New Kinds of Smart

The way we find, make and use tools to expand our ability to get interesting things done is so amazing, and so ubiquitous, that it has often been proposed as one of the defining characteristics of the human species (though some other animals do use tools in a rudimentary way as well). Homo sapiens is unique in its propensity to create and adopt ‘mi

One disposition that will significantly moderate the power of distributed intelligence is what we might call resourcefulness; that is, an abiding tendency to be on the look-out for tools and resources with which to amplify one’s intelligence. You may be surrounded by all kinds of smart tools, but if you are not disposed to make use of them, they mi

Would using the idea of ‘dispositions’ help me when talking about these ideas with colleagues? Could I use the idea of helping students to become more ready and more willing, as well as more able, to use different aspects of their intelligence? What would that look like in my classroom?

3 How could I create more opportunities for the kind of engagement that Seymour Papert noticed? Do I have any leeway to create longer-term learning projects in which students can really get their teeth into some real challenges?

In order to get the most out of our tools, we have to practise with them, and as we do so we discover more of what they can do, and become more adept at exploiting their potential.

In just the same way as new technologies extend the possibilities of vaulting and singing, so they can influence thinking and imagining. The invention of writing and drawing enabled people to hold their thoughts steady, in an externalized draft, and reflect upon them, and that changed the way they thought – and we think. It also allowed a different

14 We acknowledge Carol Dweck at Stanford University for the creation of the helpful musculature metaphor. See Dweck, C. (2006) Mindset. New York: Ballantine Books.

Piaget, J. (2001) The Psychology of Intelligence. London: Routledge.

Piaget is reported to have defined intelligence as ‘knowing what to do when you don’t know what to do’.

Neuro-scientists often imagine the brain as a mountainous landscape comprising a vast range of bowls connected by a network of valleys. These patterns represent concepts and habits that have been eroded and established by experience, so that neural activation, as it flows around, tends to follow the worn-away channels. These channels and dips act a