Leo Burd:
Focus more on technology fluency. You know, our goal is not necessarily to have professional programmers, for instance, or professional web developers, but empower people so that they master enough of technology so that they can have a critical understanding of what technology is or kind of impact it can bring to their lives and use the tools in ways that are meaningful to them.

Matthew Worwood:
Hello, everyone. My name is Dr. Matthew Worwood.

Cyndi Burnett:
And my name is Dr. Cindy Burnett.

Matthew Worwood:
This is the Fueling Creativity in Education podcast.

Cyndi Burnett:
On this podcast, we’ll be talking about various creativity topics and how they relate to the field of education.

Matthew Worwood:
We’ll be talking with scholars, educators, and resident experts about their work, challenges they face, and exploring new perspectives of creativity.

Cyndi Burnett:
All with a goal to help fuel a more rich and informed discussion that provides teachers, administrators, and emerging scholars with the information they need to infuse creativity into teaching and learning.

Matthew Worwood:
So let’s begin. Hello. Welcome to another episode. And in this episode, we’re going to be exploring how technology can empower communities, bridge digital divides, and foster social change. If you’re curious about how innovation can be harnessed to create more inclusive and participatory learning experiences, this conversation with our expert in community centered technology design is full of insights you won’t want to miss.

Cyndi Burnett:
Today we welcome to the show Dr. Leo Bird. Leo is a researcher at MIT’s Media Lab, where he focuses on designing and developing technologies that empower marginalized communities. With a background in computer science and a passion for civic engagement, he has led numerous initiatives that leverage digital tools for social impact. Through his work in participatory design, education and grassroots innovation, he’s helping shape the future of technology as a force for equity and empowerment. Welcome to the show, Leo.

Leo Burd:
Oh, thanks so much. It’s a pleasure and an honor to be here with you today.

Cyndi Burnett:
Well, Leo, we’d like to start a little bit with your journey. What led you to explore this intersection between technology education and social impact?

Leo Burd:
Well, it’s a good question. I was born and raised in Sao Paulo, Brazil, which is a very large city with a huge social inequality that you can actually see and where you go, you know, it’s a city with about 10 million people and over a thousand slums there. So it’s always puzzle about, you know, all these differences in quality of life, you know, people living close to me and I wonder what we could do to actually make a difference there, you know, and I knew that technology and education were at the core of that. But not necessarily any kind of technology or any kind of education will lead us to a different kind of society that would be much more respectful and open to people from different kinds of backgrounds and walks of life. And that’s what was something that was impacting my life on a daily basis. And something that I thought would be nice if I could devote my life to try to figure out some potential alternatives to the existing model. Before I came to mit, I ended up directing a non profit organization that built computer schools in slums around Sao Paulo. And that I found my passion there.

Leo Burd:
And then as part of my work, I realized that even though we’re doing our best, couldn’t really see an impact in people’s lives. And I thought it would be good if I could spend some time abroad pursuing a PhD, have an opportunity to explore new ideas, get in touch with different kinds of people and see what we could come up with. And I was very fortunate to be accepted the MIT Media Lab in 2001 as a PhD student and in the lifelong kindergarten group. And they gave me a lot of space and opportunity to interact with community organizations in different parts of the world, try to implement new kinds of technologies and educational approaches. And that one thing led to another and that’s where we are today.

Matthew Worwood:
And I just want to build a little bit on this because quite often we think about technology from the have and have nots. Right? So if we say digital divide, we think about that. But I think a more appropriate conversation that I think is becoming a lot more prominent is the outcomes to which you can get with technology. So I was wondering if you could talk a little bit about that from an education perspective, because there is so much technology now that children have access to both in the classroom and also outside the classroom. But when it comes to those outcomes, what they get from their interaction with that technology, what are some of the divides that you find particularly troubling? And in addition to that, how is your work trying to address some of those divides?

