P3 Interactive workshop: Anne Balsamo and tinkering in the digital age.

As most of you know, Duke University is hosting an interactive workshop on Peer-to-Peer Pedagogy (P3) on September 10. I am honored to be one of the ten HASTAC Scholars serving as peer-mentors during the event. I am especially honored to be introducing Anne Balsamo, who along with David Gibson and Nils Peterson, will inspire us through their areas of work - tinkering spaces, game mechanics and expeditionary learning - by framing them in the context of peer-to-peer pedagogy.

Stay tuned for a provocative introduction of Anne Balsamo and her work with 'tinkering spaces', which will be launched here and in 2 other online venues. No dispersion though... all contributions will convene in a common pool thanks to the wonders of web 2.0:)

For the time being, check out these video interviews with some of the participants in a meeting entitled "Tinkering as a Mode of Knowledge Production in a Digital Age", which Dr. Balsamo organized in 2008. This was part of a MacArthur Foundation grant proposal she designed to explore the development of the technological imagination as a 21st century literacy.

Some pointers as you watch the interviews...

• John Seely Brown on spaces that promote tinkering: the architectural studio and the importance of practicing (and accepting) critique.
• Jamie Cortez on the need for systems that reward tinkering and how quantifiable goals may jeopardize the 'ethos' of experimentation (trial and error).
• Allison Clark and Eric Siegel on cultural - and socio-economic - aspects of tinkering.

Stay tuned...