Hey Edward, Papert built on the theories of Piaget and Vygotsky. Co-learning, experiential learning - these ideas were pioneered by Piaget and Vygotsky. David Cavallo and Edith Ackermann talked extensively of Piaget and Vygotsky at the OLPC Learning conference I attended in January.
I am particularly a big fan of Vygotsky as I agree with him that learning is fundamentally a social process and that culture plays a large role in our social interactions, hence learning. All of our materials are in Nepali. I hope to post them in a publicly accessible place later. Right now we are in a crunch because we start the pilot at Bashuki and Bishwamitra very shortly. "Constructionism" is a broad term that encompasses ideas from many different theorists and many different elements such as: social cognition co-learning scaffolding Experiential learning The single best resource I have found is this web site: http://www.funderstanding.com/engaging_kids.cfm and especially this page http://www.funderstanding.com/theories.cfm Bipul Gautam wrote a nice, short post about some of Piaget's theories on our blog: http://blog.olenepal.org/index.php/archives/200 On Tue, 2008-04-01 at 22:38 -0700, Edward Cherlin wrote: > 2008/3/31 Bryan Berry <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>: > > 24 teachers from Bishwamitra and Bashuki schools started 4-day long OLPC > > training organized by OLE Nepal. > > > > http://blog.olenepal.org/index.php/archives/193 > > > > At the start of the Nepali school year, OLE Nepal will distribute 150 > > laptops to children in grades two and six at Bashuki and Bishwamitra > > schools. Teachers from both schools are currently in four days of training > > how to use the laptops in the classroom. > > Can you tell us what the training materials are and where to access > them? Are they in Nepali? Can we get English translations? For > example, we have nothing in the Wiki about this: > > "On the morning of the second day Bipul focused on the theories of > Piaget and Vygotsky that underpin constructionism. The afternoon of > the second day returned to the activities in the XO and how they > reflect the ideas of Piaget and Vygotsky." > > In fact, it is the first I have heard of the connection between Piaget > and Vygotsky and the XO. Which of their publications are most > relevant? Who knows about any of this? The Constructionism page in the > Wiki is feeble. > > > OLE Nepal has developed a completely open-source set of learning activities > > for both grades. Mahabir Pun, OLE Nepal's Director of Networking has set up > > Internet access for both schools. > > Excellent. > > > We regularly update our blog with more details > > http://blog.olenepal.org/ > > > > Bryan Berry > > Systems Engineer, OLE Nepal > > > > _______________________________________________ > > Devel mailing list > > Devel@lists.laptop.org > > http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/devel > > > > > > > _______________________________________________ Devel mailing list Devel@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/devel