Leo Burd:
Yeah, so I think there’s a difference between democratizing technology or access to technology and using technology for democratization. It’s very different. One thing has to do with providing children and people with access to new kinds of tools. The other thing is empowering them to use those tools in ways that will lead them to a better life, not just for themselves, but also for their communities. I think in education is similar in a way. There’s sometimes the focus. Some initiatives focus mostly on learning about technology versus on technology for learning. And then so whenever we think about the way you’re going to adopt technology in our schools or community centers, it’s Very important to figure out what’s our goal.

Leo Burd:
Is it to teach people how to use technology or to focus on technology literacy, or to focus more on technology fluency so that they can use technology in ways that are meaningful to themselves, to their lives, both as professionals, but also as citizens in a different kind of society. So there’s a subtle change in perspective in the way you actually phrase this thing, but it’s a very different in terms of the way we approach what we do and the technology that you use in the process.

Cyndi Burnett:
So can you tell us a little bit more about what you’ve been doing in Brazil with this technology? Have you been teaching them about technology literacy or have you been teaching them about other content? We’d love to hear more about that.

Leo Burd:
Focus more on technology fluency. Our goal is not necessarily to have professional programmers, for instance, or professional web developers, but empower people so that they. They master enough of technology so that they can have a critical understanding of what technology is or kind of impact it can bring to their lives and use the tools in ways that are meaningful to them, you know, and that’s the main motivation behind the Brazilian Creative Learning Network that we started 10 years ago.

Matthew Worwood:
Can you give me some specific examples, if you don’t mind, about technology fluency? So what are some of the things that you’ve been particularly target in Brazil? And again, where are those areas of success that you think you’re having with this technology? And if you don’t mind, I’d be very interested in being quite specific on what type of technology we’re talking about as well.

Leo Burd:
Sure. I think that’s the equivalent in teaching people literacy, you know, like, one thing is that you don’t. You don’t expect everybody to become professional writers or journalists, or do you want them to have enough know how so that they can actually read and express themselves through poetry or in any other way that makes sense to them, you know, and technology is similar. So about 10 years ago, we at the Media Lab were approached by a Brazilian foundation who was very interested in bringing Scratch to Brazil. Scratch is a programming language for children, a graphic programming language for children that enables kids from like 9 to 14 or so to use programming to create interactive art, like multimedia stories, simulations, all sorts of things. And became very popular worldwide. Today there are over like 100 million users on the Scratch community, over a billion projects published online. So it’s a big deal.

Leo Burd:
So this Brazilian foundation really wanted to our help to bring Scratch to Brazil. And what we told them is that that’s great. They’re interested in Scratch, but instead of focus on Scratch per se, we thought it would be better to focus on the applications of Scratch for creative learning, because in our experience, we noticed that so many programs focus too much on technology per se and end up using that in ways that not necessarily encourage person expression, collaboration, or the development of critical perspectives of the world. So even in Scratch that was designed at the MIT Media Lab as a tool for personal expression sometimes end up being used in ways that are not very creative at all. So in our work in Brazil, we said, okay, so instead of focusing on Scratch, let’s try to identify individuals and organizations that are already doing work in creativity and learning. Let’s bring them together into some sort of a network and then encourage collaboration and discussion among them. We can bring our experience, but together, let’s try to build something that will be very representative of the different realities we have in Brazil from an educational perspective. And let’s see how Scratch and other tools would fit into this context so that would help them bring the existing initiatives to a new level or a new dimension there.

Leo Burd:
So instead of focus on teaching Scratch, we start creating programs where Scratch was used for person expression and collaboration. Now integrating all these different subjects of the curriculum, we encourage the organization of community events, people celebrating different uses of Scratch, and have a strong community in Brazil. Just last year, we helped organize over 500 events around the country just celebrating Scratch in different ways. Even though our focus of not Scratch per se, you know, our focus on fostering creativity and learning Scratch end up being seen as a tool that would empower students to actually be expressive in the technology world, which is something that’s very becoming increasingly important in our world.

