Andrea diSessa

Andrea A. diSessa (born June 3, 1947) is an education researcher and author of the book Turtle Geometry about Logo. He has also written highly cited research papers on the epistemology of physics, educational experimentation, and constructivist analysis of knowledge. He also created, with Hal Abelson, the Boxer Programming Environment at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Personal history DiSessa received an A.B. in physics from Princeton University in 1969 and a Ph.D. in physics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1975. He was an invited fellow in residence at the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences twice, once from 1997-1998 and again from 2007-2008. He is currently Evelyn Lois Corey Professor of Education at the University of California, Berkeley and has been a member of the National Academy for Education since 1995.

Some of his notable work in Education research focuses on the concept of material intelligence and computational literacy, and ontological innovations and the role of theory in design based research.

Material intelligence Material Intelligence can be thought of as a subset of distributed cognition, where it refers to the new knowledge that furthers human intelligence and skills by interaction with the computer, and existing computer literacy, in a social environment. It can also be the ability of tools in general, and computers in specific, to increase the intelligence and skills of human mind. It was coined by Andrea DiSessa in his book Changing Minds: Computers, Learning and Literacy. He uses the terms computational literacy, material literacy, and material intelligence interchangeably. Conceptually, material intelligence is influenced by constructionism and distributed cognition theory. This concept is similar to constructionism because user makes sense of the world around them using a tool, and the interaction with this tool is helpful in shaping the understanding of the world. It is similar to distributed cognition because it focuses on "social and material setting of cognitive activity, so that culture, context and history can be linked with the core concepts of cognition."

Material intelligence has to be dependent on the material (the tool, or the computer), but it also has to be social. He says that "Material intelligence does not reside in either the mind or the materials alone. Indeed, the coupling of external and internal activity is intricate and critical". They stated that learning is social and happens whenever humans interact with one another, even though the manner in which learning happens may differ based on 1) cultural forces, 2) local forces, and 3) personal forces, with cultural forces being the least motivating force, and personal forces being the most motivating force. whereas material intelligence is new knowledge that furthers human intelligence and skills by interaction with the computer, and existing computer literacies, in a social environment.