Abstract:

"The old computing was about what computers could do; the new computing is about what people can do." To be in harmony with the shift from the old to the new computing designers of educational technologies are increasing their attention to human values. Careful attention to human relationships inside and outside the classroom will help designers envision software to support collaborative learning among students and guided by teachers.  Then the collect relate-create-donate model for human activities maps out the human needs for creativity and community. Leonardo da Vinci could help as an inspirational muse for the new computing. His example could push designers to improve educational software quality through scientific study and more elegant visual design.
See http://mitpress.mit.edu/leonardoslaptop for more.

 

Biographical Information:

BEN SHNEIDERMAN is a Professor in the Department of Computer Science Founding Director (1983-2000) of the Human-Computer Interaction Laboratory (http://www.cs.umd.edu/hcil/), and Member of the Institutes for Advanced Computer Studies & for Systems Research, all at the University of Maryland at College Park.  He was elected as a Fellow of the Association for Computing (ACM) in 1997 and a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) in 2001.  He received the ACM SIGCHI Lifetime Achievement Award in 2001.
 

Ben is the author of "Software Psychology: Human Factors in Computer and Information Systems" (1980) and "Designing the User Interface: Strategies for Effective Human-Computer Interaction" (4th edition, April 2004) http://www.awl.com/DTUI/ . He pioneered the highlighted textual link in 1983, and it became part of Hyperties, a precursor to the web.  His move into information visualization helped spawn the successful company Spotfire http://www.spotfire.com/ .  With S Card and J. Mackinlay, he co-authored "Readings in Information Visualization: Using Vision to Think" (1999). "Leonardo's Laptop" (MIT Press) appeared in October 2002, and his book with B. Bederson, "The Craft of Information Visualization" was published in April 2003.