Matthew Worwood:
And before we move on, I just want to kind of, you know, try and summarize the connections between teaching the technology fluency, as well as kind of promoting some creative thinking skills, because it feels like there was different components to that system. In essence, that you’ve developed is that you have Scratch, which is hugely popular. And I know that I’ve been in STEM programs that have promoted the use of Scratch, and it can be a great tool. But sometimes you can see the workshops focusing on. On the button pushing. This is how it works. And quite often you can have students in a class where they are going and perhaps, you know, creating a pong game or, you know, getting the Scratch to kind of walk through different scenes or create a story. But to a certain extent, there’s limitations on their creative expression because they’re very confined to what they’re doing Now, I’m not undermining that because I think there’s obviously opportunities for them learn how to use the tool.

Matthew Worwood:
They have to kind of like master the tool first before they can kind of, because that kind of lowers the barriers for them when it comes to that creative expression. But then as they’re interacting with the tool and it’s the scaffolding learning, you begin to provide them with more opportunities, hopefully a little bit more ill defined problems or other types of tasks to which they can begin to discover new things that Scratch can do that they didn’t think they could do. Or perhaps create different types of worlds, environment stories and video games that haven’t necessarily been done before, at least within their community. But then in addition to that, I can hear, see what you’ve got is that you’ve then got the fact that you’re sharing this creative expression. So now what, in essence, what you’ve got, you’ve got all of these different users of Scratch being able to share all of their ideas. And of course, Scratch is a, is a wonderful community. Anyone who’s engaging with Scratch gets to see all of the different things that you could do. But that’s only come about because of the user base that has then also been able to share all of their different ideas.

Matthew Worwood:
So that’s a really important part when you’re thinking about this sense of community. When whenever I’ve been looking at an application or a platform, I’m always looking at the community that exists around that technology because I think that the sharing of ideas within that community is what helps everyone be more creative in using that tool. Is that fair?

Leo Burd:
That’s fair. Scratch was designed to support this educational approach that we call creative learning. And creative learning is an educational approach proposed by Professor Mitchell Resnick from MIT Media Lab, based on the ideas of Seymour Papert, who’s also from mit. And creative learning can be described. We usually describe creative learning around what we call the four Ps of creative learning. The first P is P of projects. Because we believe people learn by interacting with the world. But they learn better if they have opportunities to create a project, something concrete that they can share with other people and that can take all different kinds of shapes and forms, can be all the way from writing a poem to organizing a theater play to creating a computer program.

Leo Burd:
The second P of creative learning is the P of passion. Because we believe that not all projects are the same. People tend to engage more if you have opportunities to work on something that you care about that’s meaningful to You. So in many ways we’re tired of seeing schools, districts invest in toolkits of sorts and distributing them for kids to work on. Expecting kids to create the same projects at the same time. So they end up working on projects or engaging hands on project, but not necessarily relevant for them. So for creative learning, it’s very important to have the passion element that has to be relevant for the kids. The third P has to do.

Leo Burd:
What you’re saying about the community aspect is the P of peers. So if you want to have space to work on projects that are meaningful to you, it’s very important that you work in an environment that encourages exchanges of ideas, where people are respectful, respect ideas that are different from theirs, where you have opportunity to collaborate with others in projects that are more complex that you wouldn’t be able to do by yourself. And the fourth P of creative learning is perhaps the most misunderstood of the P’s is the P of play. So you’re encouraged to use existing tools and materials or even concepts in ways that are different from the expected ones. You know that you get like a piece of cork from a bottle and use that as the body of a little character that you’re building, or the wheel for a car, or something completely different. Where you see the error, not the echo or the explorations, not the moral weight of some sort, that is just an exploration. The error or mistake is just an exploration that led you in a different path or to a result that is different than you expected originally. And sometimes that can be worse or even better that you imagine.

