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Technology That Enhances Intrapersonal Intelligence
by Dee Dickinson
The development of intrapersonal intelligence can be facilitated through the use of technology to explore and expand the human mind. Technology offers the means to pursue a line of thought in great depth as well as to have random access to divergent ideas. The opportunity for students to make such choices is at the heart of giving them control over their own learning and intellectual development.
Although the most common use of technology in the classroom today is still for drill and practice, many teachers are finding successful applications of computer technology to develop higher-order thinking skills. Classrooms that use computer technology in this way become centers for inquiry~ Students learn not only to use databases, but to create their own. Technology can be used to explore and expand intelligence, as students build "mental models" with which they can visualize connections between ideas on any topic.
Bob Olson, senior Associate of the Institute for Alternative Futures in Alexandria, VA., notes that "hypermedia may thus expand the ability to think holistically-to be able to jump back and forth from detail to overview and to see the 'big picture."' Hypermedia presents multimedia material in a way that is similar to how the human brain works-making connections between ideas and images-just as hypertext does with words.
Computer programs such as Ceres' "Inspiration" are thought processors that make it possible to capture ideas and visualize the relationships between them by combining graphics with text. The programs facilitate individual brainstorming, and as ideas are generated, they can be clustered into mindmaps or into traditional outlines. Mainstay's "Think'n'Time" uses visual outlining to help structure and develop ideas at the same time as other applications are being used. Such programs allow students to manipulate ideas in whatever form best suits their thinking, and they encourage personal ownership of the educational enterprise as students become more active in developing their own learning and understanding.
Individual student learning or personal growth plans, developed collaboratively by student and teacher, encourage the development of intrapersonal intelligence. They can be well facilitated through computer programs that make possible on-going modifications or revisions, as well as the recording of accomplishments in the form of electronic or multimedia portfolios of student work. Research by Allen Tough at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education indicates that individual learning projects account for around 80 percent of all learning during a lifetime. Thus, learning-to-learn is an essential part of preparation for lifelong learning.
Intelligent tutoring systems are very different from earlier models of computer-assisted learning in that they offer students choices in how to learn any topic, keep track of the students' preferred ways of learning, and eventually offer information in forms that make it possible for students to learn through their strengths as well as to exercise and improve less well-developed skills.
John Sculley, Chief Executive Officer of Apple, suggests that "within a few decades people will look back and wonder how anyone in the past could keep up with knowledge without the assistance of such 'knowbots' or 'knowledge navigators."' These are powerful tools that can become an extension of the human brain and facilitate the exploration and expansion of intrapersonal intelligence when used in appropriate, interactive ways that are sensitive to the needs of the student.
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© 1998 New Horizons for Learning and America Tomorrow, Inc. Permission for excerpt granted to America Tomorrow, Inc.
Page created April 2, 1998