On Fri, Aug 8, 2008 at 5:39 PM, Bill Kerr <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Personally I see the need for some more theory-practice work around the > theme of constructionism, the need to clarify what it means exactly and its > relationship to other learning theories and practices - we have some notable > educational and mind theorists such as alan kay and marvin minsky who don't > use the C___ word in part because it has become so diffuse, fuzzy and > meaningless.
Good idea. Most of the people we are trying to communicate with won't know that we mean to make a distinction between Constructivism (Piaget) and Constructionism (Papert). Nor will they know that the multitude of Constructivist this and thats have nothing to do with Piaget. What we need is to do for teachers what we aim to do for students: Provide a way to get the experiences they need as a basis for discussion and for understanding. Just talk, especially using undefined terms, is not helpful. Reports from the field such as the anecdotal Astounded in Arahuay (http://radian.org/notebook/astounded-in-arahuay) and the formal report on OLPC in Ethiopia (linked at http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Academic_Papers) indicate that the XO creates surprising improvements in the classroom and in the community even before we get to the potential of rewriting curricula and textbooks to make use of powerful software tools. Children, teachers, and parents are getting the idea from seeing all of this in action. How do we make those experiences widely available? Trials help. GiveOneGetOne helps. I would like to see a program for getting rooms full of XOs into children's museums and libraries, where entire school classes can visit. We know that quite impressive activity can occur in only one or two sessions. We know that children get the idea immediately, and that teachers in target countries get some of the basic ideas within a day or two. For parents whose children were not getting an effective education, it becomes obvious within a week or two that this is the real deal. Of course, this also requires us to package plans for exploring powerful ideas for different age groups, such as Alan Kay's demo of how to teach third-graders to discover Galilean gravity. Preschoolers can make effective use of Record, Paint, and TamTamJam. Adults need to see children sharing Write, Paint, and TamTam sessions and games in collaboration. Much more can be done. > There is a new group of educational practitioners (some of them also > theorists) who have grown up around the web2.0 (aka as school2.0) practices > but in some respects this has the appearance of a ground zero movement that > is either not aware or does not mention the earlier ideas of the use of > computers in education eg. the use of logo in schools. This focuses on the > use of web2.0 apps such as blogs, wikis for enhancing learning. This latter > group often does not consider the use of programming languages which > separates them from the Papert approach. My take on this: Lack of experience with what works, too much experience with what doesn't work (such as Computer Literacy), and lack of imagination. > also the Siemens - Downes group has put forward a new educational theory of > networked learning Can you supply links? > under the banner of connectivism (sic, not connectionism) We really have to create a curriculum on how people adopt or reject new ideas. Meaningless terminology and slogans don't help. > One possibility or line of approach for sugar would be to integrate these > two approaches - could be crudely described as computer mediated > constructionism + collaboration (using slogans here while advocating caution > in their use) Way more than two, in fact. I would say that we need to organize an evidence-based education research and deployment program. > Some online educational communities do not focus on on line lesson plans and > books but more take the approach that immersion in media, eg. mediated > writing through shared blogs (and use of other web apps) will liberate > humanity from Schools and Teachers, which are sometimes seen as the problem Left front foot of the elephant. > School are also having to face the issue of what to do about the cheaper > more ubiquitous presence of computers - and they really don't know what to > do because in general the uptake from teachers has been slow I would say that teachers are not the main problem, although there are exceptions. I see problems with education bureaucracies and with a number of anti-intellectual social movements as some of the larger issues. The unholy anti-tax alliance between the apostles of greed and intolerance is an example, where they demand that we not teach genuine economics or science, including effective health measures. Also, teachers cannot "take up" computers without training and support. We cannot simply demand that teachers trained in the factory automation schools of education go get real degrees in their subjects and immediately start teaching deep ideas that they never encountered themselves. They cannot teach if they are given computers without software, and the children can't get time on the computers that are provided. They cannot use computers in teaching if nobody does anything about revising the curriculum and rewriting the textbooks to include computer capabilities. > I'm probably oversimplifying a lot but in general I think it's fair to say > that the use of computers in education is very much problematic and in a > state of flux - putting it mildly. > so new ideas built around the affordances of Sugar software > could achieve some traction fairly quickly, possibly :-) Indeed. > _______________________________________________ > IAEP -- It's An Education Project (not a laptop project!) > [email protected] > http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/iaep > -- Silent Thunder [默雷/शब्दगर्ज] is my name, And Children are my nation. The whole world is my dwelling place, And Truth my destination. _______________________________________________ IAEP -- It's An Education Project (not a laptop project!) [email protected] http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/iaep