Leo Burd:
But by encouraging this opportunity for exploration and tinkering, we exercise our creativity muscle a lot, you know, and give opportunity for new ideas to emerge. So whenever we think about creating or organizing a creative learning opportunity, always thinking about providing students with opportunities where they can work on projects that are meaningful to them in a space to encourage collaboration and also this playful exploration of tools and materials. So when you think about Scratch, Scratch was designed to support this sort of environment. All the different projects that we or technologies that we design in the life from kindergarten group, with the lab they focus on, they have that philosophy. That’s true for the Lego Mindstorms robotics toolkit. So it’s an open ended tool that can be used in so many ways for kids to develop their own projects. And more recently we launched Octostudio, which is an app, a tool that enables kids to create little interactive art and simulation and stories directly from their cell phones, anywhere they are. So these are always different dimensions that we consider when thinking about the design of meaningful and effective learning experiences.

Leo Burd:
And just to add, when we started our work in Brazil 10 years ago, people almost immediately came up with a fifth piece through creative learning, which is the P of purpose. So it’s very important that the educational experience goes beyond the classroom. It helps connect with the community or the environment that surrounds kids in their lives. That helps connect kids learn with the adult world and society more broadly. And we’ve been exploring these five Ps over the years and as a guiding principle for the design of new technology technologies, for the design on new physical spaces, for the design of new educational lesson plans, either for formal and non formal educational settings. And it’s been very helpful for us as a guiding principle, as a compass for our work. And people tend to fall in love with this 405ps, but then they have a very hard time bringing them to the classroom. An initiative such as the Brazilian Creative Learning Network, where you connect educators that are interested already exploring the space, you know, and encourage the exchange of experiences and everything that’s very, very helpful, very important, so that the ideas get traction, you know, in different, different environments.

Cyndi Burnett:
It’s really interesting, Leo. You know, when you said the four P’s, I was thinking the Melroads model of person, product and press. And then when you went into projects, I was like, oh, maybe that’s products. And then you went into passion and peers and play and purpose and. And I, I think that’s such an interesting sort of build on the 4PS or an after, you know, so if creativity is these 4Ps of the categorization of these 4Ps and then creative learning, are these 4Ps or 5Ps that you’re discussing? I think that’s a really interesting blend of the P’s model. Right. And I think that the play piece that you’re talking about in terms of exploration and tinkering is really interesting. And I’m curious.

Cyndi Burnett:
You just mentioned that teachers have a hard time actually figuring out how to apply that into the classroom. Is that what you said?

Leo Burd:
Yes.

Cyndi Burnett:
Okay. What barriers do they see in bringing these P’s into the classroom? Like what stops them from being able to do it?

Leo Burd:
Well, there are many barriers. One is that not many people had the opportunity to grow up experiencing creative learning on their own, their own education. And there are not that many creative learning examples around that we can build on. So they fall in love, they want to do that, but they don’t have a clear vision of what a creative learning space will look like or how challenging it might be to work with students on a day to day basis using creative learning as, as an approach. And then even the ones that have some experience encounter all sorts of barriers that have to do with like a curriculum that sometimes doesn’t make sense, sessions that are limited to 15 minutes a week, perhaps lack of materials, of opportunities to do something a little more hands on in the classroom. But it always starts with a lack of access to examples and a vision. Because once the educators get a sense of what they’re looking for, they can adapt using whatever materials they have at hand and create something that’s more aligned with the spirit of creative learning.

Matthew Worwood:
Just going through these P’s and I don’t know if I want to kind of necessarily keep beating the drum of generative AI because it’s certainly something that we’ve covered a lot on the show. But I’m just sitting here and thinking a little bit about these Ps and how it might apply to generative AI. And the first thing a little bit is passion. There’s some teachers that are just passionate about technology, and you kind of spoke a little bit about this at the beginning. You’ve got to be a little bit careful. It’s not just about being passionate for technology and just kind of like using technology for using technology’s sake a little bit. So for those teachers, maybe a little bit is thinking about, you know, what projects might come from your play and how might you serve as a peer that can help build purpose for this technology a little bit. But likewise, the passion piece I’m thinking a little bit about is that if you’re an educator who’s immediately assuming or perceiving generative AI as a threat, for example, for academic integrity, which I’m not undermining, there’s a possibility that it could be that in your classroom environment, but that also might thwart the passion you might bring with generative AI.

