed. Now people have thousands of friends. 

Craig Newmark told me that Trust is the next big thing on the web. And there are apps that offer trust. 

Howard-- that's totally different from I just had something terrible happen to me and I need to talk to someone"  Erickson's basic relationship is about the establishment of trust or mistrust. 

I wonder if apps are feeding into attachment disorder. 

Howard: Sherry Turkle's book-- Alone Together

Katie: parents are increasingly having a very close relationship with their kids for a longer and longer time-- developing autonomy is important-- young people text or call their parents 13 times a week. Parents send children to camp with two cell phones. 

Howard: most discussions with middle class-- data indicates differences for disadvantaged kids are not striking-- snow shoveling-- kids didn't shovel-- parents did. 

Less autonomy, less independence

it sounds like we're talking about individuation-- the Oedipal complex is about a child rejecting the father to develop on our own. 

Intimacy--You talk about the difference between being connected vs connecting

It's fine to  have a more connected world" if we don't become narcissistic

The Good Project.org

creativity-- See the book. 

Apps that you find most hopeful most transformative?

  katie: education apps that imitate drill and kill

Doodlebuddy for drawing-- good or bad

"The disruption in education, which I never thought would happen, has happened and is different."

Here's a quote from Alfred North Whitehead:

"The task of a university is the creation of the future, so far as rational

thought and civilized modes of appreciation can affect the issue."

Alfred North Whitehead

How is education changing for good or bad and what can we do about it?

Rise of Mooks-- Massive On-line Classes---

asking questions that haven't been asked before. 

Which future do you want-- the ultimate liberal arts question. 

Anything last that you want to say?

goodproject.org     ethical approaches to digital media