Matthew Worwood:
But also because it’s a new technology, new reference, this is one of the challenges is that, you know, we’re still building an environment where, where really there’s opportunities to collaborate, particularly around kind of new and different ideas. I think, you know, using generative AI as a search tool, for example, or even to a certain extent to generate ideas, I think that’s very similar to how we might interact with the search engine. But in order for us to kind of make new discoveries of how generative AI might actually impact our classroom in ways that we haven’t thought about yet. And I’m not necessarily always saying they’re good, because as you reference with Play. You make discoveries through exploration. Sometimes they’re good, and sometimes they’re not necessarily good discoveries. But I think it’s very important for educators to have that space to play. And so now I’m thinking about time constraint becomes a little bit of an issue as well, because how much time.

Matthew Worwood:
And also you use the word access. How much access do you have to Geni platforms, particularly the ones that are probably more powerful because they’re behind paid firewalls. So the advantage that something like Scratch could have is that it’s kind of like, you know, a tool built, perhaps built with some of these 4Ps in mind. However, some of the other technologies to which teachers interact with on a daily basis, such as gen AI, that’s kind of like just thrown into their classroom environment and, you know, being used by their children and their students without any kind of necessary guidance. It’s really hard for them in some ways to kind of facilitate these four P’s with that platform. Is, is that a fair summary? To a certain extent, when it comes to some of the challenges around these four 5Ps and new technology?

Leo Burd:
I think when you think about artificial intelligence and other technologies have to think whether you think about their use for teaching or thinking about using applying them for learning. One thing is for teachers to use generative AI to come up with new lesson plans or activities for their students. The other is to provide generative AI as yet another tool or technology for students to use as part of their projects. And the more these projects are open or personal, the less I think the students are going to simply cut and paste the outcomes of generative AI. They become more likely to adapt to make something a little more meaningful. So if you want to transform a classroom into a press room or a theater company or a space exploration agency or something, students can use cardboard, they can use recyclable materials, they can use paper, they can use generative AI in order to build a scenario or to create a situation, to build characters or little objects and stuff. So the focus wouldn’t be necessarily on producing text or imaging generative AI, but incorporating them as elements into a deeper, broader sort of creation that we’re gonna encourage students to focus on there. The thing is that most of the people working on generative AI in education, and historically, most educators don’t have that experience or opportunity to work on meaningful projects in the classroom.

Leo Burd:
So it’s hard to see for them to envision how they’re going to use these tools in that direction. And there’s a lot of fear. There’s A lot of limitations, et cetera. But we see generative AI, robotics and programming tools and other things. There’s a special kind of play doh, or material that you can use as part of our creations. And depending on how we balance things, you have to be careful on how we balance things because sometimes the technology is so attractive, they might divert the focus of the learning activity from its original goals to something more technical. And that happens not just with generative AI. I remember maybe 15, 20 years ago running a neighborhood project with children where they were going to interview local residents and use cameras to record different aspects of local life.

Leo Burd:
But they were so excited about the camera itself that the project, instead of being a project that focused on community change, end up becoming a visual production project. So you had to be very careful about how we bring technology of any kind into our mix. So as educators, you have to be very clear about the educational goals that you’re trying to achieve and see how the different tools and materials actually fit into that so that you don’t get lost along the way.

Matthew Worwood:
I think that’s a very clear call to action, though. What I’m hearing is you stay committed to your mission, your learning objectives, and don’t make it about the technology. Play with the technology, make new discoveries, but make sure that the discoveries, the purpose, remains on that learning objective. And you’re using the word tool. I think more and more people are seeing gen AI as a tool, as opposed to this idea of a collaborator or cobot. But when you see it as a tool and you think about how that tool is interacting with what you’re already doing, which is probably already great things in the classroom, it really is just another thing that you can utilize to enhance the experience. But I think that’s a very clear call to action. And you’re challenging even myself to say, don’t make it about the technology, at least not in your learning environment.

Matthew Worwood:
Perhaps if you want to make it about the technology outside, just for your own purpose, and play and explore its capabilities, but in the learning environment, don’t make it all about the technology.

Leo Burd:
Technology might be a goal.

Matthew Worwood:
Yeah.

Leo Burd:
And technology is very exciting. Shouldn’t be ignored. Ignorance is part of our lives, but it should be used. Be careful, like in ways that actually make sense, depending on the goals you have in mind for that particular time, you know, a particular group of students.

Matthew Worwood:
Do you want to bring more creative and critical thinking into your school? Look no further than our podcast sponsor, Curiosity to Create.

Cyndi Burnett:
Curiosity to Create is a nonprofit organization dedicated to engaging professional development for school districts and empowering educators through online courses and personal coaching.

Matthew Worwood:
And if you’re craving a community of creative educators who love new ideas, don’t miss out on their creative thinking network. Get access to monthly webinars, creative lesson plans, and a supportive community, all focused on fostering creativity in the classroom.

Cyndi Burnett:
To learn more, check out curiositytocreate.org or check out the links in the show notes for this episode. Well, Leo, it’s been a great conversation and it has gone very quick, but before you leave, we’d love to ask you a question. Can you describe the most creative educational experience you have had, either formal or informal, as a student, and what impact did that experience have on you?

Leo Burd:
It’s a great question. I have fond memories when I was, like, in second grade in a public school in Sao Paulo, Brazil, where the teacher invited us to create a little booklet with images of the different places that we loved about our city there and my parents. I presented product to my parents and they actually, over the weekend, they took me around the city, like to the airport, to a local park, an ice cream parlor and other things, and took a picture of me in front of each one of those places. And then I pasted them in a little booklet and I wrote a little something about them that was very memorable to me, you know, and up until these days, you know, like, I enjoy walking around the city learning, like doing explorations with my own children, you know, in urban environments and encouraging educators to go outside the classroom, you know, and do as much as possible to bring local life into the classroom and the school outside, to connect local stores, you know, and visit parks and the sort of thing that was very, it’s important up until even though that happened many, many years ago, it’s still very much an experience that stuck with me, you know, and so much so that as part of the Brazilian Creative Learning Network, whenever you organize workshops, we invite educators to reflect about meaningful, like, memorable learning experiences that they had growing up and think about what is it that made those experiences memorable to them? What is it that we can do to bring that sort of experience to their students themselves? And that’s a big deal. So whenever we think about how to promote creative learning and single, let’s start from our own experiences. Don’t have to do anything big and see how far they take us.

Matthew Worwood:
Well, Leo, thank you so much. I think you’ve provided us with things that we actually haven’t covered on the show before, particularly around the four P’s or the five P’s. And I think if you’re an educator listening to this show and you’re interested in technology. We know we’ve got a lot of listeners who are interested in technology, or perhaps you know a colleague who’s interested in technology, then this is probably a great episode for you to share with them, particularly when it comes to using technology to promote creative learning. And in addition, don’t forget, we’ve got our website where this show is now posted, and we want to make sure you visit that website. And don’t forget to subscribe to our newsletter, which goes out every week and includes some extra fuel for your day. My name is Dr. Matthew Worwood.

Cyndi Burnett:
And my name is Dr. Cindy Burnett. You’ve been listening to the Fueling Creativity and Education podcast, hosted by Matthew Worwood and Cindy Burnett. Our creative producer is Catherine Fu. Our editor is Sam Atkins. And this episode was made possible thanks to our sponsor, Curiosity. It.